Jan 26

The healing power of soup

Herbs, Traditional Chinese Medicine No Comments »


Soup, especially ones that are made with traditional Chinese medicine, is good for your health as well as your soul.

From helping you lose weight to warming you up from the inside out to boosting your immunity, soup is a winter staple that you shouldn’t be without. Maybe that is one reason that it is celebrated this month with its very own National Soup Month. Here’s a closer look at what you can do to benefit from soup’s amazing healing powers.

The healing power of soup
An ancient Chinese proverb states that a good doctor uses food first, then resorts to medicine. A healing soup can be your first step in maintaining your health and preventing illness. The therapeutic value of soup comes from the ease with which your body can assimilate the nutrients from the ingredients, which have been broken down by simmering.

Here are some healing soup tips that will preserve your wellness and longevity:
1. Lose weight with soup
Obesity is on the rise throughout the industrialized world, resulting in a startling increase in the rates of heart disease, stroke, cancer, and diabetes. You can count yourself out of the statistics if you eat a bowl of soup at least once a day. Nutritious low-salt soups will nourish you as they flush excess wastes from your body. It has been found that people who eat one serving of soup per day lose more weight than those who eat the same amount of calories, but don’t eat soup. Homemade soup is your best bet, because canned soups tend to be loaded with salt and chemicals. My advice is to use organic vegetables whenever possible. The herbicides and pesticides that can be present in conventional produce can assault the immune system and overload it with toxins.

2. Build your immunity
Your immune system needs a lot of minerals to function properly and the typical Western diet does not always hit the mark. When you slowly simmer foods over low heat, you gently leach out the energetic and therapeutic properties of the foods, preserving the nutritional value of the foods. Keep in mind that boiling can destroy half of the vitamins found in vegetables, so cook soup over a low heat.

Immune-Boosting Soup
Simmer these ingredients for 30 minutes: cabbage, carrots, fresh ginger, onion, oregano, shiitake mushrooms (if dried, they must be soaked first), the seaweed of your choice, and any type of squash in chicken or vegetable stock. Cabbage can increase your body’s ability to fight infection, ginger supports healthy digestion, and seaweed cleanses the body. Shiitake mushrooms contain coumarin, polysaccharides, and sterols, as well as vitamins and minerals that increase your immune function, and the remaining ingredients promote general health and well-being. Eat this soup every other day to build a strong and healthy immune system.

3. Detoxify your body
As a liquid, soup is already helping you flush waste from your body. When you choose detoxifying ingredients, such as the ones featured in the recipe below, you are really treating your body to an internal cleanse. The broth below boasts many benefits: it supports the liver in detoxification, increases circulation, reduces inflammation, and replenishes your body with essential minerals.

Super Detoxifying Broth
Simmer the following for 1–2 hours over a low flame: anise, brussels sprouts, cabbage, Swiss chard, cilantro, collards, dandelion, fennel, garlic, ginger, kale, leeks, shiitake mushrooms, mustard greens, daikon radish, seaweed, turmeric, and watercress. Drink 8 to 12 ounces twice a day. You can keep this broth in your fridge for up to one week; however, it is always best to serve soups when fresh because each day, the therapeutic value decreases.

In addition to using cleansing herbs in soups, you can take cleansing herbs in supplements. For a gentle but powerful cleanse using Chinese herbs, Internal Cleanse increases the ability of the liver to cleanse the body of internal and environmental toxins.

4. Warm up with a hearty soup
You always want to eat for the season. Soups provide something the body craves in cold weather. When you cook foods into a soup, you are adding a lot of what Chinese nutrition would call “warming energy” into the food. Warming foods to feature in your soups include: leeks, onions, turnips, spinach, kale, broccoli, quinoa, yams, squash, garlic, scallions, and parsley. As a spice, turmeric aids with circulation, a great boost against the cold weather.

5. Get well faster
As you mother may have instinctively known, when you are sick, there is no better healing food than soup. The reason for this is that soups and stews don’t require as much energy to digest, freeing your body up to fight the infection.

