Talk:Naturopathy

Header tags

I just removed some of the header tags - {{Unbalanced}} and {{POV-check}} serve much the same purpose, and I have removed the former. If there are no objections, I would like also to remove the latter, as broadly speaking this article seems to do a pretty decent job at explaining the several perspectives on the topic.

I have also removed {{Refimprove}}, as that tag is mostly for articles needing either more inline sources or containing a large number of unverified material. I am guessing that it was placed in relation to #Proposed Sources, above. While it looks like there are some good suggestions there, I am not sure that this tag is the best way to go about getting the sources into the article. I plan to root through that discussion a bit more thoroughly over the next few days anyway. - 2/0 (cont.) 06:32, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Vitalism and the innate healing mechanisms

There is evidence of vitalism in certain Naturopathic modalities (TCM and acupuncture for example). The 'innate ability of the body to heal' is not necessarily or exclusively a vitalistic concept however. The "inborn ability to heal" could just as easily refer to a biochemical pathway such as blood clotting as to a non-scientific magical force such as 'Qi'. Let's keep these concepts separate. 173.206.145.48 (talk) 02:33, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

This is somewhat related: The first sentence hints that "innate vitalistic" ability of the body to maintain and heal itself is an established, documented process which it certainly is not. Sure, wounds heal, infections can go away, and muscle pain subsides--these are indeed innate. However, it is not clear to me that they are vitalistic. I would hate to use words such as "purported" or "alleged", but somehow we have to make it clear in the lead paragraph that the concept of "innate vitalistic" abilities of the body are not well established. How about something like: Naturopathy or naturopathic medicine is a vitalistic medical system that focuses on the body's innate ability to heal and maintain itself?Desoto10 (talk) 06:31, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

This may be a difference of nomenclature rather than substance. If vitalism is simply the observation that self-repair and other functions of the body shut down when we die, I don't think there's much room for debate, even though there are variations in how quickly the shutdown happens. Linking vitalism suggests however that the term is used as a code word to imply a form of medical mysticism that is clearly unscientific, even unphysical. To the unsuspecting reader, however, the term is something of an Easter Egg - "vitality" is commonly used as a synonym for "excellent health". This does present a problem that should be addressed, but we need to consider how it could be worded without getting into edit warring. We should work it up here on the talkpage first. LeadSongDog come howl! 17:16, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Judging by the linked vitalism Wikipedia article, there is no question that we are referring to a non-physical entity.Desoto10 (talk) 21:12, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

How about:

Naturopathy or Naturopathic Medicine is a form of alternative medicine based on the fundemental belief in vitalism, which posits that a special energy called vital energy or vital force guides bodily processes such as metabolism, reproduction, growth, and adaptation.

Sarris, J., and Wardle, J. 2010. Clinical naturopathy: an evidence-based guide to practice. Elsevier Australia. Chatswood, NSW. Desoto10 (talk) 23:31, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm having difficulty accepting that a book by that title presents Naturopathic medicine as being *based* in vitalism. Perhaps *influenced* by, or 'incorporating vitalism'? Must avoid the implication that vitalism is central to modern naturopathy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.69.7.178 (talk) 00:49, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

It's on page 3 of the book. Yobol (talk) 01:02, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

If you are having difficulty accepting it, then find a reliable source that says that vitalism is not central to naturopathy.Desoto10 (talk) 03:13, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

I also have issues with the American Cancer Society being used as a source for what naturopathy is. Certainly the ACS has a valid opinion as to whether or not NP is effective, but it is not clear why that one particular source is used so many times in this article. The thrust of the ACS piece is that there is no evidence for naturopathy curing anything, including cancer.Desoto10 (talk) 03:13, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

What is "innate ability to heal"? I find this phrase in virtually every naturopathic medicine description, but it is rarely defined. It cannot refer to normally accepted healing processes since the phrase is used to differentiate naturopathic practices from conventional practices.69.38.215.251 (talk) 18:24, 14 March 2011 (UTC)Forgot to loginDesoto10 (talk) 03:50, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

