Stan, Clarence, Barry, and the Health Chatter team chat with Andrew Litchy, N.D., about naturopathic medicine and its role in modern healthcare.Dr. Litchy is a naturopathic doctor who treats people of all ages, focusing on digestive and cardiovascular health, chronic illnesses, and overall wellness. He is also a faculty member, meditation teacher, and collaborator with research programs aimed at integrating naturopathic approaches and mindfulness practices into broader healthcare solutions.Join us for an enlightening discussion about the principles and applications of naturopathic medicine, and stay tuned to gain fresh perspectives on holistic health.Join the conversation at healthchatterpodcast.comBrought to you in support of Hue-MAN, who is Creating Healthy Communities through Innovative Partnerships.More about their work can be found at huemanpartnership.org.
Hello, everybody. Welcome to Health Chatter. And today's show is on naturopathic medicine, which is a really interesting twist, given all the different shows that we've had. And now we're going to talk about it from a naturopathic medicine point of view. We have a great guest with us. I'll get to him in just a moment. As you probably know, we have a great crew
that makes our shows very, very successful. Maddie Levine-Wolfe, Aaron Collins, Deandra Howard, our researchers, Matthew Campbell, production, marketing, and research, Sheridan Nygaard, our medical advisors, Dr. Barry Baines on the show today, and also my partner in crime on this show, co-host, Clarence Jones, thank you to all of you.
Again, I've said this many, many times, you're second to none and you're wonderful colleagues. Human Partnership is our sponsor for our shows. It's a great community health organization that Clarence has certainly been involved with for many, many years and helps us get these shows out to you, the listening audience. You can check them out at humanpartnership.com.
And check us, wait, I take that back, humanpartnership.org. And our show is healthchatterpodcast.com, where you can see all of the research that we do for these shows. And you can also put in questions that you might have, and we certainly can get back to you. So thank you all for listening in to today's show. Today we have Dr. Drew Litchey, who's a naturopathic physician doctor.
He's a graduate at the National College of Natural Medicine in Portland, Oregon. I believe there's just a couple of these in the country, which you'll probably talk to us about. People of all ages utilizing modern biomedical research and time-tested naturopathic approaches at his clinic here in Minnesota.
He's a graduate faculty at the University of Minnesota, adjunct faculty at the National University of Natural Medicine. He does a lot of things with his family, which I'm sure he'll talk about a little bit. But it's great having you. We've talked about a lot of health-related issues on Health Chatter. To be quite blunt, we've never come at it from this angle.
And so, you know, it's really good having you. So thanks for being with us, Drew. It's really a pleasure. So, all right, let me get the ball rolling here. Naturopathic medicine. Why don't you just start out with a good definition of it for our listening audience?
Well, sure. Well, a naturopathic physician, naturopathic doctor, it's someone trained in both conventional medicine as well as naturopathic or alternative modalities. And so we're a mid or physician level provider, depending on the state, that really we have one foot in both worlds of alternative, complementary and conventional treatment.
We have a pretty broad type of practice we may find ourselves in. Depending on the state, we could be acting as primary care providers, doing medication management, taking care of things that you see in a primary care setting. And also we act as adjunctive specialists or specialists in more serious and chronic conditions where we complement conventional treatment and conventional approaches.
So, you know, on the front end, when we were introducing everybody, you know, I was thinking, all right, how many actual schools are there in this arena?
Right. Not many. There's one in Canada, and I believe there's five in the U.S. right now. So not too many. We have one in Chicago, Oregon, Washington, and then on the East Coast and Arizona, like that, and then up in Canada.
All right. So how is it, you know, because I know your father, who's a neurologist, and so I'm curious how it is you got involved
Yeah, I think the short answer is I worked in the ER too long. That's what it comes down to. Yeah. During my pre-med, I was a technician at Regions Level 1 Trauma Center. And so at Regions, technicians are in everything. So we're in the traumas, all the way to, you know, stalking, pushing people around, getting in places.
So we saw, it's a biased cross-section of healthcare, but saw a lot of things. And over the four years I was there, I found myself less enthralled and excited by the medical stabilization and surgery and the blood and the things that we do really, really well in the ER.
we did those very well and became more interested in the things that we don't do well there, which is chronic disease management, patient care, and really more longer-term healthcare approaches, right? And as I was there, I was looking at my career because I was going to be a medical doctor. I was considering what kind of things would I be doing in my career.
