Doctorate of NATUROPATHY

The term Naturopathy refers to a distinct system of  care that utilizes natural methods and substances to support and stimulate the body’s inherent self-healing process.

As Hippocrates once stated:
“The natural healing force within each one of us is the greatest force in getting well.”

Naturopathic doctors name this inherent “healing force”, vis medatrix. Naturopathy honours this unseen force working in alliance with the human capacity to be well.

1. First, do no harm. Naturopathic doctors follow three precepts to ensure their patients’ safety:

• Use healing compounds, such as dietary supplements, herbal extracts and homeopathy with few or no side effects.
• When possible, do not suppress symptoms. They are the body’s efforts to self-correct and suppressing these efforts drives the illness deeper into the physiology. For example, the body naturally responds to a bacterial infection by creating a fever. A Fever  creates an inhospitable environment for the harmful bacteria, thereby destroying the pathogenic organisms. A Naturopathic doctor would not allow the fever to become dangerous, but rather supports an appropriate healthful fever and the body’s ability to eliminate the harmful bacteria.
• We treat the individual, not the disease. For example, all patients with heart disease are not given the same treatment. We all heal in different ways and have a distinct set of circumstance that lead to the disease, which means it is the role of the naturopathic doctor to respects these individual differences and create a treatment that matches their patient, not their disease title.

2. Let nature heal. Our bodies have a powerful, innate instinct for self-healing. By finding and removing the barriers to this self-healing, such as toxicity, structural imbalances, trauma, dysbiosis, poor diet or unhealthy habits, naturopathic doctor can support the body’s ability to heal.

3. Identify and treat causes. Naturopathic doctors understand that symptoms will return when the root of an illness is not addressed. Naturopathic doctor seek to find and treat the cause of symptoms and illness occurring in the body.

4. Treat the whole person. Each person has an unique physical, mental, emotional, genetic, environmental, social, sexual and spiritual makeup. The naturopathic doctor knows that all these factors affect our health and are also the potential opportunities to wellness. As such they create treatments to best suit an individual and harness their uniqueness. 

5. Educate patients. Naturopathic doctor encourage self-sustainability by teaching their patients best health practices, such as, how to eat healthy, exercise, relax and nurture themselves physically, emotionally and spiritually. 

6. Prevent illness.  Proactive attention to wellness, saves money, pain, misery and lives. Naturopathic doctor evaluate risk heredity and vulnerability to disease and offer a commitment to healthy living that encourages longevity and good health for future years.

Naturopathic Doctors practicing in Ontario have completed a minimum of seven years of post-secondary education, including three years of undergraduate coursework, and a four-year, accredited, naturopathic education. Prior to registration as a Naturopathic Doctor in Ontario, they must successfully demonstrate competence in 14 entry-to-practice board exams. To maintain their registration to practice they are required to maintain their competency throughout their career by completing at least 70 hours of accredited continuing education courses every three years. Naturopathic education involves learning basic and diagnostic sciences, including anatomy, clinical physiology, biochemistry, pathology, embryology, immunology, pharmacology, physical and clinical diagnosis, and imaging and laboratory diagnosis. In addition to conventional and naturopathic approaches to improving and maintaining patients’ health including nutrition, botanical, homeopathy, hydrotherapy, Asian  approach  to  health  including acupuncture, lifestyle counselling, physical  therapy and manipulations.

Naturopathic Schooling Overview

Total Hours in the Degree: 4748

• Classroom Hours: 3348
• Clinical Hours: 1400
• Basic Clinical Sciences: 1639 hours
• Allopathic Therapies: 1925 hours
• Naturopathic Therapies: 633 hours
• Therapeutic Nutrition: 132 hours
• Counselling: 143 hours

Food and diet to return health and vitality to the body. 

Over the last century, a lot has changed about our food; science now has the ability to insert new genes into seeds, industrial farming practices and pesticide use, the uprise of ‘fast foods’, and children's understanding of where food comes from, ie.“the grocery store”. 

Nutritional counselling and assessment offers a return to the innate wisdom which has been lost amongst these changes. Ultimately, food has the power to nourish, heal and energize our bodies.

The Four Simple Food Rules

Naturopathy follows Four Food Rules as an over arching principle and further refines food choices and ways of eating to meet an individuals needs and philosophies.

Four simple food rules:

1. If you can grow it, pick it, hunt it; if it will rot; if it was once alive (plants included) – eat it. If it is packaged and processed, don’t eat it.
2. Food should always be enjoyed – “healthy” does not have to mean “tasteless”.
3. Create an awareness and appreciation of how you eat and where the food you eat comes from.
4. Choose quality over quantity.  