This entry misrepresents the philosophy of naturopathic medicine. Describing this medicine as nonscientific portrays the profession as a contrast to mainstream or conventional medicine. In reality the naturopathic profession holds itself to high scientific standards and is designed to be practiced in conjunction with conventional medicine. Naturopathic medicine treats every patient as an individual in order to treat the person rather than the disease. While its true this principle may not lend certain aspects of the profession to evidenced based medicine, by no means does that mean it is unscientific. The genome of every human being has many genetic polymorphisms. Based on this it is reasonable to theorize disease will manifest differently in every patient and one treatment may not work or even may be harmful for another patient. Naturopathic physicians study the same books, attend lectures and labs from the same educators as any other medical school to know the limits of their medicine and when referral to an MD is necessary. Also the statement that there is no research into naturopathic medicine is quite ludicrous as there are databases full of research including pubmed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.47.171.95 (talk) 05:29, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

hahahahahahahahahahahaa. Wow, that made me laugh harder than anything I've read in weeks. Thanks dude. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 05:49, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Wow. Very professional response from a typical narrow allopathic POV to a potentially new user who has every right to express his opinion. If this is the funniest thing you've read in weeks I'd suggest new reading material. --Travis Thurston+ 19:54, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

That's your best response? Well, instead of using rhetoric, how about some evidence? I'll go take a big fat dump while waiting. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 20:04, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the support Travis. To OrangeMarlin: Comments like this are why the neutrality of this Wikipedia entry is in question. When you're done taking your "dump" you can enter naturopathic medicine into the search box at pubmed.gov. 927 results will be displayed of relevant medical research. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Forza naturae (talk • contribs) 17:32, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

I got 301 hits for astrology... This means very little, unless we figure we ought to have an article about astrology and medicine. Dbrodbeck (talk) 01:27, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

The article mearly reports what the American Cancer Society has to say about the state of research into naturopathy. ACS is relevant and credible. Find a similar quality source that says otherwise and you are good to go. Try and find a secondary or tertiatry source if possible. Desoto10 (talk) 01:15, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

While I can't be sure, I suspect that the thing OrangeMarlin found so funny was the implicit contradiction between "high scientific standards" and "treats every patient as an individual", or perhaps that the IP didn't recognize that contradiction.LeadSongDog come howl! 03:58, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

I think it needs to be said that just because a treatment is scientific does not necessarily mean it is good medicine.

"A copy number variant is exactly what it sounds like: a different number of copies of a given gene. For example you might have one copy of a gene that metabolizes a drug while your neighbor might have 10 copies". (Shanks, Greek 2009)

Science can determine the probability of a drug's safety in a percentage of a population, but not in the individual patient. This is a reason Naturopathic doctors treat the patient rather than the disease. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Forza naturae (talk • contribs) 03:36, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

I think it has more to do with the placebo effect than drug reactions. What it boils down to is that naturopaths mainly rely on the placebo effect to treat their patients, and real doctors and scientists (and educated patients) think that is just wrong. --sciencewatcher (talk) 14:13, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

OK. Is anybody suggesting a change to the article? If so, please either suggest or go ahead and make the changes so that we can move on.Desoto10 (talk) 19:35, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Generally hard to read

The article is not well organized, repeats itself in a number of places, and many of the paragraphs are unclear as they jump from topic to topic with no clear transition statement. For example, under "Evidence basis", the article starts to talk about general safety, efficacy, and cost, but then jumps to talk about reflexology without any transition. It appears to be an attempt to provide an example, but the necessary supporting statements and transitions are not there. Many other similar problems exist throughout the article.Srdone (talk) 20:27, 26 July 2011 (UTC)srdone

I absolutely agree and would add that this is also the case for very many of WP's alt. med.-related articles. Vitaminman (talk) 21:01, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

missing reference

" Naturopathic medical license in most areas of North America requires graduation from one of the schools accredited by Association of Accredited Naturopathic Medical Colleges, which performs quality control governing student preparation involving best current medical practices. " Surely a reference is required for this claim in addition to some explication of what the term "quality control" might mean.

