Living and Eating the Natural Way

These days, more and more health professionals recognize that good
health depends largely on good behavior. Most hospitals now have
behavioral medicine divisions, staffed by psychologists, psychiatrists
and physicians to ensure patients get the best overall care. The American
Psychological Association's health psychology division is also devoted to
integrating biomedical information about health and illness with current
psychological knowledge.

This new professional mindset is propelled by the public's
overwhelming fascination with alternative treatment approaches. Simply
put, more people are turning to complementary and alternative medicine to
cure what ails them. According to a survey published recently in the
Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), the number of
Americans using alternative therapies rose from 60 million in 1990 to 83
million in 1997. Many of these therapies were used for centuries, but
lost prevalence with the advent of modern medicine. So why are they now
regaining favor? Not only are we dissatisfied with conventional medicine,
say the results of another survey that appeared recently in JAMA, but
alternative treatments mirror our beliefs, values and philosophical
attitudes.

Still, as unhappy as we may be with Western medicine, many
Americans distrust anything with no scientifically proven benefits, and
the U.S. Food and Drug Administration--our go-to for what's safe and
what's not--has no jurisdiction over herbal remedies and dietary
supplements.

The good news is that scientists are beginning to unravel the
mysteries of how certain substances work in the body to protect against
illness and age-related decline. In 1992, Congress established the
National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM). A
division of the National Institutes of Health, NCCAM has three primary
goals: evaluating the safety and efficacy of natural products; supporting
the scientific study of those products; and evaluating the practices that
implement them.

The public's need for safe alternative medicine is evidenced by
NCCAM's steadily rising budget, which jumped from $2 million in 1993 to
$68.7 million in 2000. With such financial backing, evidence touting the
benefits of alternative therapies is increasing, and society is embracing
newly proven ways of obtaining health.

One foundation for a healthy life is eating a balanced diet.
Hippocrates said, "Let food be our medicine." But even with the most
virtuous diet, factors like over-processing rob foods of the nutrients
necessary to prevent deficiencies and provide therapeutic benefits.
"We're getting cheated," declares Phyllis Balch, C.N.C., coauthor of
Prescription for Nutritional Healing (Prima Publishing, 2000). "Most of
us aren't getting the nutrients we need."

Multivitamins and multimineral supplements aren't foolproof either,
as conditions like memory loss may require more, or different, nutrients.
Or think of the beneficial omega-3 fatty acids--promising for improving
brain function and warding off depression--which are consistently AWOL
from the average daily diet.

"Prevention of chronic disease is a different issue than nutrient
deficiency," says Clare Hasler, Ph.D., of the University of Illinois
Functional Foods for Health Program. "In some instances, you can't get
nutrients at the levels recommended for chronic disease prevention
through diet alone."

With so many things to consider, how can we stay abreast of the
latest and ever-growing health findings? Visit www.nccam.nih.gov, or
check out The Natural Healing Companion (Rodale Press, 2000).