Throughout the entirety of human history, herbology has been used by all cultures worldwide to treat illness and to assist bodily functions. Plants and their extracts can be eaten, taken internally or applied topically to skin to return wellness to the being. The evolution of pharmaceutical largely originated from extracting naturally occurring compounds in plants to be replicated synthetically in laboratories and prescribed by physicians.  

Food and More

Using herbs and spices that have disease-preventive effect in foods is one of the best ways to take advantage of their healing power. For example, studies are finding daily use of the spice turmeric in curry dishes is correlating to the elderly people in India having one of the lowest rates of Alzheimer’s disease in the world.

Plant Intelligence

Plants contain a wide array of chemical compounds, which gives them versatile therapeutic powers. For example, for Andean Indians, whole coca leaf is the number one healthful plant. They use it to affect gastrointestinal disturbances for both diarrhea and constipation. Its ability to affect two opposite issues springs from the fact that coca contains 14 bioactive alkaloids, some of which stimulate the gut, while others inhibit gut activity. When the whole mixture enters the body, receptors in the gut’s tissues bind to the alkaloids that are needed for the body to return it to equilibrium.

Plants are more than chemical compounds, they are friends that have a consciousness to share. Each plant is an example of  successfully surviving and thriving in an ever changing environment. They help us to evolve and dispel imbalances through their personal experience. Experience found in the form of the ‘chemical compounds’ they create and their ‘consciousness' of how to be well and enjoy the lessons and growth life has to offer

Chinese medicine  is a complete system of healing that has been practiced for over 5000 years. It is based on the belief that the laws of nature can be used to understand the inner workings of the body. Your wellness, like the universe at large, is subject to excesses and deficiencies. In the Chinese Five Rhythm representation of nature, an imbalance between any of these forces, (Fire, Earth, Metal, Water and Wood) can cause a blockage in the flow of your Qi (or vital energy) traveling through your body along pathways known as meridians.

Twelve major meridians run through the body, and it is over this network that Qi travels, sending messages to the entire body and its organs. Keeping the Meridian system clear is imperative for the body’s self-regulating action to occur. The use of herbs, diet and lifestyle from a Chinese medicine   perspective and the use of Qi gong/Tai Chi practices and Acupuncture help unblock Qi and bring the body back into harmony and wellness.

Homeopathy was first developed by the German physician, Samuel Hahnemann, over 200 years ago. Today it has established itself worldwide as a safe,  and  gentle  complementary approach that seeks to stimulate the body’s own healing ability. Similar to a software update for our electronic devices, homeopathy provides our cells and physiologic systems with the information needed to overcome an illness or blockage in the body (physical, mental, or emotional). The body takes this information and begins to function differently, changing the inner environment for improved or complete re-instatement of health.

The Pro’s of Homeopathy

Homeopathy is the second most widely used wellness system in the world. Its growth in popularity in the North America has been around 25 to 50 percent a year throughout the last decade. This success is due to several factors:

1. Homeopathy is wonderful. When the correct remedy is taken, results can be rapid, complete and permanent.
2. Homeopathy is completely safe. Even babies and pregnant women can use homeopathy without the danger of side effects.
3. Homeopathic remedies can also be taken alongside other medication without producing unwanted side effects.
4. Homeopathy is natural.
5. Homeopathy works in harmony with your immune system, For example, some cough syrups suppress the cough reflex,  a  Homeopathic would work  not  by  supressing  the  cough  symptom.
6. Homeopathic remedies are not addictive – once relief is felt, one must stop taking them. If no relief is felt, a patientis probably taking the wrong homeopathic remedy.
7. Homeopathy is holistic and addresses the cause, not the symptoms.

1. Like corrects  like - For example, if the symptoms of your cold are similar to poisoning by  mercury, then mercury would be your homeopathic remedy.
2. Minimal Dose - The remedy is taken in an extremely dilute form; normally one part of the remedy to around 1,000,000,000,000 parts of water.
3. The Single Remedy - No matter how many symptoms are experienced, only one remedy is taken, and that remedy will be aimed at all those symptoms

Hydrotherapy,  uses water for treatment of symptoms, pain relief and well being. Hydrotherpay has evolved to encompasses a broad range of approaches and therapeutic methods that take advantage of the physical properties of water, such as temperature and pressure to stimulate blood circulation and treat the symptoms of certain diseases. 

Various therapies used in the present-day hydrotherapy include water jets, underwater massage, saunas, mineral baths, castor oil packs, constitutional treatments with sine wave technology, warming socks, flushing body cavities and organs such as colon hydrotherapy and much more. The use of these methods quickly re-vitalizes the immune system, lymphatics and the overall energy and spirit of a person.