It would be impossible to talk about soup’s healing abilities without putting the spotlight on homemade chicken noodle soup. Studies have found that chicken noodle soup does seem to relieve the common cold by inhibiting inflammation — helping to break up congestion and ease the flow of nasal secretions.

While chicken soup may not cure a cold outright, it does help alleviate some of the symptoms and can help as a preventative measure. Many of my patient’s keep the herbal formula Cold & Flu in their medicine cabinets so its there to support recovery when a cold strikes.

Jan 25

Eastern vs. Western philosophies of medicine

East and West, Traditional Chinese Medicine No Comments »

An interesting discussion of the differences between Eastern and Western medical systems:

“To Westerners, scientific method consists of the collection of data through observation and experimentation, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses,” says Chuang Shih-ming (莊世鳴), a Chinese medicine doctor based in Taipei City.

“Chinese medicine also takes the same approach,” he argues. “The only difference lies in the fact that Western medicine uses about 200 years of such ’scientific’ methods of observation and testing of hypotheses to prove its effectiveness, while the Chinese version uses several thousands of years.”

Methodologically, Chinese medicine is also at odds with Western medicine.

Western medicine is analytically based on anatomy of the human body by focusing on medical test results and in particular on numbers, while Chinese medicine is holistic, regarding the human body as an inseparable whole, Chuang says.

Looked at this way, Western medicine and Chinese medicine should thus be referred to as micro- and macro-medical medicine respectively, he notes.

“Unlike the Western belief that says that bacteria and viruses cause disease, Chinese medicine only sees the different symptoms, and we tend to believe in the ability of a human to heal him or herself.”?

So Chinese medical treatments are aimed at elevating one’s ability to fight all the syndromes and to help people to regain and maintain balance in their body, he adds.

Clinical diagnosis and treatment

Sitting in the office of his Chinese Medicine Clinic in Taipei’s Tianmu area, Chuang discloses that he was originally a computer programming language major in college, but because of his family background, he later transferred to the study of Chinese medicine.

Chuang goes on to say that clinical diagnosis and treatment in traditional Chinese medicine are mainly based on the yin-yang and the five-element theory involving wood, fire, earth, metal and water.

These theories apply the phenomena and laws of nature to study of the physiological activities and pathological changes in the human body, he notes.

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Jan 22

Chinese medicine – tradition and innovation?

Alternative therapies, Culture, East and West, Traditional Chinese Medicine No Comments »

Although traditional Chinese medicine has a history stretching back thousands of years, there’s room for innovation and adaption:

What is wrong with our medical science, the science of Western medicine as well as traditional Chinese medicine (TCM)? Why are doctors at a loss to find cure for more and more diseases and often divided, if not opposed, on their causes? Has modern man reached the limits of his quest for good health and a longer life, or has he reached a new frontier from where science will progress further?

Dr Liu Hequn, an astronomer-turned-registered TCM practitioner (he also holds a degree in modern medicine and a physician’s license), believes in progress, and is probably half a step ahead of others in unraveling some of the above riddles. It would take nothing short of a paradigm shift to reach that new frontier: a return to the practice of classical medicine as well as a “cognitive revolution”, Liu tells China Daily, sitting in his apartment near Beijing’s Olympic Village.

“There is nothing mystic about it, although what my teacher taught may make it appear so.” The teacher he is talking about happened to be an illiterate Taoist master, who in the early 1960s taught him the skills to diagnose a medical condition. The Taoist master, in turn, had learned the skills at Baiyun Guan, or the White Clouds Temple, Beijing’s most famous Taoist facility till the early days of People’s Republic.

The Taoist master must have belonged to the last generation of TCM practitioners, trained in the secret tradition: handing down of knowledge orally. TCM began to be incorporated into the national medical education system in the 1950s. Today, all TCM practitioners have to graduate from medical colleges, where they are also taught the theories of modern medicine.

In 1960, as an eight-year-old. Liu had to undergo some specialist treatment for the injuries he sustained in his arms and legs while learning kungfu. That was how he was taken to his Taoist teacher, who inspired him to become the first person educated in modern science to practice the traditional method of medicine.

