Healthy Living

A growing number of people are turning to alternative medicines and natural healing--simple, traditional low-tech methods of preventing illnesses and solving everyday health problems.

Do you have unanswered questions on....

• Why are people flocking to health food stores, with their lotions and potions, and what keeps them going back for more?
• What to do if you or someone in your family falls ill?
• Are these therapies old wives tales or can they really work?

Even mainstream doctors have begun to recommend natural herbs and drugless therapies' to treat both everyday complaints and serious illnesses. Dietary modifications, for instance, has become the weapons of choice against a number of diseases that would have been treated mainly with prescription drugs a generation ago. It is now known that many conditions are caused by poor diets and can be reversed by improving diet and nutrition habits. Food choices, dietary supplements, herbal supplements, etc are just some choices available. Heart disease, cancer, weight problems, arthritis, diabetes, high blood pressure--they can all be treated to some degree with foods.

History of Alternative Medicine

Natural therapies found in alternative medicine are actually much older than Western treatments, such as surgeries and antibiotics. Experts estimate that herbal remedies and Ayurveda, the traditional medicine of India, has been around for 5,000 years.

Modern Medicine vs Alternative Medicine

Many alternative medicine remedies began with scientific research or clinical impressions reported by physicians working with safe, natural substances. We live in a generation now that has been cut off from this age-old tradition of self-reliance. Healing and health care have become almost--the exclusive province of duly licensed physicians. While doctors and other professionals-are indeed great to have around, we now live in a society where healthcare is virtually impossible without them.

Shouldn't we be able to do something to save our health--maybe even our lives--without a doctor? What happens when medical help is not so readily available? What happens when doctoring simply does not work? Some of us go to doctor after doctor, and still no help. Is that the end of the line?

While antibiotics have saved millions of lives, they have not solved the resurgence of germs that turn up in new forms that do not respond to conventional therapies.

There has been a real shift in the way people think about their health. Rising health care cost is a factor in the recent surge of interest in alternative medicine. Many people are attracted to the alternative physicians emphasis on treating the whole person--body, mind and spirit. Most importantly some physicians use intensive counseling to help patients find out whether aspects of their daily lives, such as job stress, marital problems, diet or sleeping habits might be behind their symptoms.

In this age of managed care and impersonal group practices patients find this individualized approach of alternative medicine particularly appealing.

One of the principal goals of natural healing is to break the cycle of dependency and allow people to be more in control of their own lives.