Prevention and education of healthy habits are essential to ensuring optimal health. Just like a journey of 1000 miles cannot be done in a single step, health is not a single step but rather a wide variety of steps and lifestyle choices. Each choice builds toward a “process,” which leads to health. For example, if your car comes in damaged and neglected from years of abuse it takes many steps to bring it back to pristine function; however, once the car is restored, if the proper steps are taken, it can last for a very long time.  If the proper maintenance it not taken, dysfunction will occur once again.

Symptoms are an example of the body’s own healing process.  It is important to support this healing process as a way of strengthening the body’s overall vitality.

The following is a general list of steps towards optimum health. Every patient is different and the steps, although written in chronological order, do not necessarily have to follow this order. Steps can occur together or separately and are determined through an extensive case study taken by your naturopathic doctor to ensure the best possible route towards cure. 

Steps Towards Symptom Management

• Natural palliative therapy
• Therapies that will not cure but will help to cover the symptoms with natural therapies and treatments. This process is called “palliation”.
• Many pharmaceutical drugs palliate symptoms but have a wide variety of adverse side effects, which is why natural palliative therapies are a good option.
• Palliative therapies do not suppress an illness like drugs can, nor do they lead to a cure, which is why this is step 0 since it does not really stimulate the innate healing process of the body.
• Naturopathic medicine’s unique approach is not just about symptom management, it is about dealing with the underlying reason why the symptoms present themselves in the first place – this process is defined through steps 1 – 8.
• Step 0 is only used to help patients deal with their symptoms why the underlying issues behind the symptoms are dealt with.

Steps Towards Health

• Support detoxification organs to remove toxicity from the body
• Open the detoxification channels within the body for toxin elimination.
• Toxicity consists of metabolic by-products produced by the cells of the body. (endogenous toxicity) or can come from foreign unusable or harmful material outside the body from the environment (exogenous toxicity).
• These toxins accumulate in the body and must be eliminated to preserve the health of the patient.
• Primary detoxification routes are organs such as the intestine, bladder, kidney and liver.
• Secondary detoxification routes (which are used when the primary routes are overwhelmed or do not function properly consist of the lungs and skin.

• Eliminate the toxins through detoxification
• Facilitate removal of toxins from the body through the proper channels.

• Optimize Digestion
• Optimum digestion is necessary for the body to assimilate nutrients.
• If the body cannot digest it cannot adequately absorb, which will lead to nutritional deficiencies, which will lead to illness and dysfunction.

• Alkalize the Body Milieu
• The milieu is the environment inside the body – think of it like a “soup mixture” of tissues and fluid that holds all the organs of the body together. It is this environment that plays a large role in how the organs function.
• Assist in neutralizing systemic acids within the body caused by poor diet, inadequate water intake, chemical toxicity poor organ function.
• An acidic environment inside the body promotes disease and chronic illness while an alkaline environment contributes to long term health .

• Dysbiosis Therapy
• The term “dys” means wrong and “biotic” means living. The wrong bacteria within the bowel is a major cause for digestive and chronic disease.
• Stress, poor diet, inflammation, drug use, environmental (exogenous) and internal (endogenous) toxins can all destroy the proper bacteria lining that protects our bowel.

Dysbiosis therapy involves the following steps (The 4 “R” Approach)

• Remove toxins that irritate the intestinal tract and lead to inflammation.
• Replace digestive factors to help with assimilation and breakdown of food.
• Reinoculate with beneficial bacteria and balance proper microbial organisms.
• Repair the digestive lining to prevent reoccurrence of dysbiosis.

• Nutritional Support
• Provide proper nutrients for optimum body function.
• Nutrients of the body not only provide the body with fuel to function but they also help to build the body and drive physiological pathways such as detoxification and mental emotional thought processes.

• Support the Endocrine System
• The endocrine system is a series of glands in the body that help to support body function – it consists of the pituitary gland, hypothalamus, thyroid, adrenal and pancreas.
• Supporting the these glands will help rebalance the stress response and nervous system as well as organ functioning of the whole body.
• Stress and the imbalance of the stress response in the body will have a major effect on the endocrine system how the body functions.
• Chronic stress over a long period of time can lead to a wide variety of dysfunction eventually ending up with physical problems.

• Organ/Enzyme Regeneration
• Organ/enzyme regeneration therapies support the body’s ability to repair tissue and restore proper physiological functioning.

• Psychological Healing
• Lifestyle counseling and motivational counselling to correct negative thought processes that interfere with body function, create stress on the body and contribute to long term health problems.

Adapted and modified from the works of Dr. Konrad Werthmann MD, Dr. Gerard Gueniot ND, MD and the Institute of Functional Medicine.

Top of page