This method is different both from modern medicine’s standard diagnosis and that of TCM taught in medical colleges, which to a large extent is based on feeling a patient’s pulse and is seen by Liu as inadequate. In contrast, Liu says, his method is closer to being holistic and true to the philosophy of TCM. It requires a doctor to feel the patient’s body (usually without taking off clothes) to identify not just one or two troubled spots, but, more often than not, also a troubled sub-system connected to a series of related and seemingly unrelated conditions.

“All medical researchers know about some interrelated conditions and symptoms. Only in my research, some connections may at first defy imagination,” Liu says.

Liu can detect a medical condition by feeling a patient’s body with his hands, the unique method of diagnosis his teacher taught him. He started learning and practicing the skill while he was still in primary school, and tried to treat the injuries of his classmates and school friends, who like millions of other urban students, were sent to re-education farms in the early 1970s.

But how can he be so confident about his “hand diagnosis”? Liu says with a smile: “They haven’t created a better substitute yet.” No matter how advanced and precise a medical scanner may be, it can help a doctor perform only one set of scanning operations on a patient. But in his diagnosis, symptoms that doctors give different names to are sometimes related to each other in ways that neither modern medicine nor TCM talks about.

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Jan 21

Chinese vs. Western medicine

Traditional Chinese Medicine No Comments »

Chinese medicine is based on thousands of years of research and experiments.

Do you believe that a person’s disease can be diagnosed simply by feeling the wrist pulse? That puncturing specific sites on the body with needles could possibly cure your chronic backache? Or that mushroom-like herbal medicine can serve as an energy booster or even enhance your immune system?

If you don’t, you’re probably not one of those hundreds of millions of followers of traditional Chinese medicine, an ancient healing system based on nearly five thousand years of research and experiments.

There have been disputes, however, on the worthiness of traditional Chinese medicine and its methods of curing illness as compared to Western medicine.

But in recent years, the effectiveness of Chinese medicine, which covers a wide range of practices including such treatments as herbal medicine, acupuncture, and Tui na massage, has come to be recognized increasingly throughout the world.

In 2003, the World Health Organization published a landmark study entitled “Acupuncture: Review and Analysis of Reports on Controlled Clinical Trials,” in which scientific evidence is cited to support the claim that ancient Chinese medication has proven to be scientifically effective for a total of 28 conditions.

200 years versus 5000

“To Westerners, scientific method consists of the collection of data through observation and experimentation, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses,” says Chuang Shih-ming (莊世鳴), a Chinese medicine doctor based in Taipei City.

“Chinese medicine also takes the same approach,” he argues. “The only difference lies in the fact that Western medicine uses about 200 years of such ’scientific’ methods of observation and testing of hypotheses to prove its effectiveness, while the Chinese version uses several thousands of years.”

Methodologically, Chinese medicine is also at odds with Western medicine.

Western medicine is analytically based on anatomy of the human body by focusing on medical test results and in particular on numbers, while Chinese medicine is holistic, regarding the human body as an inseparable whole, Chuang says.

Looked at this way, Western medicine and Chinese medicine should thus be referred to as micro- and macro-medical medicine respectively, he notes.

“Unlike the Western belief that says that bacteria and viruses cause disease, Chinese medicine only sees the different symptoms, and we tend to believe in the ability of a human to heal him or herself.”?

So Chinese medical treatments are aimed at elevating one’s ability to fight all the syndromes and to help people to regain and maintain balance in their body, he adds.

Clinical diagnosis and

treatment

Sitting in the office of his Chinese Medicine Clinic in Taipei’s Tianmu area, Chuang discloses that he was originally a computer programming language major in college, but because of his family background, he later transferred to the study of Chinese medicine.

Chuang goes on to say that clinical diagnosis and treatment in traditional Chinese medicine are mainly based on the yin-yang and the five-element theory involving wood, fire, earth, metal and water.

These theories apply the phenomena and laws of nature to study of the physiological activities and pathological changes in the human body, he notes.

