Evidence in Naturopathy

 

Practitioners of Naturopathy often consider EBM as a concerted attack on their beliefs and methods. To them, the evidence-based medicine negates the concept of a comprehensive solution to the ailments of the body. Advocates of EBM, on the other hand, view Naturopathy as unscientific method of treating patients. According to them, naturopaths have no real knowledge of medical science and often indulge in quackery. 

 

Doctors feel in every alternate form of medicine, the risk of wrong diagnosis is very high. A large section of medical fraternity all over the world doubts the ability of Naturopathy to completely eliminate an ailment. It is contended that modern medicines target the specific area of breakdown in the body and set out to rectify it unlike the naturopathic principle of treating the whole body.

 

Some medical experts accuse Naturopathy of having its roots in magical or religious conventions. Doctors are also against naturopathy due to the absence of any vaccination program in its treatment methodology. Since vaccinations are fully equipped to tackle various kinds of ‘preventable illnesses’, their absence does cast a shadow on the ability of the Naturopathy to keep these ailments at bay. 

 

Dr Barry L. Beyerstein along with Susan Downie, in ‘Naturopathy: A Critical Analysis’, accuse naturopathy of changing its “methods of in response to popular fads and beliefs”. An article in the British Medical Journal says only about 13% of treatments of Naturopathy have evidence in favour of them. Dr Arnold S. Relman, professor emeritus of medicine and social medicine at the Harvard Medical School, Boston has described the ‘Textbook of Natural Medicine’ as an “inadequate teaching tool, as it omits to mention or treat in detail many common ailments…The risks to many sick patients seeking care from the average naturopathic practitioner would far outweigh any possible benefits.”

 

But as the inclination of people towards the methods of Naturopathy increases, a section of the world medical community is urging medical practitioners to put more faith in the principles of this form of medicine. They believe that modern medicine combined with effective therapies from the science of Naturopathy can result in a comprehensive healthcare system. Naturopathic doctors, over the recent years, have increasingly adopted some of the practices of modern medicine in order to make their diagnosis and the resultant treatment more accurate. Many have also started to contribute in medical research. 

 

While therapies such as reflexology have made it into the world of modern medicine today, Naturopathy is still largely viewed as a supplement of allopathic medicine, and not a primary one.