A Disagreement Of Naturopaths

Holistic medicine, as we all know, is thousands of years old. You'd think, in all that time, they could have at least come to some agreement about their tenets.

EoR has been reading a number of articles recently about that favourite altie practice, detoxing: Detox Delight, Brew It Up (both in the West Australian's Mind&Body supplement of 5th September 2006) and Spring Cleaning (in the September 2006 issue of Nova).

He now understands that:

The [65-hour juice diet detoxing] involved drinking only fruit juice in the morning and vegetable juice in the afternoon. [DD]

Doing a juice detox is not a good way to detox the liver. [SC]

[Tea and coffee] are very harsh on the liver and the central nervous system. [SC]

Anti-oxidants in coffee are being credited with reducing the risk of serious health problems, ranging from diabetes to heart disease. [BIU]

Caffeine, alcohol and refined foods were avoided [during detoxing]. [DD]

The last two quotes in fact appeared right next to each other on the same page. So who do you believe? Who cares, as long as the money keeps rolling in. And EoR also appreciated the candour of the naturopath who, unlike some other practitioners, at least felt you should keep your patient minimally alive:

Ms Oakes said her diet ensured the client got enough energy to continue their daily life.

EoR suggests the collective noun for a group of naturopaths should be a disagreement.