He shows me how a traditional Chinese medicine practitioner diagnoses a certain disease.

Traditional Chinese diagnostics are based on overall observation of human symptoms. A typical Chinese doctor’s diagnostic methods begin by observing (望wang), then hearing and smelling (聞wen) a patient. He then asks about his or her background (問wen) before feeling (切qie) the person’s wrist pulse.

The pulse-reading component of the touching examination is one of the most important parts of diagnosis, Chuang says.

After taking a patient’s pulse, the doctor will do tongue examination.

The Chinese believe that by reading the condition of one’s tongue, including its color, texture, shape, size, and coating, a practitioner can determine one’s health.

Following all of the above examinations, the doctor will write a prescription which is taken to the front to be filled.

Herbs used in Chinese medicine are derived from plant, animal and mineral substances. Most herbal medicines are plant-derived, such as ginseng and ginger; however, some minerals and animal parts may also be prescribed for use in medication.

In Taiwan and many other parts of the world, herbs often come in formulas that call for a mixture of all kinds of herbal medicines.

In the past these prescriptions were steeped in boiled water to drink, but now they are also made into powder forms which are more convenient for patients to take.

Sometimes the patient may need other treatments for a condition, includine acupuncture, Tui na and cupping massage.

Tons of treatments

If you are not afraid of needle and are looking for a faster approach to solve your problem, you can try acupuncture, a technique in which the practitioner inserts fine needles into specific points on the patient’s body.

The intended effect is to increase circulation and balance energy (qi) within the body.

But if you would prefer something less intrusive for your backache or shoulder pain, Tui na is something you should try.

The practitioner may brush, knead, roll and rub the patient’s body, usually on his back and shoulder, to open up the body’s qi and get the energy both along the meridians and in the muscles.

Jan 21

Making eastern herbal remedies

Alternative therapies, Traditional Chinese Medicine No Comments »

Here are some suggestions on how to make eastern herbal remedies.

Making Eastern medicines is a delicate task since they require precise concoction using the materials given by a herb doctor.

If they are concocted in a wrong manner, their potency will be lost.

Patients should pay attention to the following principles while making herbal medicines:

Use a ceramic pot to concoct the medicine since it keeps it warm and spreads the heat. If you don’t have a ceramic pot, use a stainless steel one instead. An iron pot will render the remedy ineffective. You should steam the medicine if ginseng is among its ingredients.

The water used to cook should be clear. Water that has been boiled and cooled is ideal. The quantity of water and cooking time should be exact as instructed by the doctor.

Patients should ask their herbalist about cleaning the ingredients, drying them, how long to soak them in water before cooking, and if the flame should be high or medium.

If the patients use gas stoves to concoct the medicine, they should ask their herbalist for more directions. The herbal medicine is usually heated to boiling point before it is put on a low fire for the remedy to dissolve in water. The lid of the vessel should be covered tightly to retain the active elements in the medicine, especially ginseng, antler, seahorse, and seeds of kỷ tử (Chinese wolfberry).

If the remedy uses tortoise shells, tortoise flesh, gấc (cochinchin gourd) seeds, animal bones, or buffalo skin, you should steep them in water for 30 minutes before boiling in a pot for 15 minutes together with other ingredients.

If the remedy is gluey, you should first dissolve it in hot water and then put it in the pot to cook to get the optimum effect.

You should follow your herbalist’s direction on whether to drink the first decoction or the second, or a combination of both, since this varies depending on the remedy.

Jan 20

TCM can help with fertility

Traditional Chinese Medicine No Comments »

Traditional Chinese medicine can help those who are looking to conceive.

SOME couples struggle to conceive, especially when infertility might be an underlying problem.

And besides undergoing Western fertility treatments, some are turning to traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) for help.

TCM treatments include herbal remedies and acupuncture, which are meant to bring the body into balance and thus facilitate conception.

But those who turn to TCM should know that TCM isn’t a quick fix, said physician Loh Kim Gek, 55.

As with Western medicine, a substantial amount of time and patience may be required before a couple sees a successful result.

