The Use of Naturopathy as Adjuvant to Traditional Medicine

Alternative medicines have long offered opportunities for patients and doctors to treat illness. While many doctors and patients are uncomfortable with alternative medicines the use of non-traditional therapies has never been more popular. Being uncomfortable with alternative medicines can result from traditional doctors receiving little training in those fields and that patients have a difficult time finding quantifiable data on treatments resulting from the lack of funding for research into these fields1. Naturopathic medicine is one of the many forms of alternative medicine. It is a distinct primary care profession that focusses on several principles in order to care for patients. Naturopathic medicine should be promoted as an adjuvant therapy but not as a true replacement to modern medicine.