And I realized a lot of my passions, which were, you know, Exercise, meditation, nutrition, so on, were not going to be part of my scope. It was going to be, it could be quite interesting, you know, but I would be doing mostly diagnosis and medication management, probably, unless I went into surgery.
And so that, while really important, became less and less interesting to me personally over those four years. And I was thinking, well, maybe a psychiatrist, maybe I'll be a DO, and so on. And really, the last semester before I had to apply for med school, I discovered there was such a thing as naturopathic medicine.
Knowing that, it was a really good fit because all those things, mind-body care, nutrition, taking care of oneself, lifestyle, were incorporated with the physician-level training and level of thinking. So that's how I found myself here, just in time.
Just in time, right. So, all right, another thing, and, you know, Barry, you can chime in here too, but another thing that kind of, why don't more of us know about you guys?
Well, we're in Minnesota, I think. That's what it comes down to. On the coasts, we're everywhere. So when I went to school in Portland, everyone had their naturopathic doctor. Most people had someone they were working with. I think of it a little like chiropractic was here for a while. There was many years where chiropractors were in Minnesota. People really didn't know quite what they did.
They just knew about them. They were around and not fully integrated. And so I think now in Minnesota, we're starting to get more NDs in state. When I moved here, there was five in practice. And now we're 50, 60, 70. So it's increasing. And there's just more time for education for people to understand what we do and what we don't do and who we are and who we are not.
Because there can be a lot of ideas of what we are that are not quite right. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. Um, do a lot of people take advantage of you guys? In your practice? Oh, I mean, how would I? How would I if I didn't know anything, but I was kind of interested in getting involved? Or getting some care? Yeah, someone? How would I even connect?
Sure. Well, people find me lots of ways. Through website referrals and so on. My website, we try to do a fair amount of education so people can understand what we do. And I think a lot of people still find us by word of mouth. More and more, I think we get referrals from other healthcare providers. And as people understand what we do more and more, there's more and more interest in it. Yeah.
Barry, go ahead. Yeah, there are a lot of areas to go down. I'm just... Curious, because I remember that with chiropractic, one of the big things that allowed more access to that is health insurance. And that always seems to be a conundrum. I don't want to say, you know, money talks, nobody walks. But the reality is that if there isn't insurance coverage, it's going to be harder to access.
And also, Stan, I would say it's that it's oftentimes raping fans of naturopathic physicians is how, like you say, word of mouth is where that goes. But I'm just wondering what the climate is in Minnesota for insurance coverage.
Yeah, I don't think there's any particular movement by insurance companies to credential NDs. I think there's no signaling they're interested in doing that, which is, as you said, a shame because it prevents access. For providers, it's okay. We develop practices that don't take insurance, and so we can provide care, but it's such a limitation for people to access what we do.
in other states we are credentialed in insurance systems and so we we are in hospitals i did training in hospitals side by side with mds and and so minnesota we yeah you know i think we will probably get there um and frankly it confuses me why insurance would not have us involved because we are We're not expensive.
We don't recommend $30,000 treatments, and we prevent utilization of the healthcare system. So you'd think insurance, of all people, would really appreciate that benefit, but we're not there yet.
So do people usually come to you for care if they've got a problem, or do they come to you knowing that they just want to prevent problems.
The majority of people that come to me come to me because they have a problem, but there are some people that do because they understand prevention can happen before problems arise, right? And so they want to optimize their health, optimize their functioning, and work like that. It's still, it is a minority, but it's a really fun patient population to work with.
we're working with peak performance and athletics like that. That's another wellness population. That's a lot of fun to work with. Yeah.
So when they come to you, um, is it because they're frustrated with the care that they might be getting on the other side of, of the equation here? Or is it that they want to shy away from, um, using, um, prescription medications and they want to try to be more natural. How is it that they present themselves? And for what particular reasons?
Yeah, I think those are two groups of people that would find me. Those that are suspicious, have lack of trust in the conventional system for a variety of reasons, looking for care outside that. Those that are concerned with the nature of some conventional treatments, they want to find alternatives for what they might see as problematic or a treatment with a lot of side effects.
And there are also people that seek us out for adjunctive or specialty care that they simply can't get in a conventional system. So those are the million types of people that find us.