With TCM, couples need to undergo at least nine to 12 months of consistent treatment, said Ms Loh, who is one of four physicians at the fertility unit in free clinic Singapore Thong Chai Medical Institution.

Ms Loh, who has more than 20 years of experience, added: “I feel a sense of satisfaction when my patients bring along their babies to meet me. It makes me very happy.”

She has helped about 30 per cent of some 900 couples to conceive.

She said that the success rate could have been as high as 50 per cent if some of those couples had stuck to their treatment without giving up halfway.

Although women are traditionally blamed for fertility problems, Ms Loh said that, in seven out of 10 cases, the problem actually lies with the male.

She will give a talk on Saturday to explain how TCM can help to boost fertility, and how one can improve one’s constitution. my paper gets her to answer some questions from readers.

Why would TCM be better than Western medicine in fertility treatments?

MS JOEY GWEE, 25

Ms Loh: TCM treatment for gynaecological problems has a long history in China, and has proved to be effective.

To me, TCM and Western medicine serve complementary needs. TCM treats the root problem, while Western medicine tackles the symptoms.

For instance, if you have ovulation problems or problems with the quality of your ovaries, TCM treatment – which comprises Chinese medicine as well as acupuncture – can improve the function of the ovaries. TCM can also help strengthen men’s sperm to enable a higher chance of conception.

But if you have problems such as a blockage in your fallopian tube due to ovarian cysts, then I would recommend Western treatment to remove them. My wife and I have been trying to have a baby for two years.

What can we do to improve our chances of conceiving?

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Jan 14

Using TCM to keep your kidneys strong and healthy

Traditional Chinese Medicine No Comments »

Tradtional Chinese Medicine can help you maintain your kidneys strong and healthy!

According to traditional Chinese medicine, when the seasons change different organs become vulnerable as our bodies shift to keep balanced. In winter, the water element predominates which corresponds to our kidneys and bladder. There are simple habits, foods, herbs and acupuncture techniques we can employ to keep our kidneys and our whole system healthy and strong all winter.

In Chinese medicine, there are certain symptoms associated with the kidneys becoming weak, including:

bladder and kidney infections

low back pain

knee pain

cavities in teeth

weak or broken bones

infertility

premature gray hair or hair loss

ringing in the ears

increase of phobias or fears

To strengthen the water energy and keep the body in balance it`s important to keep warm. Wear scarves around your neck and extra layers or scarves around your mid-section. In Japan a belly warmer, or haramaki, is often worn. A haramaki is a tube of material which goes around your midsection and keeps the abdomen and kidneys warm.

If one is on a high raw or 100% raw food diet, add spices such as ginger to juices and cinnamon to foods. Gently warm soups and eat plenty of well-blended food, as blended meals are easier to digest. Fresh cranberries make a nice addition to juices or purees this time of year while protecting the bladder and kidneys from infection.

Jan 14

Chinese clock and liver health

Health and fitness, Traditional Chinese Medicine No Comments »

By following the Chinese clock can greatly enhance your liver health.

Stress of modern living and our standard American diet, which includes alcohol, fried food and fast food, strain our health, especially our Liver. Stopping eating by 7 pm may be the best thing we can do for our health. Looking to ancient Chinese medicine we find a clear explanation of why this is. In Chinese Medicine, qi, or energy, runs though the body through a series of twelve main channels, or meridians. For each meridian there is a two hour time period for which the energy is strongest.

According to Chinese Medicine, digestion is controlled by the Earth element. The organs which correspond to the Earth element are Stomach and Spleen. The Stomach meridian`s energy is strongest in the morning between 7 and 9 am, and the Spleen is strongest between 9 am and 11 am. Therefore 7 am to 11 am is the best time to eat because our digestive energy is strongest.

Twelve hours later the energy of our digestive organs is the weakest, and we should stop eating by 7 pm. Light meals of fresh fruits and vegetables or fresh juices are best if we are hungry in the evening since these foods are simplest to digest.

