Doctors prescribe best of both worlds

More conventionally trained doctors are embracing an integrated approach to health. SYLVIA THOMPSONfinds out why

A GROWING number of conventionally trained medical doctors are combining their medical knowledge with expertise in complementary therapies to provide an integrated approach to healthcare.

Many of these doctors top up their medical training with courses in homeopathy, herbal medicine, acupuncture, nutrition and environmental medicine. Some continue to work in general practice while others work in integrative or holistic health centres because they believe the focus of conventional medicine has become too narrow.

Dr Finbar Magee who works in Synergy, an integrative health centre in Belfast, and also spends one day a week in the Irish Centre of Integrated Medicine (ICIM) in Johnstown, Co Kildare, is one such doctor. He firmly believes that most modern diseases have multiple causes and, therefore, should have a multi-pronged treatment approach.

“The vast majority of diseases are caused by the same things – your genes, stressful life events, your diet and environmental factors,” he says. “Drugs are an important element of treatment, but how we cope with our environment – and that includes our diet – is much more important,” he says.

Integrative health centres such as Synergy and the ICIM use an array of medical assessments – blood tests, nutritional analyses and various scans – to diagnose conditions and then give advice on lifestyle, nutrition and health management alongside prescriptions for conventional drugs, nutritional supplements, herbal or homeopathic medicines.

“Basically, what we do is we help the internal organs to recover. We replace minerals and vitamins that nutritional analyses find to be in short supply and we eliminate toxins from the body with herbal and chelating agents .”

By way of example, he says that conditions such as Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis respond well to this multi-dimensional treatment approach.

According to Magee, most conventional doctors aren’t interested in this broader approach to treating illnesses. “Generally speaking, medical doctors aren’t trained in areas of nutrition, toxicology and environmental medicine. If they haven’t been trained in certain areas of knowledge, it makes it difficult for them to accept the validity of that knowledge,” says Magee.

Dr Brendan Fitzpatrick works in general practice in Stillorgan, Co Dublin. He topped up his medical training with post-graduate courses in acupuncture, nutrition and homeopathy. He also firmly believes that a holistic approach is the best one when treating conditions such as irritable bowel syndrome, unexplained fatigue and skin conditions. “Once serious conditions are ruled out by conventional medicine, illnesses such as irritable bowel syndrome respond better to complementary therapies than the conventional route,” he says.

Many women are also choosing herbal and dietary supplements and acupuncture to treat the menopause as they wean themselves off hormone replacement therapy, he adds.

When asked why more conventionally trained doctors don’t embrace an integrated approach, Fitzpatrick says, “I suppose it’s because doctors are trained in a certain way and they believe in the scientific approach. However, although many complementary therapies can’t be proven scientifically, it’s important to say that there are many approaches used in conventional medicine that haven’t been proven by the ‘double blind trials’ either.”

Fitzpatrick also acknowledges that doctors who choose to use complementary and conventional treatment approaches together can be “out on a limb”. “In some ways, you are in between – neither with the conventional nor with the alternative approaches. This can leave you with a feeling of professional isolation.”

When asked what tips he would give people to avoid disease, Magee says: “People can’t do anything about their genetic inheritance, but I would suggest people eat organic food as much as possible and that they take adequate food supplements. Also, they should avoid heavy metals and chemicals in their environment as much as they can.”

Magee is adamant that conventional medicine must wake up to the damage caused by heavy metals in our bodies – and specifically the damage caused by a build-up of mercury from dental amalgams. “I was involved in having mercury removed from vaccines in the North,” he explains.

He had mercury amalgams fillings removed in the treatment of his own kidney disease about 15 years ago. “I was initially diagnosed with inflammatory kidney disease when I started urinating blood. Coincidentally, I had just begun studying the field of environmental medicine, which helped me to establish the cause of my illness. Recovery involved removing amalgam fillings and flushing out mercury and other heavy metals from of my body. The symptoms cleared within a few weeks.

“In Ireland we are 10 years behind places like California when it comes to awareness of the role chemical pollution, and heavy metals in particular, have in the cause of many illnesses. Every day we are exposed to thousands of chemicals which can build up in our bodies.

“In fact, the Environmental Protection Agency in the US says that 80 per cent of cancer deaths are due to the environment, so a holistic treatment approach is the only way to address this problem.”