Clarence. Yeah. Dr. Drew, how are you? Hello. Okay, great. I'm finally here. But this is really kind of, as Stan said a little bit earlier, we have never, we've not talked much about this. But I was wondering, demographically, you know, talk to me about the demographic of people that would probably use your services. Because I, okay, I'm an old guy, okay? Yeah.
So I'm wondering if there is a demographic that would be more inclined to utilize your services. And so let's leave it like that.
Yeah. Well, I see people of all ages, anyone from, you know, six months all the way through through later stages of life. I would say most of our patients are middle aged and like that because these are this is when chronic illness starts to arise and people have maybe the time to even think about taking care of themselves like that. But no, I personally work with a lot of kids.
I work with people in later stages of life as well.
So naturopathic medicine, your treatments, if I'm reading right here from our research, really focus on root causes. It's just like, where is this condition coming from or Help me out here. Is it root causes? So you kind of dig deeper in order to get to your treatment? Or how is it that you engage with somebody's health in order to help them?
Right. You know, case analysis and treatment is really what I think what separates us from other types of providers, how we think about problems. I mean, we're not people do think about root cause or the whole person that are not naturopathic doctors, but that's really what we focus on.
so a couple things there um when when there's a symptom we always try to ask a question why is that happening and and then going to the why and then going deeper and deeper uh with that that's one aspect um and then we're we're thinking about different uh different influences on health uh
external environment, lifestyle things you do, eat, take care of yourself, genetics, and how all this interacts. And So when you view illness or symptoms as part of a larger process and trying to understand the things that cause that process to be happening, you have a lot more treatment options than simply addressing the presenting signs and symptoms.
And so that's what we mean with trying to get to the root cause is how can we work with the deeper influences of health, the deeper risk factors and things that are driving it like that. So it's something like diabetes, right? You have your hemoglobin A1C number, and then you might just prescribe a medication and watch how that goes down, and then your treatment is done.
The hemoglobin A1C is controlled, and that's great, and that's true. That will control a lot of the problems with diabetes. But then there's looking deeper. Why is that off in begin with? And that frequently is lifestyle, food choice, activity level, other health conditions can be driving that.
And so we tend to think about these things as much or more than just getting that number down, however you can.
Barry. So when I think of naturopathic medicine, I really think think of it mostly in terms of um a real emphasis on prevention with a lot of the things that you've talked about diet exercise meditation again getting to the root cause and in my past um And I really don't like the word alternative medicine because it sort of is like pitting, you know, one thing against another.
I actually like integrative medicine or complementary, but I think integrative is a stronger word because, you know, as a family physician, you still acute care oriented. You know, there's a symptom, let's get that better. You address these other issues like exercise and nutrition, things like that. But most of the expertise in, you know, regular Western medicine, it doesn't have that focus.
I mean, as family physicians, we know Something about that, but we generally don't have that time when we're working with patients to really get into those kind of things because I know that I think you've mentioned this is that it takes time. with these things.
You're not gonna see results from today to tomorrow with a number of, and it's not just naturopathic interventions because it's basic health interventions and that actually has a greater impact on illness and morbidity and mortality in the long term, but it's not sexy. as much as getting a $30,000 surgery or some kind of new medicine and treatment.
And so I guess my probing question here is what are some good ways for getting more of that integration approach in sort of our current community? Because you are based here in Minnesota. It sounds like the core of naturopathic physicians has been growing.
And it sounds like you have some connections into that idea of getting people to think about this as an integrative approach that could enhance the outcomes that we get. So it's a little loosey-goosey there in terms of my question, but I think you gathered the gist. And I'm thinking in terms of our listening audience for how to
sort of measure this and think about how it might be helpful to me or to Clarence or to Stan. Especially Stan because he's going to be taking a trip somewhere in the jungle and hopefully he'll make it through there okay.
Yeah, integration and communication between providers is always a challenge, even when you're working in the same healthcare system. And for us, since we're not in the hospitals, not in the clinics, communication is even more difficult. But we try and we do. And I frequently talk to other people's providers, their specialists about things. So we do sometimes coordinate care sometimes.
But I think care coordination is a challenge wherever you are, whatever kind of provider. I think of us, for people, how do we fit into their healthcare? It's a couple of ways. One, we can be thought of as another specialist on their team. And in that way, we have our, I hate to say it, but our box of things we work well with. And that is different than what the other specialists do.
So we're not in opposition, but we don't do the same thing. And we work together. So just... When I work with people with cancer, I don't give input on their conventional care, and we work with it to help it go as well as possible. So that's a place we integrate. Another place people will be here is in place of cancer. conventional primary care initially.
