If nature cures, why do we need Naturopathy? We live on planet earth, under the sun. We still breathe the common, available air, we still use water for drinking, bathing, washing. What could be unnatural about that?
Dr S Mahadeshwara Swami (pic: Manjushree Abhinav)
The fact is, in the last four decades, our lifestyles have changed dramatically. In the following interview, Naturopath Dr Mahadeshwara Swami tells us how this change directly affects our health.
Dr S Mahadeshwara Swami has founded a Naturopathy center in Yelahlanka New Town, called Prakruti Arogyadhama. He graduated from SBM College of Naturopathy and Yogic Sciences. You can send your queries to him at drmahadesh59@rediffmail.com
What is the relevance of Naturopathy in today’s world?
The human being is made of five elements- Fire, Water, Earth, Space and Air. The problem is, in today’s world, none of these elements exist in their natural, pure form anymore. Let us study each element.
1. Fire
The hottest thing around being the sun, we naturopaths worship the sun as the embodiment of the fire element. In the good old cave days, people had maximum exposure to the sun. They woke up early and benefitted from the early-morning infra-red sun rays. But now we sleep late and get up late and miss a large chunk of the vitamin D provided by the sun.Therefore, the body’s immunity, the fighting power, diminishes. Lack of Vitamin D affects the bone density, resulting in arthritis. There is a decrease in the secretions, metabolic rates, and bio – mechanism of the body.
It follows that the life-style change required here is to get up early, go out for a walk, and sleep early.
2. Water
Our body is 70 per cent water. But it’s not stationary, it’s always moving. Being a universal solvent, water is always busy cleaning out the chemical residues from our cells, the urea, uric acid, et cetra. The only thing we have to understand here is that the intake should be equivalent to the output. We need to drink at least three to four liters of water every single day for the balance to be maintained.
In today’s world, however, we don’t have time to drink water. Before we brush our teeth in the morning, we should start our day with two full glasses of water. There are microbes in the mouth which help the water to wash out the entire tract from mouth to anus.
3. Earth
All our vitamins, minerals, the energy supply, is gotten from the soil. The market of today’s world has driven the farmer to spray poisonous chemical fertilizers on all the crops produced. This not only affects the quality of the vegetables, it also ruins the soil by reducing the natural potentiality of the earth.
Organic farming, in which natural fertilizers are used, is the only solution to undo the damage and renew the nourishing soils.
4.Space
In Naturopathy, the space in the body is understood by the space in the intestines. Space is nothing but a vacuum. An emptiness. Just like every living being needs periodic rest to function well, our digestive tract also needs a break every now and then. In Naturopathy, fasting is simply a cleansing process. The purpose of washing is the removal of dirt. A therapeutic fast, under the guidance of a naturopath, won’t necessarily be ‘mouth shut’. If the patient has arthritis, he will get carrot juice mixed with water; if obesity is the problem, then lemon juice with honey will be the sole diet of the day.
5. Air
Air is the most vital force. In Sanskrit, it is called prana. The quality of the air being so polluted in cities, our lungs have literally shrunk in size to avoid breathing fully. The solution is to strengthen the lungs by the practice pranayaam early every morning,when the ozone and oxygen content is high in the atmosphere. Pranayaam helps in curing all respiratory tract problems, like cold, cough, bronchitis, asthma, et cetra.
What are the ailments where Naturopathy is the most effective?
All chronic ailments like diabetes, high blood pressure, migraine headaches, all the respiratory disorders, orthopedic ailments, neurological conditions, et cetra. can be cured by Naturopathy.
In spite of Naturopathy being so logical, why is it not as popular as it should be?
