Modern medicine vs. natural medicine is a false dichotomy

As patients, we can seek conventional, “modern” medical care or choose “holistic” treatments from the realm of natural medicine. But this seems too dichotomous a description. Today, more and more people incorporate elements of both. Modern medicine also borrows from the natural world. Conversely, most naturopaths do not rely exclusively on natural medicine. Modern medicine is essential at key junctures in a person’s life. And, together with the alleviation of global poverty and the implementation of public health measures, modern medicine has contributed to more than doubling global life expectancy over the past 120 years.

Natural remedies

Various forms of medicine, sometimes called “naturopathy,” “alternative therapies,” “functional therapies,” or “traditional therapies,” and “holistic care” are not new concepts. For example, naturopathic medicine was brought to the United States from Germany in the 1800s.

Alternative medicine became popular in the late 1960s and 1970s, and in a 1980 article, the authors wrote that “holistic health care” was “a rebellion against the philosophical and clinical orientation of scientific medicine that arose in the United States in the 1970s.” This countercultural movement included self-care practices such as incorporating “natural health foods” into the diet. A diverse group of practitioners began offering a wide range of treatments “outside the mainstream of modern medicine.”

Consulting mainstream WebMD Today, holistic practices such as naturopathic medicine emphasize disease prevention and the body’s “natural healing powers.” The “mind, body and soul” are involved in the healing process.

according to STAT NewsAffiliated with leading medical centers such as Yale, Duke and Johns Hopkins, the hospital has established programs that incorporate aspects of complementary and alternative medicine, including acupuncture, chiropractic and massage therapy.

Holistic health care can include a variety of approaches, such as steam baths, natural diets and supplements, herbal remedies, yoga, meditation, and other elements of spirituality and mindfulness.

according to ParentsTwenty-three states and three U.S. territories have licensing systems that allow people to use the title “naturopathic doctor.” There are more than 6,000 registered practitioners. In addition to providing dietary advice and supplements, they are allowed to perform some diagnostic tests and prescribe certain medications.

Naturopathic practitioners claim that the whole person is the subject of treatment, rather than the localized symptoms associated with a particular illness or condition, which explains the meaning of the commonly used adjective “holistic.”

The Association of Accredited Naturopathic Medical Colleges states that its goal is to provide “the most natural, least invasive and least toxic therapies to treat illnesses.”

There are various estimates about the percentage of Americans who choose natural medicine. According to the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians, 38% of U.S. adults use some form of alternative medicine to complement mainstream treatments. Statista About 24% of U.S. adults report using herbal medicines, supplements, or teas to treat a health problem in 2021. Additionally, about 10% of survey respondents reported taking non-prescription drugs such as marijuana or “magic mushrooms” (psilocybin) as an “alternative” to synthetic medicines.

Thousands of years of ancient medical knowledge have led to the development of many medicines used today. A wide variety of plants and herbs have medicinal properties. For example, scientists isolated morphine from opium in the 1800s, which was the first natural drug to be commercially available. Other examples include aspirin from willow bark, digoxin from digitalis flowers, penicillin from the Penicillium fungus that naturally produces the antibiotic penicillin, and artemisinin from sweet wormwood is used to treat chloroquine-resistant malaria.

Like synthetic drugs, natural remedies have their benefits and harms. Some carry obvious risks. For example, cannabis, despite being natural, carries certain risks. Psilocybin can also be abused. Also, some naturopaths prescribe hormones that are produced naturally in the body and can be chemically processed to obtain the same formula. Hormone therapy, although beneficial, can pose risks for both women and men.

Modern medicine

In wealthy countries with robust health-care systems, there may be some tendency to romanticize “nature,” writes columnist Kenan Malik. ParentsPoverty and weak health systems force many people in developing countries to rely solely on traditional medicines, but Malik reminds us that it is our wealth and the robustness of our health systems that protect us from the “destruction of nature.”

Preventable and (now) treatable diseases were and remain the leading causes of premature death: in the not-too-distant past, for example, bacterial infections such as tuberculosis were the main causes, but also smallpox and many childhood diseases.

Broadly speaking, modern medicine or allopathic medicine is a system in which doctors and other medical professionals use medicines, surgery, and radiation to treat symptoms and illnesses.

Modern medical advances have been a key driver of our increased life expectancy and quality of life thanks to improved surgical techniques, improved diagnostics and major advances in science and technology. For example, medicines, from antibiotics to vaccines, cardiovascular drugs, HIV drugs, cancer drugs and treatments for many other disease areas, have saved hundreds of millions of lives.

The advent of molecular biology and combinatorial chemistry has facilitated the rational design of compounds that target specific diseased tissues, inhibit or delay the action of specific substances, and replenish missing hormones and other chemicals essential to human function.

Article New Republic The paper, published in 2023, summarizes the steady progress that has been made over the centuries in a field that is now called “evidence-based medicine.” “It took hundreds of years to establish an effective system of practical, evidence-based medical procedures, and it was only around 1910 that evidence-based medicine surpassed homeopathy and other unproven treatments. [then] Harvard professor Lawrence Henderson said, “For the first time in human history, a patient with a random illness seeing a randomly selected doctor had a better than 50-50 chance of benefiting from that consultation…. In the 113 years since, evidence-based medicine has racked up an astonishing number of victories.”

In 1915, most Americans died before their 55th birthday and 18% of children died before their 5th birthday. The leading cause of death at the time was tuberculosis.

Life expectancy has risen steadily since 1915, but has stagnated in the US over the past decade due to the opioid crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Globally, modern medicine has more than doubled life expectancy since the early 1900s.

Increases in life expectancy are not just down to modern medicine: improved sanitation, clean water, improved nutrition, reduced (extreme) poverty, oral rehydration solutions for children with diarrhea, and the introduction of refrigeration are just some of the public health measures that have contributed to increased life expectancy since the late 1800s.

Today, naturopathy has a place in improving health, especially in terms of disease prevention, but we cannot ignore or discount the important role of modern medicine, which has been essential in increasing life expectancy and quality of life worldwide.