The medicine of the future may be from the past

My students and graduates know that there is a relatively low emphasis on supplements in my naturopathic teaching. Having worked in the health world for several decades, I have seen an overall trend towards pill-taking and product commercialization that worries me. European naturopathy still has much of its roots in the traditional naturopathy of practitioners like Priessnitz and Lindlahr, but many therapists are looking across the Atlantic at shiny new pill products, and I worry that they are being blinded by glitter rather than gold.

The glitter is the suggestion of superiority through science. Compared with the fasts, juices and whole-food diets of the early naturopaths, followers of the new trend calling itself Clinical Nutrition, Functional Medicine or Functional Nutrition are drawn into the deepest reaches of biochemistry to be persuaded that, for instance, cheaper magnesium supplements are no longer any good, we have to have magnesium threonate or magnesium taurate; that this represents modern research progress compared with the mere magnesium citrate of the 1990s. If you don't keep up with these trends, you may be frowned upon as out of date. Expensive blood-work may also form part of this approach.

I worry that while this approach appears to have moved forwards in terms of knowledge, is that just an illusion, an assumption, fostered by the commercial interests which benefit from it? Are we even being nudged by commercial interests to move backwards in terms of what we can really do for people cheaply and effectively? Nudged to forget about teaching our students and clients what to eat? Just like the conventional doctors who never ask their patients what they are eating, are today's naturopaths becoming blasé about just how much white starch, sugar and meat is ok, in their rush to impress clients with the intricacies of S-adenosyl methionine, carnosine and magnesium acetyl taurate?

If we allow clients to believe that advanced biochemistry is more important than returning them to harmony with nature, they may feel better for a while but never really fix their health issues. The same applies to the quick fix of discovering and removing food intolerances. You will have many grateful clients, but whatever was causing that food intolerance will continue to undermine their health, unabated.

The matrix

One of the most important concepts in naturopathy is the role of the extracellular matrix, sometimes known as the interstitial space or intercellular space. It is rarely even thought about by today's practitioners, yet it is absolutely crucial to helping people with chronic diseases. If this matrix becomes clogged with metabolic sediment, or chronically diluted with excess water, its important functions of nourishing cells with nutrients and oxygen, removing wastes, and maintaining the correct electrolytic balance, will in time result in disease.

To really understand the importance of the extracellular matrix, we have to look at the work of Antoine Béchamp, a contemporary of Louis Pasteur. While Pasteur maintained that disease came from germs that invaded the body from outside, Béchamp maintained that the terrain or matrix within the body, was where disease started.

German naturopaths understand this very well, and I recently discovered this little video from LyraNara which I hope you will watch and learn from.

Do I believe that we should do without supplements entirely? No, of course not. As my students know, I am constantly advocating the use of vitamin A and D supplements, since these nutrients are in very short supply even in the healthiest diets. Vegetarians and vegans may also need to supplement small amounts of iron and zinc. Some countries have extremely low soil selenium levels. As for vitamin C, nothing will ever take the place of very large doses to fight colds, flu, other so-called viral diseases, and cancers. N-acetyl cysteine, bromelain and curcumin also have important uses.

I invite you to try a little experiment with a friend who is not particularly interested in healthy food. Ask them to write down everything they have eaten and drunk over the last 24 hours. Then remove everything from the list, that consists mostly of white starch, sugar or fat. That means removing any white bread, pasta, noodles, white rice, pastry, pancakes, cookies, batter, breadcrumb coatings, ice cream, chocolate, cake, desserts. What is left? An egg or two, some meat or fish, cheese, a piece of lettuce and a tomato?

Could you survive on that? Not just in terms of calories, but vitamins, minerals, essential fatty acids, phytonutrients and antioxidants? The truth is that this person’s body is having to survive on that, because everything else on that list is simply filling the stomach while draining the body's resources. That's why diseases begin once you are no longer young and resilient.

I believe that the early naturopaths and the electromagnetic work of Nikola Tesla and Royal Rife held the keys to the medicine of the future. If you are interested in the early naturopaths, here is a link to my article Naturopathy: What does it really mean? recently published in Focus on Health.

My short video course on Udemy titled Foundations of Modern Naturopathy is deceptively simple but holds the keys to understanding most ill-health.

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