Naturopathy centers in Bangalore
Arogya Mandira
Next to ISCON
Manalakehri Layout,
Bangalore
Golden Star Nature Cure Center
Kunigal road
Nelamaagla
Contact : Dr. Sandeep 9448792860
Prakruti Arogyadhama
151 – 13th cross, 1st phase,
Shankar Nag Park
Yehlanka New Town,
Bangalore 560064
Contact Dr. Swami :08028461304
Jindal Nature Cure Institute
Zindal Nagar
Tumkur road, Bangalore
Contact: 9845028815
Basala Samiti Nature Cure Hospital
Raja Rajeshwari Medical College
Kungeri
Mysore road
Prakruti jeevan Kendra
BES School,
8th cross, Malleshwaram,
Bangalore 560003
Naturopathy basically utilizes the body’s natural healing power to do its job. For that,the body needs to rest, to fast, and that, in today’s world is not the done thing. We live to eat. People avoid Naturopathy because they think that they cannot go hungry. Secondly, we are scared of facing the healing crisis.
What is the healing crisis?
There are two kinds of crisis in a body; one is a disease crisis and the other is a healing crisis. A healing crisis is that in which symptoms of a disease come and go. The body periodically needs to expel toxins. Nature cure is nothing but giving the body a chance to detoxify. For example, vomiting, lose motions, headaches, slight fever are all symptoms of the body giving out an alarm that it needs to detoxify.
At such times, it is best to let the body and mind rest for a day or two. Never suppress these symptoms by taking antibiotics. Of course, it is important to confirm that the fever is not indicative of something serious like malaria or typhoid, in which case antibiotics should be taken.
What is your take on allopathic medicine?
Allopathic medicine is a life – saving system. Every allopathic medicine has contra-indications written on the strip. So when we eat these medicines, they are all processed through the liver, the factory of metabolism, and the medicine reaches each and every cell of the body, before it is flushed out by the kidneys. So it is like a slow poison.
Allopathy should be taken only in life-saving diseases. Pain-killers, antibiotics, anti-histamines are the most dangerous drugs. They all have side effects that give you a long term headache. ⊕
Malaria is caused by a protozoan, not a bacteria – it is not susceptible to antibiotics.
There are a lot of assertions here without any proof. Can he elaborate, for example, how naturopathy can cure diabetes? How does it work, and where is the proof that it works? (By proof I mean a controlled experiment – a clinical trial.) If you’re making medical claims in a story then I’d expect to see proof. I’m not going to take it on faith that it just works.
To call medicine poison is misleading (to put it kindly). Any medicine can have side effects. If the benefits of the medicine – i.e. their curative action – outweighs those side effects, then there’s no problem. Naturopathy doesn’t have side effects since (from what I can tell from this article) it involves nothing apart from behavioral changes in lifestyle and diet.
One last point I’d like to make – there is no such thing as “allopathic” medicine. Allopathy was just a word coined by the inventor of homeopathy, in order to differentiate his invention from the medicine of that day. In reality, there are just two types of medicine – medicine that is scientifically sound and has been proven to work in properly conducted trials, and medicine which is not. Based on the information (or lack thereof) in this article, I put naturopathy in the second category.
Regards,
Sunil
Dear Mr D’Monte- isn’t it a bit unreasonable to expect ‘proof’ in a short article of 1000 words? I am sure there are innumerable people who have benefited by naturopathy, and will gladly stand testimony to the same. Unlike ‘allopathy’, (and we shall use the term irrespective of who coined it and why), not all forms of healing can be clinically tested in a lab- they work on a much more subtle and holistic level. I am sure the good doctor can elaborate on how naturopathy can cure diabetes- sure it requires behavioural and dietary changes- and if that can liberate a diabetic from being dependent on a chemical like insulin for his entire lifetime, I’d give naturopathy the thumbs up.
The author of the article could have investigated — and linked to — supporting documentation, instead of credulously repeating whatever the doctor said. It’s a reasonable expectation from any form of medical journalism. I know this is just a blog, but still – it’s the responsible thing to do.
I disagree with you; all forms of healing can and should be tested. It’s important to establish a causative relationship between the treatment and the improvement in symptoms. Otherwise it’s impossible to say whether the treatment was responsible or not – it could be a case of ‘regression to the mean’, or it could be due to some other concomitant treatment – there’s no way of knowing. The only way of being sure is to test it. If you’re inclined, take a look at the site http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/ – it has a good explanation.
