What is alternative medicine?
The answer depends largely on who you ask, and sometimes on their interests-a conventional doctor might tell you that alternative medicine is a useless, possibly dangerous waste of money, while an alternative medicine practitioner may say it s the best and only cure for anything that ails you. The truth is somewhere in between, with the simplest answer being that alternative medicine is any healing method not taught in medical school. This encompasses a very broad range of diagnostic methods, dietary and exercise programs, massage techniques and even complete medical systems such as traditional Chinese medicine and Ayurveda, some of which are widely recognized among the conventional medical community as valuable, while others are largely dismissed as anything from wishful thinking to fraud.
These days alternative medicine seems to be any approaches or techniques used to improve health which are not currently taught in most medical schools. At The Center, we are specialists in certain alternative approaches. These include, but are not limited to, nutritional medicine, ear and body acupuncture, detecting and removing excessive amounts of heavy metals from the body, detecting adverse food reactions and hidden parasites, therapeutic massage, and techniques of mental medicine which positively impact psychoneuroimmunology. Alternative approaches are gaining more favor in the treatment of sustained illness because they work. The interest in alternative approaches to improving health continues to grow. Now more than 40 percent of the adult U.S. population uses alternative therapies.
Alternative medicine is defined as any health practice that takes the place of, or is incompatible with, conventional Western medicine. Distinction must be made between alternative medicine and complementary medicine. Complementary medicine may involve nontraditional medical practices, but is undertaken along with traditional healing approaches. Alternative medicine implies using only nontraditional methods. Alternative medicine includes a broad range of practices. Some healing therapies are based on Ancient Chinese beliefs, like acupuncture and the use of certain herbal compounds. Others focus on Hindu, or Ayurvedic, therapies including diet changes, the practice of yoga, and emphasizing the connection of mind, body, and spirit. Mind, body, and spirit healing is also championed as holistic health, and can be alternative or complementary. Dr. Deepak Chopra, for example, practices medicine in this way, leaning more toward alternative than conventional thinking, although he holds a Weste