Is the expression "current best medical practice" rather than "best current medical practice"? The use of the latter is for rhetorical effect, if I am not mistaken. It is more subtle than the more obvious issues with the article. G. Robert Shiplett 08:06, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Agreed that a reference is needed for that statement, and it also sounds a little POV. I would drop the whole "which performs quality control governing student preparation involving best current medical practices" part of the sentence and them attempt to reference the first part. Btw, would you mind changing your signature to not unlink your user and talk pages? It's not required by any means, but it makes it more convenient for other editors to get in touch with you if they ever need to. N^oformation ^Talk 08:13, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Here is a great source for all the PEER REVIEW SCIENTIFIC information on herbs and other natural supplements. http://www.greenmedinfo.com/ This is professional site and very extensive. I think it should be included in this article as well as the known and proven positive things about Naturopathy. Also I think the known and proven negative things about pharmaceutical medications and conventional medicine should be included as well. This article is too one-sided. If you really check into the authors of Stephen Barrett of quackwatch.org and Kimball Atwood of naturowatch.org you will see that they are NOT reliable sources and why they are not. Thank you — Preceding unsigned comment added by Itanya46 (talk • contribs) 16:47, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Quackwatch has been accepted on WP as a reliable source for years, presumably in that time someone has been to the site and not come to the same conclusion you have. As far as greenmed, it's pretty much a pubmed search engine, but the problem is that it links mostly to WP:PRIMARY sources, which are not given much weight compared to secondary sources. As far as critiques of actual medicine: no, not in this article. This article is about naturopathy, not modern medicine. N^oformation ^Talk 18:16, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

EBM

I just made an edit to an out of place comment about EBM and it's role in Naturopathy. It is misleading and a blanket statement to say that Naturopathy eludes EMB. Some practices in Naturopathy are not attributable to EBM such as homeopathy, and some are such as lab testing, diagnosing, and prescribing both herbs and pharmaceuticals. I welcome an edit where someone makes clear that some practices are not acknowledged in EMB, but to say Naturopathy as a whole rejects science and evidence-based medicine is wrong and misleading.

05:29, 25 January 2012 (UTC) kitton14 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kitton14 (talk • contribs)

What you removed initially was edit warred in just a couple days ago and somehow no one caught it. I've reverted to the last version before the edit warring. N^oformation ^Talk 06:02, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

ACS Quote

I would like to remove the American Cancer Society quote, as it is irrelevant to the topic (perhaps it would fit better under an "alternative cancer therapies" topic), and diagnosing cancer isn't within and ND's scope of practice, anyway. Furthermore, I have never heard of an ND claiming to "cure" cancer or even be happily willing to be a cancer patient's sole care provider.TPinkleton (talk) 04:01, 24 February 2012 (UTC)TPinkleton

It's not irrelevant, it is summarizing the evidence basis section of the article per WP:LEDE. Furthermore, it's a statements sourced to the ACS and if they've seen fit to make the statement then it's not our job to question it, just to report it. N^oformation ^Talk 04:04, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

The quote is not a summary of the EB section, it is an addition to it. The first sentence of the EB section, however, would be a good replacement. The EB section does not, as a whole, talk about naturopathic medicine as it relates to cancer. It talks about naturopathic medicine as it relates to EBM. Thus, the summarizing sentence in the lead section shouldn't be specific to the ACS's view of naturopathy. I'm not opposed to having the quote somewhere on the page, just not in the lead section.TPinkleton (talk) 04:23, 24 February 2012 (UTC)TPinkleton

I would say it doesn't do a great job summarizing the literal aspects of the section but that it's a great summary of the scientific view of naturopathy. I wouldn't be adverse to a rewrite of the lede in general as it's atrociously wrong, but starting by removing a statement sourced to such a reliable source is probably not the best way to go about it. Obviously they felt it was relevant to comment on the issue, and their opinion trumps ours. Lastly, the sentence doesn't just talk about cancer, it says cancer or other things, so it's broader than you're implying. I won't have time to respond again tonight but I recommend you don't revert again as edit warring can lead to a block. 04:28, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your advice, anonymous person. I didn't mean to step on any toes by editing the page like that. This is my first time trying to do something like this on Wikipeida, and I was unsure as to how to go about it. I figured it out (thankfully) and am now trying the more appropriate way.TPinkleton (talk) 06:00, 24 February 2012 (UTC)TPinkleton

Hey there, I'm still unable to get into the issue tonight but just wanted to say that you didn't step on any toes or anything. We don't have much of a hierarchy here, just more and less experienced editors (but that doesn't imply any sort of power). You're starting your career off here just fine and I'm glad to have you. One thing about WP is that there are a lot of policies and guidelines and it can be a bit of a learning curve getting up to par but I'm sure you'll do just fine. Make sure to go over the stuff that I left on your talk page and we'll dig into this tomorrow (or saturday at the latest). Again, welcome to WP! N^oformation ^Talk 07:41, 24 February 2012 (UTC)