Naturopathy comes to town

Waimarino Bulletin, Volume 6, Issue 268, 20 December 1988, Page 8

Naturopathy comes to town

The Waimarino now has its own resident Naturopath. Ohakune photographer Errol Vincent has recently completed a four year naturopathic course from a school near Himitangi Beach. Naturopathy calls on almost every alternative health care system in its attempts to keep people healthy. These disciplines include homoeopathy, herbal medicine, bach flowers, osteopathy, polarity, . aromatherapy, touch of health, kinessiology, acupressure, shiatzu and refelxology to name a few. Errol says his interest in naturopathy began after hearing lectures on nutrition by Ross Horn. His discussion o n naturopathy begins with diet. He says control of diet can go a long way towards preventing health problems. Naturopaths believe the human body can last 120 years if there is no "sin". That is, if the diet includes only the right foods. "Naturopathy deals with healing with natural healing methods and looks for a good clean blood flow," says Errol. He says it is based on living as near to natural as possible. "If people are willing to eat good food they can cure all sorts of ills," he claims. "People must take responsibility for their own condition, and the "guts" of it is diet." He says the purist natural diet includes no cooked food, pointing out that no other animal on Earth e a t s cooked food. He says as far as diet is concerned it is never too

late to gain benefit ' from changing the food you eat. Herbal medicine, which plays a large part of naturopathy, looks to avoid the side effects of drugs. Modern drugs isolate the active ingredient in herbs, says Errol, but side effects are avoided by using the natural herb. He says herbs used properly don't upset the b o d y ' s metabolism. Naturopathy does not reject all conventional medical knowledge however. Errol says a large part of the course is Anatomy and Physiology and the naturopathy students use the same texts as medical school students. The level attained by the naturopaths is equal to graduate nursing standards, he says. "We have to learn how the body functions," says Errol "The rest of the learning is on how to help the body heal itself using non-invasive techniques." Homoeopathy plays a large part of naturopathy and is based on the idea that like cures like. As an example h e asks what causes runny nose and eyes streaming. Homoeopathy could use onions to treat that condition. Also, the discipline uses "potentising", where the effect of herbs or foods is increased. Potentising involves taking the essence of a food or herb and diluting it more and more. He said the more diluted the substance is the more powerful it becomes.