John, age 70, came to my office wanting to age in a healthy way and prevent a stroke. He has been very active his entire life so being incapacitated by a stroke would be very hard for him to cope with.

As with every new patient who comes in to see me I explain my philosophy of medical practice. Did he know that the word doctor comes from the word “docere” which means “to teach”? That is why I spend so much time with my patients because it is time consuming to teach!

I then go on to explain that we are a very small profession with 250 members in B.C. and only 1000 across all of Canada . This compared to 10,000 GP’s in BC alone is a bit daunting, however it is still a big jump from the 40 or so of us who were practicing back in 1985! For this reason our association does not have the funding to provide feedback that is rampant in the news these days regarding natural health products (NHP). Every week it seems there is new research questioning the benefit of natural remedies such as anti-oxidants to prevent the diseases of aging, or B complex to prevent heart disease. The patients coming into my practice are confused so I tell them that the research crossing my desk is “nutritional” whereas the majority of research crossing the desk of a medical doctor is “pharmaceutical” based so the information patients get from me is very different and frequently contrary to what their MD, dietician, pharmacist or nurse will tell them.

I reassure John that the only thing that matters is what he wants to do. It is all about the patient in my practice. We are trained to realize the limitations of naturopathic practice, and will refer patients back to their MD’s for further evaluation on health conditions beyond our scope. MD’s are especially skilled at emergency medicine and naturopathic physicians are especially skilled at dealing with the vertically ill. These are folks who are walking around not feeling very well in-spite of their test results being within “normal” limits.

I explain that MD’s are looking for pathology in their testing methods and what ND’s do is look for “optimal functioning” before pathology develops. John does not want to hear “that is normal for your age”! He wants to find out if there are any ways to minimize the aches and pains he has now rather than learning to live with them.

I perform what I call an “executive health assessment” that incudes a comprehensive history, physical and blood work that takes place over three visits. Most MD’s have time for one complaint per visit, so ND’s are best positioned to evaluate the entire health history because of the time they are able to spend with the patient. The blood work I recommended for John included a T4, ferritin, 5 different liver enzymes, kidney function, C-reactive protein and homocysteine. These are often not performed on a typical check up from the MD because of the costs to MSP and if the ordering physician does not see a pathology that would warrant doing the test they don’t do it. They are not looking to prevent an illness from developing whereas an ND is.

Most MD’s are debunking the efficacy of the homocysteine test and will not order it. This is due to some questionable research that came out early in 2006. The research stated that lowering the homocysteine did not reduce the risk of cardiovascular events. The study consisted of those patients who had just suffered a heart attack so giving these folks a B complex to treat a condition that takes 20- 50 years to develop is not a fair trial. B complex did lower the homocysteine but some would say that it was not lowered enough. Healthy levels of homocysteine are 5-6umole/liter not the so called “normal” that the medical profession accepts at 9 or more.

John’s executive physical evaluation included a comprehensive biochemical evaluation called the Triad test by the US lab Metametrix. I was able to explain to John in great detail the nutrients that he was deficient in to prevent cancer, cardiovascular events and to optimize his energy and detoxification pathways. This took 3 visits or about 2.5 hours, cost him about $1100.00 and this did not include any treatment strategies. This is a far cry from what MSP services are prepared to offer patients in the province of B.C.

Whether I am treating someone like John who is healthy and wants to stay healthy or treating someone with a degenerative disease, like Parkinson’s, my utmost goal is the health of the patient. How can I educate that person to help them along? Naturopathic medicine, although often misunderstood, is based on doing no harm, relying on the healing power of the body and addressing the underlying cause of disease.

Folks like John understand that if he wants his 70-year old “Mercedes” body to last a few more healthy years, he is going to have to take charge of his own health and spend some time and energy to keep it running smoothly.