Allopathy Vs. Naturopathy: Differences Worth Knowing

Allopathy vs naturopathy is one of the popular discussion when it comes to choosing a treatment modality. It is important to know the difference between the two and the ways in which they both act to be able to make an informed decision.

Let us understand the concept of Allopathy vs Naturopathy in detail.

While Allopathy selectively targets the symptoms of a disease, Naturopathy believes in going holistic in treating an ailment and takes into consideration the spiritual, emotional and physical well-being.

Allopathy has long remained an inseparable part of human health care system with its traits of being quick, efficient and highly effective. While these features tempt you to select this treatment option from Allopathy vs Naturopathy, they sometimes do come with some side effects. As the awareness has grown regarding medicines used in Allopathy and the risk they pose alongside treating certain diseases or managing symptoms, the naturopathy has started to take centre stage now.

It is now being realized that with the allopathic approach of handling diseases, you are dealing with symptoms and an apparent disease. However, this does not tackle the deep rooted disease tendency and hence may not cure completely. This creates a possibility that you may again experience health problems later and may need more of the allopathic medications, when the underlying disease cause manifests itself again.

Naturopathy, on the contrary, although being slower than Allopathy, is an efficient way to deal with the health symptoms and also cure the underlying cause of disease. Thus when you consider Allopathy vs Naturopathy, you can conclude that Allopathy offers faster relief but may not completely eradicate the disease, whereas Naturopathy may take time but will try to eliminate the disease casing tendency from within you.

For example – A pain-killer shoots your unbearable pain within 5-10 minutes without really acting upon the actual cause behind that pain. On its downside, the pain-killers could get your liver damaged. With Naturopathy, you work in coordination with your body’s natural healing capabilities and boost them so they can sort out the health problems in their best possible ways without subjecting the body to the side-effects.

Let’s now take an insightful view of the properties of Allopathy vs Naturopathy.

The term ‘Allopathy’ was coined by Samuel Hahnemann (who also founded Homeopathy) in the 19th century. The various synonyms that are used for Allopathy are conventional, orthodox, and modern medicine.

According to Allopathy, good health is a condition when there is no presence of any obvious disease. Being a mainstream medicine, it makes use of surgery, drugs, radiation, chemotherapy and even attenuated pathogens as the treatment modalities for diseases.

Allopathy focusses upon the visible signs and symptoms, pathlogical changes and infection causing organism. Hence, it relies solely on clinical examination and investigations to confirm a diagnosis. A major part of Allopathy is dedicated to the substances that kill infectious agents. While it is one of the most important part of Allopathic treatment, but must be used judiciously to avoid unnecessary side effects and drug resistance issues. Also, Allopathy does not consider the emotional or spiritual aspects of your health condition and may not be able to relate to any symptoms that are present without any specific cause.

The major difference in Allopathy vs Naturopathy is that Allopathy lays emphasis on chemical drugs, anatomical parts, and disease names and not on holistic healing, radical cure or spiritual plane of a person. The allopathy works by dividing anatomy into various categories that have their respective specialists who treat a disease by focusing on their part only. How that will affect the other part hasn’t been a point of debate in allopathy. The changing trends have now forced the conventional medical system of Allopathy to incorporate a functional and integrative way of handling a disease, in order to create a comprehensive medical system. This, still needs to be well-cordinated to provide efficient patient care. It will provide a long-term solution unlike the short-term fix being given by the current conventional system.

John Scheel gave the term ‘Naturopathy’ in 1895. It is an alternative form of medicine that is based on indigenous or traditional medicine and vitalism and is not an evidence-based medicine. The mainstream medicine sees naturopathy as ineffective and possibly harmful. Naturopathy works by identifying the various aspects of a patient and accordingly employing natural therapies to correct the structural, physiological, and psychological balance.

According to Naturopathy, good health can be considered as a condition when the body is performing at its highest fitness level with respect to the physical, psychological and spiritual factors. It is a combination of Homoeopathy, Traditional Chinese medicine, physical medicine and traditional European nature cure.

Being a holistic treatment, the patients undergoing naturopathy are given recommendations for their diet, exercise and lifestyle. The main focus is on the person as a whole, which is a major difference in Allopathy vs Naturopathy.

With an overall aim of preventing diseases or curing illnesses with their core cause, a naturopathy physician concentrates on enhancing the effectiveness of the immune system to facilitate efficient eradication of the complete disease. The body and mind in whole is treated as inter-related organs with their co-dependent functions.

Naturopath physicians determine the malnutrition and toxicity levels by analyzing hair sample, nutritional needs by urine and saliva analysis, and blood condition by live field microscopy. Naturopathy brings into the use of various herbs, supplements, and natural foods with no known side effects.

Naturopathy had its contributions from the scientist Claude Bernard in the 19th century who proposed the health and disease in a different view. He stressed the need to make the person’s internal environment inhospitable for the germs to flourish as an effective way of tackling the pathogens and diseases.

When considering Allopathy vs Naturpathy, it is important to know that Naturopaths believe that the body is a perfect combination of all the organs which work in coordination with each other to provide a stable and valuable function. What we eat, think and do affects our health, and therefore, it should be given its fair share of attention. The supplements greatly increase our body’ inherent capabilities that make them essential for good health. Also, Naturapathy promotes that physical and emotional balance with proper nutrition and regular physical activity helps to develop strength and keep illnesses at bay.

Allopathy, an evidence based modern medicine has long secured a prominent space in research and development to discover drugs that treat diseases effectively with fewer side effects. The process of its development, however, involves the trials on animals and people. Faster results offered by Allopathy treatment is appreciable, which can be greatly useful in certain situations. Allopathy is now taking a step towards the creation of an integrated form of treatment that considers the body as a whole rather than an organ or part while treating.

On the other hand, the popularity of naturopathy is also increasing as it appears to be a more efficient method of treatment with its way of working that aims to encourage the body’s immunity to let it efficiently fight the diseases, with no known side effects.

When considering Allopathy vs Naturopathy, both have their own benefits and must be used depending on the case. An emergency situation may require the use of Allopathy for faster results while a chronic condition may be managed better with Naturopathy. Hence, it is best to stay informed about such treatment modalities and follow medical advice appropriately.