I attended a talk on Naturopathy given by a practicing naturopathic doctor from India who was visiting the US. We(myself and my brother-in-law) showed up past the appointed time in the hope the talk wouldnt have started under indian standard time rules. That wasnt the case and by the time we took our seats, the talk was well under way. Five minutes later, my attention to the talk took a nosedive.
He spoke clearly and unhurriedly. He mentioned how the naturopathic system is built on concepts expounded in vedas and uses the five elements(ether, water, fire, sunlight and earth). I was surprised to hear the reference to ether instead of air. Ether reminded me of secondary school classes on early scientific theories that were discredited long back.
As someone who has veered into the science and evolution camp and stayed rooted there, I was dismayed when he followed it up with how God's creations on this earth in the forms of plants and vegetables represent vital tools of naturopathy. Given naturopathy, as described by him, was religiously inspired, it was only to be expected the whole meat section was left out(even if there are murmurs among indian historians that there might have been meat consumption in earlier times among hindus). Modern diet has its food pyramid and I cant understand why meat is left out by naturopaths. The difference is especially glaring when we take into account modern medicine has a system of testing and verification(even if it sometimes fails in the hands of unscrupulous drug companies) while naturopathy has no scientific evidence to back up its claims of cure. The moment I heard him referring to vedas, I couldnt help but remember a quote I read from Nehru's Discovery of india.
"Looking at scripture then as a product of the human mind, we have to remember the age in which it was written, the environment and the mental climate in which it grew, the vast distance in time and thought and experience that separates it from us. We have to forget the trappings of ritual and religious usage in which it is wrapped, and remember the social background in which it expanded. Many of the problems of human life have a permanence and a touch of eternity about them, and hence the abiding interest in these ancient books. But they dealt with other problems also, limited to their particular age, which have no living interest for us now."
It, to me, accurately captures the tendency on the part of numerous cultures to treat their ancient medical traditions on par with scientific cures without subjecting them to equivalent scrutiny and scepticism.
He also contrasted naturopathy from conventional medicine by pointing out the latter focusses on illness alone and not on the whole well being of the body. To me, it sounded as if he was comparing only the failures in modern medicine to (unsubstantiated and miniscule) benefits of naturopathy. He insisted that lots of ailments people suffer nowadays had to do with the unreasonable expectation of curing everything with a pill. At least on that point, I agree with him. During this phase, he made some sense when he pointed out everyone's propensity to use pills to suppress uncomfortable symptoms instead of treating the root cause. However, the way he phrased it, sounded as an unfair knock on modern medicine given it was only a part of the bigger picture(that included harried parents, spoilt kids, overwrought doctors, greedy insurance companies and so on).
He also pointed out how eating habits nowadays are completely out of line with what the body needs. He insisted that naturopathy was better suited to this specific issue as it places severe restrictions on diet. He mentioned how fasting could be used to provide relief to the body. It seemed like he was taking it too far when he pointed out the efficacy of fasting for a whole host of ailments, major and minor.
He then described how he became a naturopath carrying on the work of his grandfather and father. He mentioned he had cured quite a few ailments when people had given up on conventional medicine. He then threw the floor open for discussion as it looked like most of the listeners were splitting their attention between the talk and the food that was constantly streaming into the hall.
The initial questions were a series of softies that were a combination of testimonials and restatements. I was surprised to see the lack of scepticism among the audience that somehow seemed to be lapping it all in. For my part, I raised the question on the exclusion of meat from the tools of naturopathy(as practiced by the doctor). His answer was wholly unsatisfactory as he insisted that human body would be better off sticking to vegetarianism. To back his claim, he pointed out an experiment conducted by some university on the difference in endurance between deer and tiger. From what I remember, he said tiger was able to run only 2 miles while deer could run 22 miles. By the time, he was finished with his answer, I had so many follow up questions that I didnt know where to start. After the talk, one of the listeners came to me and tried to enlighten me on the similarities in intestines between humans and herbivores(examples he used were buffalo and deer) and pointed it out as one reason(the other was bhagavad gita) eating meat is unhealthy.
The doctor mentioned naturopathy could be used in lieu of modern medicine which elicited a surprised response from the questioner as to its efficacy for curing cancer and AIDS. To consider naturopathy as a replacement for modern medicine sounded, to me, like the height of idiocy. Given the doctor's insistence that he doesnt use diagnostic tools in treating the patient, his observation that , for some reason, cancer patients after biopsy seem to fare worse in his hands than those before sounded very irresponsible.
On the whole, the questions stayed on the supportive side and his answers seemed to play into current preconceived notions of naturopathy among hindus. Given it is portrayed as derived from vedas(making it seem indigenous and sanctioned by hinduism), majority of hindus wouldnt find it too difficult to accept it, dubious credentials be damned. The testimonials were from people you would expect to exercise at least a smidgeon of scepticism. These were medical sales people, biochemists(from their own admission) and medical billing professionals.
I can see some uses for concepts he talked about in the speech. Dietary restrictions and rest and recovery are some, I think, common sense options for a sick person. However, to portray naturopathy as the alternative to modern medicine displays either a profound degree of ignorance or wilful misrepresentation.
To me, the whole evening was an eye opener. This was the first time I attended a talk by a naturopathic doctor and it was all I hoped for and then some more. I am sceptical of cures through ancient traditions for serious ailments like AIDS or cancer. The talk only deepened my scepticism about naturopathy.They can be used if there is no other way out for the patient and even then, only to treat minor sicknesses. I did get to have great food brought in by the audience.
