I came across this article today, which is rather damning on Nutritionalists, please comment if you like. Isn't medical mistakes the no3 killer in the USA? Shame they have judged the entire profession of Nutritional Therapy on this:
[url]Are nutritional therapists worth the money? | Which? Conversation[/url]
There was also this report in the Daily Mail yesterday
(which I have just realised is basically the same report, but it just shows how the media pick up on opportunities to denegrate any alternatives to the good old NHS!
A very big subject :eek:.
I am not impressed with Which?'s findings. The first question I would ask is where were the Nutritional Therapists trained, their qualifications, and are they BANT registered? I would also ask whether they have a record of keeping up with their professional training. As you know I always recommend a registered therapist - there is no necessity to register at present and there are people who have done weekend courses (as in other therapies) who set themselves up to be 'nutritionists'. Unfortunately this lets in all sorts who have had neither adequate basic training or instruction about how to advise clients.
The trouble is that all well-trained NT's with university degrees and good 4-year training are being tarred with the same brush as those whom I describe above.
I agree that Nutritional Therapy looks at medical problems from a different perspective from the conventional medical one (that of Functional Medicine) and there are therapies available which differ from those offered by the NHS, but that does not allow the NT to diagnose or treat a person without their having been seen by a doctor first. We are not allowed to treat anyone with a serious illness.
There are also the reporters' opinions about how the therapy was presented to them - what was said and what they actually heard may be slightly different owing to the 'client's' preconceived ideas.
I have seen information put about that is dubious and there are clearly those who are practicing who shouldn't be, but what we learned at college was all evidence-based and it was drummed into us that it must be so. Much of it is likely not to be published by PubMed, the medical information base, but a considerable amount of what is, is ignored by doctors in general. If a study is not done by a pharmaceutical company then it is not likely to be noticed - and studies on foods done by these companies are often very badly constructed.
If a client requests treatment for something that is the doctor's realm then one can only do so with the doctor's tacit agreement, or if the client rejects the medical plan altogether - but it is not a place I would go. Dieticians work with the doctors - that is their job.
I do agree that many of the supplements, though not all, supplied from chemists and supermarkets are of poor quality (being poorly absorbed) or of such minute quantities as to be therapeutically almost useless and therefore a waste of money.
What a difficult situation when a respected journal such as Which? comes up with this sort of finding. There will be ructions I'm sure!! It will be interesting to see what BANT has to say.
I wonder how many people have been to see their 'experts' and felt they have been let down or misdiagnosed etc. and needed to find help elsewhere? Of course those 'experts' wouldn't know it, because nobody actually goes back to someone who's let them down to tell them so. About time some research was done into how well GPs, consultants and NHS dieticians do when presented with some issues.
I had an issue with my eyes a while back, constantly watering to the point it was making my eyes and face sore, went to see my doctor who hadn't got a clue and said I would have to be referred, but there would be several months wait. I offered to go see my optician which she said would be a good idea, so I did and the optician (a qualified professional of the eyes no less!) wasn't sure, but just gave me some advice on 'managing' it told me to come back in a few weeks if it wasn't any better. It wasn't, so I went back. The optician said they couldn't do anything else and referred me back to the doctor, who then referred me to a consultant at the eye hospital. Eventually, I got to see the consultant, who spent a couple of minutes asking what the problem was, about 1 minute looking at my eyes and then diagnosed 'blepheritis' saying that they hadn't got a clue what caused it and that there was no cure for it and all we could do was to 'manage' it and I'd have to live with it, but they flushed my tear ducts with a needle of saline whilst I was there just to be sure they were clear. At the same time I'd had a blood test for other reasons with the doctor and it had shown my thyroid TSH level was a little high, but just on the borderline of the scale, meaning it didn't need any treatment, according to the GP. I researched this myself, and found that the UK uses different limits on the scale to the US, and that in the US they consider people around the same level as myself as needing treatment, albeit just at a low dose, and such people had benefitted greatly. I discussed this with my GP who said it was likely that the US was using a different scale to us and I shouldn't worry about it. So I researched again and found that it's the same scale and then went back to my GP. She then said the US does seem to be more agressive in their treatment of conditions, but she agreed to give me a low dose of treatment for underactive thyroid (being a supplement rather than a pharmaceutical I was happy to try it) and see if it helped at all. Within a week of taking the medication my eyes started to seem a little better, and within 2 weeks the supposedly incurable blepheritis was completely cleared up. Upon returning to my doctor she was amazed and had expected it to help my other symptoms but not to have cleared the eyes.
So the 'experts' know what they're doing eh? A consultant who has either mis-diagnosed or offered a mistaken prognosis, a GP who just didn't know anything about it because, most likely it's not a basic infection to be treated with antibiotics, and a professional optician who could only offer help in 'managing' the condition but didn't know what it was, and then a GP who needed to have medical details explained and given in prinouts as proof to convince them to at least try a treatment.
That's not to say all the 'experts' don't have a clue, but it goes to show that they can criticise those who don't work in the NHS fields, but fail to see their own failings or the benefit that those complementary therapies can provide.
All Love and Reiki Hugs
I wonder how many people have been to see their 'experts' and felt they have been let down or misdiagnosed etc. and needed to find help elsewhere? Of course those 'experts' wouldn't know it, because nobody actually goes back to someone who's let them down to tell them so. About time some research was done into how well GPs, consultants and NHS dieticians do when presented with some issues. ...
That's not to say all the 'experts' don't have a clue, but it goes to show that they can criticise those who don't work in the NHS fields, but fail to see their own failings or the benefit that those complementary therapies can provide.
All Love and Reiki Hugs
Hello Giles
I echo your problems with thyroid misdiagnosis and it took a Doctor of Functional Medicine (Dr Mouton) and Nutritional Therapy to sort me out!
In the past few years in various countries when the doctors went on strike the death rate fell. Deaths in USA from Medical interventions and drugs taken as directed are now the main cause of death in USA according to Dr Mercola. So, yes, they are not very good at looking at ther own situation and are all too quick to say how wrong other therapists are. In fact I find they tend to be very self-satisfied. But that's my opinion.
Hi Guys .
It doesn’t really surprise me in the way that mainstream governing bodies / organisations are poo pooing everything nowadays from nutritional advice to alternative healing practices . As in other threads here on the forums homeopathy was mentioned recently and was tarred with the same brush as witchcraft .
I heard on a t.v documentary that some governing body wanted to reduce the vitamin C dosage to 250 mg per tablet and a while back it was kelp . doh!!
Is it a coincidence that some of the best vitamins and minerals that nature provides are being reduced in strength? It’s all you hear nowadays in the ways of reducing the dosages of this and that and restricting the availability of this and that . . I purchased some honeysuckle herbs from a chinese supplier 4 months ago and was advised that new E.U. regulations will push up the price of this and make it harder for us in the u.k to buy it .
There doesn’t seem to be as much attention on the rubbish ingredients that’s within our foods and to whether they are genetically modified or not, full of sugar or not (and supposed to be good for you) hahah .
There just seems to be a lot of hypocrisy and back to front mentality in these instances .
Lets put it this way my mum has studied nutrition for forty years and is now 60 . She hasn’t been to the doctors in 50 years . She has never had any medicines / antibiotics . It is no coincidence that she is well and strong through her knowledge of nutrition .
I don’t expect doctors that prescribe antibiotics to be knowledgeable in that many natural substances can be used as a substitute at times for infections like garlic, cayenne pepper, vit C, tumeric etc . . but the thing is do these natural substances weaken our immune system?? Err NO .
Do antibiotics and such likes?? Err YES .
It’s like I said its all back to front ...
x daz x