Digestion is naturally slower in the evening as the energy is weakest in those meridians at that time. Food stays in the stomach and tends to ferment leading to gas, bloating and discomfort. Energy is drawn from other organs to help digest food. Overnight from 11 pm until 3 am the energy is strongest in the gall bladder and liver. These organs cleanse the blood and control sleep. They become taxed when we eat late at night. We get indigestion, insomnia and a feeling of not being well rested in the morning. In addition, our joints may ache or become arthritic. Toxins get stored in our organs and joints when the liver cannot function properly.

Eating late at night strains our liver, drawing energy from it to help us digest food. There are liver flushes and herbs such dandelion and milk thistle to cleanse and regenerate the liver. Yet one of the best things we can do for the liver is to stop eating by 7 pm. Once the liver energy is not being drawn away toward digestion, the liver is able to function and heal.

When we stop eating at 7 pm, many symptoms, even those which seem unrelated to digestion such as pain and arthritis, will disappear. People often lose weight quickly as the body is able to rid itself of toxins. The meridians balance and naturally become stronger when energy is not drawn into digestion overnight.

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Jan 10

Exploring the history of Traditional Chinese Medicine

Traditional Chinese Medicine No Comments »

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is an ancient medical belief and system that takes a deep understanding of the laws and patterns of nature and applies them to the human body.

Although the first recorded history of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) dates back around 2,000 years, it is believed that its real origin goes back more than 5,000 years. Chinese medicinal practitioner Lim Sin Hoe shares with us the history of TCM and its medicinal concepts.

ACCORDING to Chinese mythology, the origin of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) can be traced back to three legendary Emperors/mythical rulers: Fu Xi, Shen Nong, and Huang Di.

Historians believe that Shen Nong and Fu Xi were early tribal leaders. Fu Xi was a cultural hero who developed the trigrams of Yi Jing (I Ching) or Book of Changes.

Shen Nong, the legendary emperor who lived 5,000 years ago, is hailed as the “Divine Cultivator”/“Divine Farmer” by the Chinese because he is attributed as the founder of herbal medicine, and taught people how to farm. In order to determine the nature of different herbal medicines, Shen Nong sampled various kinds of plants, ingesting them himself to test and analyse their individual effects.

Legend has it that Shen Nong tasted a hundred herbs, including 70 toxic substances in a single day, in order to rid people of their illnesses. As there were no written records, it is said that the discoveries of Shen Nong were passed down verbally from generation to generation. It was only many years later that the oldest known book on agriculture and medicinal plants was compiled – Shen Nong Bencao Jing.

In 1578, after reading 800 medical references and conducting 30 years of field study, Li Shizhen completed the Bencao Gangmu, also known as the Compendium of Materia Medica, which has been translated into 20 languages and used as a reference until today.

Clinical diagnosis and treatment in TCM are mainly based on the yin-yang and five elements theories. These theories apply the phenomena and laws of nature to the study of the physiological activities and pathological changes of the human body and its interrelationships. Traditional Korean and Japanese medicine are said to have been developed with the strong influence of TCM.

Following a macro philosophy of disease, TCM diagnostics are based on overall observation of human symptoms rather than “micro” level laboratory tests. There are four types of TCM diagnostic methods: observe (wàng), hear and smell (wén), ask about background (wèn) and touching (qiè).

The diagnostics of an ailment not only includes its cause, mechanism, location, and nature, but also the confrontation between the pathogenic factor and body resistance. Treatment is not based only on the symptoms, but differentiation of syndromes.

Therefore, those with identical ailments may be treated in different ways, and on the other hand, different ailments may result in the same syndrome and are treated in similar ways.

Typical TCM therapies include acupuncture and herbal medicine. Qigong related physical, breathing, and meditation exercises are also often recommended to patients.

With acupuncture, treatment is accomplished by stimulating certain areas of the external body. Herbal medicine acts on organs internally, from improving blood circulation and immunity to addressing the root cause of serious ailments.

Qigong on the other hand, tries to restore the orderly “flow” inside the network through the regulation of “qi”. These therapies appear very different in approach, yet they all share the same underlying sets of assumptions and insights in the nature of the human body and its place in the universe.

