A Physician's Guide to Natural Health Products, 2nd Edition

Do natural health solutions really exist? Yes. Nutritious foods, vitamins, minerals, aminoacids, algae and extracts from herbs, plants, flowers, roots, seeds, bushes, trees, fish, mussels and animals have all been proven to have healing properties. If natural health solutions exist for many modern diseases, why don't the pharmaceutical companies produce them? Pharmaceutical companies exist to make money. (As all companies do.) One company makes 90% of its profits from only 6 patented and skillfully marketed drugs. They cannot patent natural products, so there is no profit motive to provide these products. Why don't more doctors know about natural health solutions? The medical profession and pharmaceutical companies work together very closely. We physicians continue our learning by reading medical journals and attending meetings. These are almost always oriented towards pharmaceutical companies and their drugs. The end result is the average physician has almost no awareness of the curative potential of natural treatments. Why has there been, in some cases, a negative image regarding natural health solutions? There's no question there has been some exaggeration and hype by untrained people talking about these issues. However, that doesn't take away from the effectiveness of natural health solutions, when carefully chosen by skilled professionals. There seem to be so many natural health products out there, with all sorts of claims about them. It all seems pretty confusing to me. I have carefully chosen and screened the premier natural health products we recommend and explain how to take them. They work and I tell you why they work. - Dr. James A. Howenstine, M.D.