Naturopathy is grounded on the bases of treatments determined by two main pillars of “traditional knowledge” and “scientific evidence” (Arentz, 2017). With a history dating back to the late 19th century, naturopathy has rich sources of traditional medicine from Europe, Asia, Native American and Africans as well as methods and knowledge from Ayurveda influences. It is these deep, traditional roots that allow naturopaths to provide varied treatments for patients. However, the pillar of scientific evidence is not as strong and is often a source of criticism of naturopathy. In US, where the world of healthcare is dominated by conventional medicine, the opportunity of criticism and undermining of anything else is commonplace. Therefore evidence of treatments and treatment plans need a source of reliable evidence. So too in naturopathy, the pillar of efficacy lives in the reliable bodies of proof and research.
Evidence-based
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Anecdotal evidence can be skewed, but with reliable, repeatable, and believable research, use of evidence-based medicine can propel naturopathy as an effective and reliable source of healthcare. This requires increased training of NDs within the basics of clinical research and design, asking a qualified question followed by investigation and experimentation to find the answer (Arentz, 2017). Just as conventional medicine trains for and relies on the scientific method, this recent evolution in ND training teaches students how to perform such research and how to critically analyze work done by others (Schleich, 2013). The evidence itself is not enough, practitioners must be able to determine the “reliability, validity and relevance of scientific evidence to answer clinical questions and can reliably guide transparent clinical practice decisions” (Arentz,