Jan 01

A guide to alternative healthcare in Canada

Acupuncture, Alternative therapies, Traditional Chinese Medicine No Comments »

Here’s a guide on how to seek alternative healthcare in Canada.

When the economy is down, there’s always one safe investment: your health.

If you’ve struggled to manage your diet or a chronic condition, you may want to enlist some help beyond our overstressed health-care system.

But who, exactly, does what?

Here’s a breakdown of a few of the alternative health-care practitioners available, explaining the basics of what they offer and tips about their trade.

To find one, ask your friends and family for names of practitioners they like.

And always ask the practitioner for references, says holistic nutritionist Barb Thomas.

“You don’t want to just see their licence or ask where they’ve studied; you want to know if they’ve actually helped people,” says Thomas, owner of Love2Eat Nutritional Consulting in Calgary.

Discuss your plans with your regular doctor to ensure there’ll be no conflicts with current treatments or medications. Some alternative treatments may be covered by third-party insurance, so check with your provider.

Dietitians

What they do

Assess the foods you eat, develop better nutrition strategies, help you implement them and evaluate your success. The goal is to improve health and, in some cases, to treat illness through nutrition. Must have a bachelor’s degree specializing in foods and nutrition, as well as a period of practical training in a hospital or community setting. In Alberta, a Registered Dietitian (RD) and Registered Nutritionist (RN) have the same education and training. However, use of the term “nutritionist” is not protected by law in Alberta, so anyone can use it.

Qualifications

Look for these titles or initials: Registered Dietitian, Registered Nutritionist, Dietitian or RD.

To find one

Visit Dietitians of Canada at dietitians.ca and click on Find a Nutrition Professional.

Source: dietitians.ca and collegeofdietitians.ab.ca

Naturopathic doctors (or naturopaths)

What they do

Primary care using natural medicine to help the body heal itself. Practitioners are trained in herbal medicine, homeopathy, nutrition and supplementation, among other things.

Qualifications

Must have graduated from an accredited naturopathic college or university and passed the Naturopathic Licensing Exams, which are standardized in North America.

To find one

Visit the Canadian Association of Naturopathic Doctors at cand.ca.

Source: naturopathic-alberta.com and Bruce Lofting, ND

Holistic nutritionists

What they do

Assess your lifestyle, emotional well-being, activity level, supplementation and nutrition. Practitioners use food — especially locally grown, whole foods — to correct imbalances in the body. They do not diagnose or treat disease.

Qualifications

Most holistic nutritionists are graduates of the Canadian School of Natural Nutrition, but there are other accredited schools in Canada. Many choose to register with the International Organization of Nutritional Consultants (IONC).

Tips

Find out where the practitioner studied and ask if he or she is registered with the IONC.

To find one

Visit the IONC site at ionc.org and click on Member Directory.

Source: Barb Thomas, RHN, owner of Love2Eat Nutritional Consulting

Chinese medicine practitioners

What they do

Beyond examining your background, including previous conditions and family history, practitioners examine your tongue and take your pulse on both arms to get an overall reflection of how the body is doing internally.

To treat, they use a mix of herbology, acupuncture and other techniques, such as massage and energy work.

Qualifications

Most study at Canadian colleges that offer programs in acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine, such as the acupuncture program at Grant MacEwan College in Edmonton or the Alberta College of Acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine in Calgary.

Tips

Make sure the practitioner is registered for acupuncture by asking to see his or her licence.

To find one

Visit the Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture Association of Canada at cmaac.ca.

Source: Dennis Lee, dean of students at ACATCM

Homeopathic doctors (or homeopaths)

What they do

Treat medical conditions using substances from plants, minerals and animals that are highly diluted in water and alcohol.

Qualifications

There are no regulations, so buyer beware. Homeopaths should have completed a three- to four-year homeopathy program from a recognized school that you can verify on the Internet.

Ask practitioners where they studied, confirm that they graduated, and check the program online. Another good benchmark is to ask if they have at least 1,200 to 1,800 hours of homeopathic training.

To find one

Above all, seek referrals from other people.

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