welcome viewers i'm your host dr heidi weinhold in you're watching asked the nature path today i am so proud to have john laird on my show a fellow natural patrick dr there are a few natural pass in pennsylvania that have a a stature as john laird he has made inroads in integrated medicine which will help natural path to follow him john is on staff at u p m c center for integrative medicine in shadyside and he is within each person has an innate healing power and that the purpose of the natural path or the goal of the natural is to restore health through removing obstacles to health and stimulating that inner healing power s don't exercise enough lead a stressful life but have difficulty managing stress and then choose habits that are counterproductive to handling that stress of a big part is is life style that only for chronic disease sure and else only to explain to the audience a little bit more too about like the types of modalities that the natural path of doctors used to restore balance and try to get people back back use a specialist in terms of dietary supplements especially ok they're not familiar with all the variety of dietary supplements out there in the drug dietary supplement interactions and so forth and they're more concerned about those things or their patients and so i think that's a really good point because actually natural pa that doctors are the only group of specialists that are trained in our drug and herb nutrient and interactions and to see how that is so valuable to really to integrate into into work with physicians and because physicians aren't trained  traditional supplements or they're not they don't know what will interact yeah that's true and so and they have a lot of concern about that and they're you know there's been a lot of case reports and other information the medical literature about these kind of interaction and so that's one of the benefits that i can provide and you can provide and others that are not your past can provide is identifying what types of interactions are possible to occur with the patients medications can you explain to to our audience what it means integrated medicine yeah integrative medicine refers to the best of both worlds that is complimentary and alternative medicine and conventional medicine and so it's combining both both practices field so to speak and it's based on evidence based medicine so the use of therapies based upon body medicine approaches ok so not so much with dietary supplements but with those other forms i think it would be hard to do a clinical study in natural pathic medicine because really our treatment is more focused on the whole person and i really want to kind of emphasize to the audience it really isn't about just supplementing you know prozac for st john's wort in that natural pastor really you know part of our philosophy is looking at the cause and treating the cause and just not the sentence so like if someone came in with with migraines there's there's several different causes for for migraines whether it's hormone or environmental or stress related and you're treating the cause and not just the symptoms and so the treatment can can vary it can be different what what are some conditions that you have enjoyed particular success treating natural path likely was the come to mind  some people it is just probably a subset of people and again like you said each person is more individual and so you find groups of people that response a dietary therapy write another set down and so those that do it's really remarkable how changes their diet or introducing a program out of this right back to really be beneficial to people with europe without syndrome particularly you know i think i found that as well i also found that people that don't respond really well to those diet changes we also have to look at their medications some of some people that are on a prescription pain meds were even over the counter a lot of them contain gluten and also other medicines for acid reflux can contain gluten so if  people aren't responding with it to dietary changes look look at your medications because that could be and also hidden and culprit sure so we're we're going to take a break and i stay with us because we have we have great great information to foll i'm an american member and i'm getting things done a national endowment for financial education a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping people just like you get smart about their money log on to smart about money dot org today and start taking control of your financial little bit about what some of the the conditions that you enjoy treating natural path equally can you q talk a little bit more about some of your protocols for treating fiber my al can exercise that are some people can only go by walk for five minutes but even that's important ok and then taking a look at there's different approaches in terms of magnesium and malic acid is a supplement but for people that have really severe symptoms i find that it's helped people to do a little bit of a detoxification protocol ok usually use really i usually use supplements that are geared towards that along with a dietary change which removes a lot of foods that people are generally sensitive to and i do the same thing this is this is fantastic because fibromyalgia as is increasingly common but what are some of the food food triggers that you find and in people's diets well for a month i had to ask them to avoid all gluten containing grains dairy products so corn citrus fruits  it and so and sugar of course and white flour but and then incorporate a powdered supplement which helps with the liver detoxification and helps to heal the g i tract t say sure they get to prescribe and they get a treat and they get to order diagnostic tests so course they're always under supposed to be under the supervision of or you know medical doctor or just apathic physician i think that your path in the state should be licensed i think that our training is for more than sufficient for licensure i do feel that that actually leads us to really pressing issue is in this state that we are heavily c i mean it's pretty pretty extensive grueling it's grueling yet in this state we can't practice the way we've been trained and there's physician assistants that have you know two years less training than we do that are out there and they're practicing more and you teach more than just anatomy what else do you united states that have licensure and in those states you can do those procedures you know that you can you work with other medical doctors you know natural passed or more integrated into the medical community and you work together to provide integrated care and in this state you know we won't get insurance coverage for up for our service is and until we are licensed so really just trying to take this opportunity to educate what it is that we do and i have to say this that i want to kind of clarify to the audience what while you're here as well that there is a difference between what it is that you and i do versus there's other people out there that can call themselves a natural dr that you can get a degree online that may have never taken anatomy they may have never