About Natural Medicine
Alternative medicine, or "natural medicine", consists of a large array of modalities, ranging from Acupuncture to Zen meditation. However, the vast majority of people still believe natural medicine is just taking vitamins, herbs and minerals. This is really an extension of the traditional medical paradigm, which has a drug for almost every condition.
Alternative medicine is showing incredible growth in countries such as the US, Britain and Australia. This is not surprising, since last year doctors were documented to be the third leading cause of death in the US (according to the Journal of the American Medical Association). While alternative therapies have become more popular in the US over the past couple of decades, new survey findings indicate that 9 out 10 Americans believe that Alternative medicine may help a wide variety of health conditions.
Substantial portions of the traditional medical system have begun to seek reconciliation with Alternative medicine. Managed care, insurance carriers, hospital providers, major academic medical centres and individual physicians are increasingly receptive to developing new integrative models of health care that would have been unthinkable only a short time ago. To illustrate this, the August 2001 journal of the conservative American College of Physicians-American Society of Internal Medicine, started an unprecedented series on Complementary and Alternative medicine.
Orthodox medicine has abandoned the crusade against Alternative medicine and is trying to accommodate widespread patient belief and acceptance of these practices. With the US leading the way, there is more funding for Alternative and Complementary medicine. American researchers vie for grants from the prestigious National Institutes of Health's Office of Alternative medicine. And insurance providers in the US are beginning to realize that alternative practices can be just as effective and a lot cheaper than expensive high-tech interventions. Many practitioners of Alternative medicine today use several of these modalities, for example Reflexology together with Acupuncture and Reiki. It is my opinion that all of these schools of thought must work together to achieve maximum healing for patients. This includes the traditional medical field.