PS Words like “subtle” and “holistic” are vague, they don’t hold any useful meaning when it comes to medicine. The effects of a medical treatment must be specific and measurable. To continue with the example of diabetes – it’s a metabolic disorder involving glucose, insulin etc. Any cure or treatment should be explainable in those terms.
Well Mr. Monte, your point is taken, but continuing with the example of diabetes I’m sure you are aware that there are two types of this disease, and that research has proven that it is a combination of genetic and environmental causes that brings about this disorder. In fact the first steps in the ‘allopathic’ treatment for diabetes is immediate changes in lifestyle and dietary habits to reverse the detrimental environmental effects (especially in type2).
There is definitely a problem with side effects even if the medicines have curative effects. What are side effects anyway? They are unintended responses of the body to a foreign agent which is introduced to cure a specific anomaly. If these drugs have gone through the trials and tribulations of the scientific method before being introduced into the market, why are there still side effects? Is it because the researchers don’t understand how the body functions and cannot device cures/drugs that do only the intended action? Is it then a question of losing the kingdom for the want of a shoe?
We can also disagree on the all forms of healing can be tested hypothesis, a mere mention of the ‘placebo’ effect even in ‘allopathy’ should put that to rest
Reductionism is the way science is headed especially in therapeutic research but hey holistic is not vague either, look into chaos theory for that.
Lastly, the proof of the pudding is in eating it. Enumeration of the beneficiaries of “Naturopathy”, which if you read the article carefully is nothing but an exhortation to lead a healthy lifestyle, and collation of their experiences will give us enough data to draw inferences (definitely not in the purview of an opinion/interview article)
Thank you for the discussion. I accept the points about being more detailed and backed by proof but please notice:
a) This is an interview not a piece on what ‘I think about systems of medicine’.
b) I am not sitting in judgment of what the interviewee is speaking. I am reporting.
c) My choices are reflected in the fact that I have chosen this field and this doctor to interview. That shows that I prefer naturopathy to allopathy.
d) Yes, scientific fact and propositions should be backed up with evidence, but in this case those are not within the purview of this story.
Secondly, all medication is regulated poison. At least, definitely so in allopathy. The body has ways of correcting itself and sometimes we aid the body with chemicals to overcome any defect that sets in. That naturopathy is advocating good lifestyle and behavorial changes is quite akin to your heart surgeopn asking you to go for an hour long walk every day…
Do we really care what systems of medicine are saying, or do we care about our good health and take suggestions from where (ever) they come?
Since it does look like this thread of comments is closing, I’d like to add a tailpiece.
The way I look at it, interviews on Citizen Matters essentially showcase people who have gone that one step forward in being useful to “society” if I can use the word.
Quite simply it’s a spotlight on people, where the writer asks a series of questions to achieve a completeness in the storyline.
It is difficult to get into technical detail or project analytical viewpoints, simply because the writer reflects the professional’s thoughts, experiences and responses as the interview rolls along. Some of this may contradict a reader’s own thinking on the subject, which I guess calls for an entirely different platform.
There is always a tendency to oppose anything without closely examining the facts
(Thanks to Gurudev – http://www.hitxp.com/in/15042007.htm.
http://www.hitxp.com/sci/12112007.htm)
If Allopathic/ English stream is really ‘scientific’ we would have expected the so called ‘drugs’ (it is never called a medicine) which once scientifically proven to stay same for ever and all the diseases cured long back.(New diseases found recently are mostly the side affects of ‘life savers’…Also thanks to the ‘Disease Designers’ in every Multinational drug companies who project every year more than a double digit growth in the ‘unhealthy’ population & subsequently a corresponding sales & market shares!!!
It is ironic that USA, the highest prescription drug consuming country where the modern health care system is supposed to be the best is only one of the worst in ‘Health’
(http://books.google.com/books?id=-AXCCj5PiakC&pg=PA46&lpg=PA46&dq=world+prescription+drug+consumption&source=web&ots=Lazcag683b&sig=0wtd_ApscwP4ZxNcGPfpwbzv28A&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=10&ct=result#PPP1,M1)