Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) often consists of whole systems of care (such as naturopathic medicine or traditional Chinese medicine (TCM)) that combine a wide range of modalities to provide individualised treatment. The complexity of these interventions and their potential synergistic effect requires innovative evaluative approaches. Model validity, which encompasses the need fo...

1 Institute for Integrative Medicine, University of Witten/Herdecke, 58313 Herdecke, Germany 2Department of True Naturopathy, Blankenstein Hospital, Im Vogelsang 5-11, 45527 Hattingen, Germany 3 Institute of Organic Chemistry, Centre of Phytochemistry, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Academy G. Bonchev Street, Block 9, 1113 Sofia, Bulgaria 4Department of Internal and Complementary Medicine, Imma...

Purpose Because naturopathic physicians may represent an underutilized public health resource, there is need to comprehensively characterize the care they provide to understand NDs’ role in healthcare systems. Characterization also provides preliminary data for clinical research and quality improvement initiatives. Descriptive data are efficiently sourced from clinical administrative records in...

DETOXIFICATION: A GENERAL OVERVIEW James L. Wilson D.C., N.D., Ph.D. From the late 1800s until recently, the value and use of detoxification have been championed mainly by the naturopathic profession and those interested in natural health. However, with the emergence of increasingly sophisticated laboratory tests and the growing influence of natural medicine, detoxification is gaining recogniti...

The Kallawaya are a Bolivian ethnic group well known for ritualism and naturopathy. This paper explores the ‘making’ of as polity emerging, modifying, adapting over time according to its political economic needs, at intersection local conditions global developments. case shows how processes ethnicization unfold through interplay primordialist instrumentalist logics. An important vehicle is resi...

Earth is one among five elements having an immense impact on human body. It has been adopted as a treatment modality, i.e. mud therapy in naturopathy. It is a simple, cost effective and efficacious treatment used in the treatment of various disorders. Mud is used as a medicine since long as various references are found available in ancient texts indicating its therapeutic uses. Mud has various ...

ternative practitioners hold that the individual has the capacity to maintain health and that people get sick when they are out of balance with their environment or society. Alternative medical practices typically address a spiritual component of health and illness largely ignored in conventional medicine. Because of the increasing acceptance of alternative medical practices, managed care organ...