I always encourage people, they need to have their PCP, their relationship with it, with them. But as you said, implementing lifestyle is challenging. And it takes time. And it's not as simple as saying, oh, if only I ate better, I will, you know, there's
Yeah, there's, you know, even with quitting smoking, everyone who smokes these days knows they should quit every time they have a cigarette, right? But they still continue to do that. And so making lifestyle change requires a relationship. It requires helping the understanding of the secondary benefits people get from it, and really coaching and support to learn to make these changes.
So that that takes time. And I, by the way, I think I find that fascinating. Helping people make change is really an interesting part of what I do. And so that's, I feel fortunate we have time. I take an hour for patient visits and it can require that time over months to really get to help them make the changes they need to.
Dr. Jewel, hang in here with me, okay? Okay. It seems like we can just kind of talk, talk. I was really wondering, because I'm from a time where you started talking about herbs and roots and things like that. People like, they kind of back up. How do you talk to people and help them to understand the work and the importance of the integrated medicine, those kinds of things.
How do you help them to do that? Because I think, you know, some folks that I know, once you mentioned Roots, like, you know, so help me with that conversation.
Well, yeah, so that's a matter of education, partially. I mean, you know, we've been using botanical medicine long before we had antibiotics. So there's a huge history of historical use of maybe the entire human history of using plants and natural methods to heal us, right? And so that's one. It's not new.
It's actually, we know how to do that very well when you have the traditional knowledge of it. And two, I think related, there's a concern of research and clinical guidelines for utilizing these things like that. And I think that in many ways is a bit of a stereotype about what kind of research we have around our plants and how we use them.
We have a lot of basic science information around the herbs we use. and a growing body of knowledge of like how to use them. Whole systems research or whole person's research is new though. It's only in the last 10, 20 years, we've had the math to start working with multiple variables in healthcare. And even then we're not great at it yet.
So sure, we have outcome-based research, but, but to really look at the, the the power of something like Chinese medicine or naturopathic medicine. We just don't have the tools quite developed to really answer some of those questions. So that is a, that is a limitation. But I think, um, yeah, these are, these are things we've used for a long time.
We learn, we know a lot about how to use them and we're catching up and really going to town on research on it as we speak. So. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you.
So why isn't this part of, um, medical education?
I don't know. I don't know. It's a great question. Why is there only a small semester course on nutrition in medical school? I don't know. I think there's some nice stories about that. I mean, I think the conventional idea that nutrition doesn't matter is beautiful.
I mean, the idea that the body is so powerful, you can put whatever you want into it, and it's going to be able to do what it needs to do with that. I love that. I wish it was true. But So I don't know.
So here's the other question I have. So linking with pharmacists. So we talked about linking with primary care providers to start with. What about pharmacists? Do you link with them and communicate with them as well?
Actually, no, I haven't spoken with pharmacists much. Pharmacists can interact with us. They often will do the medication or interaction checking for patients like that, or some pharmacists will really help their patient understand how a supplement or medication might be reacting if they have that.
So that's how we interact, but not a lot of direct interaction with pharmacists, at least me personally.
All right. I use myself as an illustration. You walk into a pharmacy. It could even be in a grocery store, right? And you see huge counters of vitamins.
Right.
Okay. So help me out here. Is that part of your scheme? The vitamin supplementation, all these different kinds of vitamins or, you know, it's kind of this kind of juxtaposition between, okay, I'm going up to the counter to get a prescription medication. And then right behind me is this huge counter or display of vitamins. So there's kind of that, shall I call it a little bit of a disconnect?
So tell me where you might fit in in there.
Yeah, there's actually a lot to talk about with the supplement issue and farms. We are trained in use of vitamins, herbs, and supplementation. And so most of us, not all of us, are experts in brands, utilization, and prescription of these. And it's a common tool we use like that. And yeah, and also the supplement industry is a bit of a Wild West, which is good and bad.
Yeah, because they're not regulated. You have a variety of products on the market and a consumer really doesn't. frequently doesn't have the education needed to understand why something costs $20 versus $80. Why would that be helpful or not?
And so most of the things you see in the drugstore are lower quality, lower cost supplementation that may be useless, mislabeled, or be okay, but it's hard to parse that out like that.
OK, Dr. Drew, I'm going to ask you this. What are the most common health issues that people come to you for?