actually touched a human body they haven't had a tape board exams they just merely go online and they get th certificate where it says that their board certified in natural path medicine and there's nothing else there to help the public discern what it is that we do with what was a deal and see i think that is so dangerous how do you feel about this it is dangerous first of all they have no knowledge of medical disorders and therefore if a patient comes to them and they have really no idea of how to assess that patient and how to diagnose that patient and how to form a treatment plan they really have no way of knowing how serious the disorder is they tend to prescribe much like a person in a health food store here in the us if i really don't feel that these statutes i should be able to counsel viewers at home and in people that are going through college or regiment i've actually heard stories where something is male or a natural path or told them to discontinue their chemotherapy or their radiation treatments and that just i find so appalling and there's there's such confusion the only credibility that this group has i of medical training program and you know it's it's a little knowledge can be can be dangerous you know and anybody with a military degree you know anybody at home knows the goes online and on the internet can learn about the same thing as they have learned and you know mark twain had her at a really good quote here where he said you know the only bad thing about learning medicine from a book is that you can you can die from a misprint feel that way but really do you know a national legislative chair for our state association and i'm talking to legislators and really campaigning for licensure in the state and i wanted to stress to viewers that if you share my beliefs in the belief so john to go out and in speak to your local representatives you know write them a letter tell them that that you that you want access to this type of of care there and ask your representative to support p n p dot org but you know john i want to go back to just a little bit more about this the center for integrative medicine e p a and see how do they feel about about natural path in medicine how do they feel about about licensure are they are they supportive yes they are supportive of the medical director of this sort of particular person was supportive and i believe that other m d s would be supportive and i know most position assistance would be supportive and because they recognize the training that we have i think it's when we have to get the word out that more people need to know about us and about what we can do and that  together with conventional medicine we can form what's known as integrative medicine which is the new really model for medicine and there are many many centers for integrative medicine throughout the country there at harvard  how to take care of themselves and we have the time we have the skills to be able to do that exactly lou got about the medicine is really good in the big three legged whether it's preventing heart disease diabetes and cancer it's because it's focusing on lifestyle and incorporating in a certain attritional supplements looking through history finding out what people can attend tendencies genetic tendencies people have an what is it that with that we know and our knowledge now that can help prevent them from from getting those conditions and i really do believe that you being on the show is going to do educate the viewers at home and really to educate them about what it is a natural path i meant medicine is and what we can do in just a helping increase this this grassroots roots effort because it is it's consumer driven like consumers now are demanding access to natural path of care they want to to be this to be integrative and they want their insurance the coverage for you know a lot of things are going to play out with this regardless of how people feel about the the obama bill but they do have a there's a term in there for it that it would allow coverage for in a grade of medical practitioners and that that would be an unnatural path of doctor so let's let's get this through directly i used to be a new paradigm for medicine in the united states and i think that the healing power within and that is stimulating that patients ability to heal themselves through knowledge of what are the proper types of foods to eat or exercise or ways to manage their stress all of those things can reduce the healing power and supplement the conventional medical treatment and really what people need to be aware of is they can you choose your medications you're also choosing your side effect you know people are so quick to  take a pill and yet doctors are really hesitant to take them off those pills once they start to people can kinda start to go on and i depressant medications or they may you know begin to take their osteoporosis drugs that's that's in the news a lot lately but you know after ten years and it's increasing their risk for for hip fractures i mean there's when you pick your medication you pick your drug i mean you could be drug you pick your side effect  side effects are cumulative and the more they just keep adding more and more drugs to the list we're really becoming an overmedicated society in people are afraid even liability wise to you know start weaning off of of some of types of processing of pain and so some people may be more susceptible to are experiencing pain and then the physical manifestations of that soft tissue becoming that's necessarily a flame but just painful so i think that they should see a qualified practitioner and you know that yourself myself or some other natural path as well as the conventional meat those are some of the basic things you know maybe increase your level you know fish or fish or elles or flax or else or maybe three or so there's different things you can do in terms of altering inflammation within the body but again most people have a hard time natural that medicine asportation patients have to take more responsibility for their health it's true they have to be disciplined they have to vote if needed and you know sometimes that's just motivating the patient to be that way but as they often tell my students even i say when a patient comes in with the metabolic syndrome and other high risk for cardiovascular disease and type two diabetes that you don't tell them well you know you can try to lifestyle and you might be successful but you can reverse your disease you can instead of going down and path where you can spend you know thousands of dollars on medicines and physicians that you can change your lifestyle and go in this direction and reverse the disease you can you get you have a window of opportunity and i i don't think people treat metabolic syndrome a little too lightly in that you know diabetes and how awful it is it increases your risk for silent heart attacks you know the blood sugar covers the nerve endings in your in your hands in your feet and it's important to to intervene in to take those steps and not treat it so so lightly urged some people say i just have a little bit of sugar and it's it's it's dangerous just like being pregnant yeah no