As herbal and natural alternative remedies catch on in popularity and in wide use, more and more medical schools are catching the wave of integrated medicine and are teaching their students not only traditional western medicine, but also may be sprinkling in some natural remedies from various cultures like Ayurveda (Inidan derived), and Chinese medicine, among others. 

More and more people, even people who are not typicallly followers of alternative methods of treatment, are starting to see the benefits of integrating this with modern medicine, and how herbs and other natural, lower dose remedies are often times just as if not more effective for certain conditions, in certain people.

Of course, it has it’s critics as those that are hardcore medical treatment practitioners tends to criticize what they see as quackery or completely unproven therapies and remedies.  They are concerned that too many people, including doctors to be, are putting faith in something that is largely unproven. What I find particularly interesting though is that therapies like chemotherapy have a very low success rate, and you don’t see these same practitioners sanctioning criticism against that, because it is the medically accepted treatment for this widespread disease. 

I’m an advocate of having an open mind, not really an advocate one way or another for or against medical or herbal and alternative treatments, but I think it’s important to not subscribe strictly to either, and to maintain and open to mind to integrating alternative (and often much cheaper) ways of helping to treat certain conditions. 

Some of the most popularly studied alternative medicines that are put in with medical treatments now are acupuncture, which really tends to garner a lot of criticism after some studies showed that it is no more effective than a placebo.  Another common mode of therapy that is combined with traditional western medicine traininig might be things like herbal medicine, or energy healing, largely which are not tested and proven, and there is really no way to test any “science” behind it.

However, there are not enough studies on the mind/body connection, which is a hugely powerful thing, and this could be the reason why more and more people find therapies helpful that use essentially the power of the mind and suggestion. I believe it is a hugely powerful connection that many of us largely ignore or underestimate.  Just look at the power of things like the power of suggestion and hypnotherapy.   A lot of people have benefitted from these types of mind/body connection modes of therapy, and it’s nothing to write off without being open to it.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 13th, 2009 at 3:42 pm and is filed under Alternative & Herbal Health News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.