Oh, for me, I work with, I would say, a lot of... Or the issue, or not, yeah, whatever, yeah. Yeah, because, you know, we all have different specialties. Sure, OK. So I tend to... Common things in a primary care setting, cardiovascular risk, a lot of digestive issues. That's very common.
I personally specialize in adjunctive cancer care, complex chronic illness, and special need pediatrics like that. That's where I tend to practice.
Yeah. But with the neuropathic, I mean, the medicines, I mean, what, is it allergies? Is it, I mean, you know... I mean, what do people usually use that alternative medicine for, those kind of things?
Oh, yeah, lots of things. People can use it. Yeah, instead of taking a statin, you might have, for statin intolerant people, there are other replacements, ways of working with diet, lifestyle, supplementation. That's a common place. I think functional digestive issues are a huge, huge area where we can provide a lot of relief for people.
And that's often a big gap in conventional care is working with functional health issues. You know, IBS, people can be debilitated, unable to leave the house. And often the people just don't have enough training to actually help with them or drink more water, eat more fiber and like that. So functional health conditions are a huge place we help people.
And like I said, you know, adjunct care for autoimmune autoimmunity cancer care, serious conditions as well.
So when you, when you were saying that, you know, the first thing that popped in my head is this whole issue around gut health. Yeah. You know what I mean? Is it, so I'm not a doctor, so I have to talk, I have to talk graphically. Okay. Great. Okay. So is the medicine that you use, does it help us with those kinds of things, the bacterials? I mean, those kinds of things, is that, is that part of,
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Okay. Yeah. Yep. And yeah, yeah, it matters so much. You know, your gut's just a huge immune active mucosal tissue, right? And inflammation there affects everything greatly. So at the very least, that's really important for systemic health. And like I said, people with IBS or certain heartburn conditions, it's not really a Prilosec deficiency.
It's, you know, it can be a bacterial imbalance. It can be a food reaction. A number of some mechanical issues are a lot of, a lot of possibilities of what that is. Yeah.
I know, I noticed that when I would take a look at some of the research, I mean, you spend a lot of time with your patients. Yes. I mean, you know, I mean, you know, an hour or two hours. I mean, with the pain, I'm like, wow, you know, that that's, you know, yeah. Anyway, that, that, that's kind of, that's kind of interesting and exciting to know because most of us only get 15 minutes, maybe.
Right. Barry, go ahead.
Now, you know, one of the things that I learned from the first family physician I worked with in the office after my residency, he kept, I wouldn't say having to pound it into me because I got it, but he said, the better the relationship you have with your patient, the better the outcome.
Yes.
And the reality is, is that it's hard to on a long-term basis, I mean, I guess long-term you can, but with the shorter visits, it's really difficult to get into those kinds of things.
And so if I may say, Drew, that I'm a little envious that you get to, you know, to spend that amount of time, you know, with patients, but clearly this idea that you really get to know who they are as people and sort of, you know, you said that you really like to see that change and it's only
I know it's rhetorical, but it's clear that by spending that time, you get to understand them a lot better. And then you're going to be able to come up with solutions that sort of fit who the person is. Because everybody is individual. And so it seems that that's a high leverage point on the one hand.
And it also, but it's a two-way commitment that, you know, the patients and the people that you work with have to be willing to be in the long-term because again, the change tends not to be from today to tomorrow. It might be from, from this year to the, to the next year. And so I'm just wondering if, again, not to give away your secrets here as a naturopathic physician, but are there, um,
you know, some of the high points of things that you've learned working with patients in a naturopathic medicine setting that can be generalized to the population, that people were to, you know, be more mindful of those things and maybe be thinking about that. Because you just don't get that chance to have that conversation in a 15-minute, you know, office visit.
You know, even having their primary care physician So I'm wondering if you could just speak a little bit to that.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think that's a really important point. One of the things I like about naturopathic medicine is really acknowledging the humanity of the provider and the humanity of the patient. And we really canonize and talk about that relationship. You know, docere, doctor is teacher, right? Doesn't docere mean teacher in Latin? And that is the foundation of the relationship.
It's mutuality, right? Not so hierarchical. When you have very little time, you have to just kind of convey frequently, you have to convey the information, make sure they understand, and that's what you got. And when you have time, you can enter in relationship you can skillfully and nicely push back or point out where people are not doing the right thing.
