What is Naturopathy
Carolina is one of very few true naturopaths in London.
Conventional or allopathic medicine focuses primarily on treating disease and symptoms and categorising disorders through the process of diagnosis. Treatments usually involve surgery and synthetic medications. The body is viewed as a series of different organ systems. In the current healthcare model, there is little collaboration between different specialists.
The focus of naturopathic medicine is to re-establish health, or prevent disease using naturopathic principles. Naturopathic practitioners will focus on natural therapies, including nutrition, herbal medicine, acupuncture, homeopathy, fasting strategies, and so on.
The foundational philosophy of naturopathic medicine focuses on wellness and optimal health and prevention of chronic disease using natural, traditional, empiric and evidence-based natural medicine methodologies.
The Principles of Naturopathic Medicine
- First do no harm (primum non nocere)
- Ensure the least toxic and invasive strategies are chosen for the patient.
- The healing power of nature (vis medicatrix naturae)
- The body has its own inherent ability to heal itself.
- Find the cause (tolle causum)
- Identify, address and where possible, eliminate the underlying cause of imbalance and disease.
- Treat the whole person (tolle totum)
- The physical body works interactively in conjunction with the mind. Disease is multi-factorial, so genetic, physical, mental, emotional, environmental, social and spiritual factors should be taken into account.
- Doctor as teacher (docere)
- Support, educate and empower patients with tools to allow them to take responsibility for their own health.
- Prevention (preventare)
- Focus on wellness, overall health and disease prevention.
How does this tie in with Functional Medicine?
Functional medicine is rooted in naturopathic principles, but includes lifestyle change advice, looks at current scientific knowledge and incorporates genetics, environment and a more systems-biology based view. Naturopathy and functional medicine both take an evidenced-based, root cause, personalised medicine and whole-body approach. There are only a handful of fully certified Functional Medicine practitioners in Europe, and even fewer with Carolina’s breadth of skills and experience across a multitude of other integrative therapies.