And because of the relationship and the shared space of you two as people in the room, people can make change and go past things that were holding them back from making those changes. And I think Maybe specifically to your question, that therapeutic relationship in that moment between two people is so important for providers and people to heal. And that's...
something I wish everyone had time to cultivate and in training to cultivate because how you hold yourself as a provider in that moment, um, take some, some practice, some skill, some coaching about how, how it is best for you to be, how can you be yourself truly and, you know, the right kind of person and right kind of provider. So, yeah.
You know, it's interesting. I, you know, we just did a, um, one of our, we're doing three shows on health insurance and we did our first show and we were talking about, um, the issue of trust, when people are choosing health plans and health insurance, et cetera. And what we're talking about here in many ways is a really good trusted relationship.
And that really helps overall in the delivery of care. Our listening audience can't see you, Drew, but all I can tell the listening audience is I wouldn't mind going to see Drew because when you just look at him, you can say, God, you know you can trust this guy. So there's part of it that comes through.
loud and strong just by seeing you go ahead clarence yeah now john asked you this question i mean is i want you to came to me is that this chemical versus natural healing time yeah you know uh you know it uh when people come to you and i mean because you're in both realms is there a benefit in in um natural healing time versus just a chemical healing time.
If I'm making sense, you know, some people want quick, quick results. Other people need a longer term effect. So anyway, so go ahead.
Right. A couple of things with that. I always say I'm medication agnostic. But what I mean, there is a time for medication when it's the most elegant decision for the patient and the health care condition, you know, and sometimes really high intensity interventions are most elegant. Sometimes it's best to just do the surgery or whatever. So it depends on the person.
And, uh, and sometimes the, it is best to work with something with potentially fewer side effects or, um, can work more gently. And, uh, that's a, that's a discussion with the patient. Most people that come to see me would prefer not to do the medication. That's why they're there or interested in, in doing, um, doing something else besides that.
But they're frequently, I tell them it's best to just do the medication, you know? Um, and, um, And with both of these, I think thinking about the duration of treatment and the outcome of treatment is important too. So if you're going to do any intervention, when does it end and why? And what is it trying to change in the system so you no longer need it?
And that kind of thinking applies to medication as well as herbs, as well as diet. So, yeah.
So let me ask you, you know, for, you know, healthcare practitioners, they're licensed, right? Are you licensed? Are naturopaths licensed? And if there's any problems, is there a board, for instance, like they have for physicians, for instance?
Yeah, great question. We are registered, and we are registered with the Minnesota Board of Medical Practice. Got it. Registration is very much like licensure, except it is not. And so with licensure, you have your own guiding board and so on. And in Minnesota, we're developing that infrastructure to potentially move towards licensure. In most other states, we have licensure at the state level.
And healthcare scope is determined at the state level, so it's not a federal regulation. Each state will choose scope and regulation of their providers.
So another question that came to mind is, you know, you go see your primary care physician these days, and everything is data-based. It's like, okay, let's get you into the system here. Let's get you into Epic and let's get everything down, get all your test results, et cetera, et cetera. So how is it, or maybe you don't, but how is it that you utilize data in order to drive care?
Well, we use electronic medical records. I love looking at lab tests and history of things. And so we, yep, as much history as we can get is really important for patient care like that. And we certainly utilize research and evidence-based practice when appropriate. And so we're thinking about those things as well.
Yeah. Yeah. The other thing, and we've talked about this on Health Chat or other professionals. So do you link with, for instance, like community health workers in order to help deliver the type of care that you promote?
Yeah, I would say not regularly. Mere in private practice. And so certainly refer to community services and so on. But I'm not a Medicaid provider. And so like, yeah, my connection to those systems is, yeah, peripheral best.
Then the other one that came up and you wrote me a note.
Oh, yeah.
Okay, it's like, okay, let's help for our listening audience because there's a lot of terminology that's floating around here. Okay, so we have naturopathy and we have homeopathy.
Yeah.
Okay, so help us out here.
They are not the same thing. They are not, yeah. Okay. Yeah, all those apathies are specialties, right?
Right.
So... Homeopathy is kind of a distinct system of health care developed by a fellow named Hahnemann in the 1800s. And it works with very, very low dose botanicals and substances. And it's kind of an energetic, kind of weird mechanistic medication system. Some MDs will use homeopathy as a treatment. It's a modality, just like Chinese medicine. But it is not identical.
Not all naturopathic doctors use homeopathy at all. And it's even a little controversial these days because of the lack of mechanism with it like that. And so not the same thing.
Yeah. Yeah.
Although my favorite homeopath is a medical doctor and I refer to him for that. So it's, yeah. Gotcha. Gotcha.
I want to ask this question. Yeah. And I won't be able to complete this sentence, but so you got to help me, Dr. Drew. Okay. Sure. Naturopathic medicine is a preventative. Yeah. Okay. Can you now explain that to me, please?
Yeah, so one type of preventive medicine is early detection, right? And that's not what we're talking about with early detection. We're talking about identifying risk factors and treating the risk factors. So that will ideally prevent something from arising in the future. So yeah, that's what we mean by prevention, trying to get to the risks before it becomes a true disease entity. Yeah.
Great, great.
Thank you. This has been really enlightening. I mean, it, it, it, you know, I hope our, our, our listening audience realizes that this is, this is an avenue that's worth exploring. And, and you can work it through, you know, in, in, in collaboration with your primary care provider. So let me ask you if you,
If people want to connect with your practice in the state of Minnesota, they can go to your website, right?
Yep.
Okay, and that's what?
Neighborhoodnaturopathic.com. My clinic is Neighborhood Naturopathic.
Okay. Now, for a listening audience that's in other states around the country, where do they start?
yeah so most states will have an association of naturopathic physicians and starting at your state association is the best place to go and that way you'll know what kind of provider you're finding um i think we wrote about this a little bit naturopath is not a protected title in many many places and so you have a variety of providers that might use that handle um
And so it can be simply confusing who's who. By going to the state association of naturopathic physicians or doctors, then they'll have a find a doctor search option and you'll see who the registered or licensed naturopathic doctors are in your state.
If there's any further questions, information that you think would be really really useful for our listening audience we can get that in on our our website so share that with me and we'll get that out to them okay to make sure part of this show so um last comments drew what do you you know if you have that torch in your hand what do you want to say
Yeah, yeah. Well, I think it's right now it's important that people understand what we do, at least in Minnesota. That's the big challenge right now. I think there's a lot of just a lack of education precisely what we do, what our training and approach is. And that kind of differentiates us from other alternative providers like that. So I think that's the main thing to get out there is who we are.
our scope, how we practice and how we think and how we fit in with conventional as well as alternative care like that.
And hopefully help shatter helps with that.
Go ahead. I was going to say that your last comment was really what I was going to say. Thank you for putting up with our questions. I mean, because at least from my side, at least from my side, I mean, I had no idea about, about really what, what we were going to, I mean, you probably could tell by the questions that I asked. I'm not anybody else.
But it's very, very important for us to really understand what are the resources that are available to us. You know, how do we utilize them? You know what I mean? And so many times, so many times, like I said, you know, the, you know, naturopathic, that's just not part of my common practice. conversation, you know, and it's really good for me to be able to have some kind of definition to that.
And I think that you've done a phenomenal job. Thank you. Very personable, very, you know, very, you know, very insightful conversation. And I do appreciate this. And, you know, at least I can now enter into the conversation.
So thank you for that. Oh, my pleasure. And these are great questions. These are things that people are thinking and don't know. So it's perfect.
Barry, last thoughts. Just I think that our health chatter audience is going to really benefit from learning more about a health care resource that really, again, gets at the root of a lot of our health problems today. as we've talked about and really the focus on prevention and really leveraging the relationship.
Again, I think it's how do people get more knowledge and understand how to access naturopathic medicine, naturopathic physicians as an option for their healthcare and for their healthcare improvements. So Drew, as I say, it was great to meet you in person. and I just really appreciate your being on the program today. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you.
So, you know, I underscore what Barry is saying. I think, you know, maybe one of the key takeaways here is that, hey, you know, here's an option. Here's an option that, you know, we should all be aware of, and hopefully Health Chatter will help that. to get the word out. As things become more sophisticated in the field, feel free to contact us.
We'll get you back on the show and to talk about new things that are coming up in the naturopathic field. So, Dr. Lucci, thank you so much for being on Health Chatter. For our listening audience, our next show coming up, interestingly enough, is Secure Firearm Storage. When we think about all the things that are going on around firearm safety,
and all the deaths that we're seeing, we're really going to look at that as a major health issue. So that'll be coming up as our next show. So for everybody out in the listening world, keep health chatting away.