College of Naturopathic Medicine Ireland - Courses in Nutrition, Acupuncture, Herbal Medicine, Homeopathy, and Naturopathy

Health Articles

Candida Diet
Anti Candida Diet Advice If your findings show that you have an intestinal Candida overgrowth that needs treatment, an effective remedy will be prescribed to you, which you have to take according to the instructions. However, experience has shown that medication for intestinal fungi without a special diet is not sufficient. The dietary advice given below [...]

Detox - Sarah Rahman of The Body Whispers
We are today enjoying longer lifespans, but when we take a closer look, we can see that during this time our health is generally worse. Often our illnesses remain once they begin and are managed rather than completely cured, e.g. joint pains, asthma, heart disease, digestive complaints such as IBS, acidity and hiatus hernia, infertility, [...]

The Business of Drugs: Drug Marketing Wars Meet the War on Terror
02/01/2008 Dear Members, An interesting turn of events we thought you might be interested in before the story disappears altogether. Remember all the noise from that short lived “furore” a while back over kick backs and corruption charges concerning the UN’s “Oil for Food” program? Well, long story short, LOTS of bribe money going into certain pockets [...]

You, Psychiatry and Your Family - The Institute for Nearly Genuine Research
If your children or a relative are ever prescribed “mental health” drugs, you have good reason to be worried. Please circulate this. To get an idea how toxic these drugs are the “Side Effects Made Simple” series from The Institute for Nearly Genuine Research is worth a visit, (apart from having a funny [...]

Quackbusting the Quackbusters
Free e-book launched exploring anti-nutritional lobby groups Have you ever wondered why there is so much opposition to nutritional approaches for today’s major health issues? Is it really because the science is weak, or is it more to do with politics and money? I was fascinated to read the free e-book, published this month on the internet, [...]

Start the New Year the Naturally Healthy Way
Many people feel that they have overindulged during the Christmas season. Doing the rounds of Christmas parties, Christmas dinners and Christmas leftovers can cause lots of us to go into January feeling bloated, tired, a little down and somewhat toxic. Luckily there is a lot we can do to pep ourselves up using nutrition and [...]

Tips For A Happy And Healthy Christmas
- Debbie Cotton, Naturopath and Lecturer for the CNM 1. Make sure you look good for all the Christmas parties - cleanse your skin Water Drink as much water as you can before and during the festive season. The more you can help the kidneys to cleanse toxins, the less work your skin has to do, so the [...]

Holiday Hangover Tips
- Debbie Cotton, Naturopath and Lecturer for the CNM A hangover is the combination of a number of factors coming into play, but its the over-consumption of your favorite alcohol thats the aggravating part. If youre wanting to avoid a hangover (and who isnt?) then try these top tips for starters Try and eat before you start [...]

Genetically Modified Foods and Our Health
Debbie Cotton Ad.Dip.Nat - CNM Lecturer With the introduction of the first genetically modified tomato to the commercial market in 1994, there has been great debate over the use of GM foods in our community. The argument for these foods has been put to us from the companies that have created them, scientists and some farmers, and [...]

Natural Travel Tips
Packing for the holidays can be a daunting task, particularly if you going for an extended period of time or are packing for a large family. One important thing that is often forgotten or not thought about is the first aid kit. The following is advice on natural holiday essentials that can ensure that you [...]

Mother Nature for Mother and Baby
- Carina Harkin BHSc.Nat.BHSc.Hom.BHSc.Acu. Congratulations! You are either pregnant, thinking about becoming pregnant or recently given birth. This is a time when many of us start to become concerned about chemicals in our food and environment. Many skincare products are also a chemical concoction. The following information will help those prospective mothers make choices in regards [...]

Feminine Hygiene - A Chemical Cocktail
- Carina Harkin BHSc.Nat.BHSc.Hom.BHSc.Acu In the same way that we are what we eat, we are also what we put on our skin. Many women are becoming increasingly aware that petrochemicals in many toiletries can negatively affect our health. Petrochemicals are chemical products made from petrol or more correctly oil. They are found in all non-organic [...]

Managing Allergies Naturally
- Carina Harkin, BHSc.Nat, BHSc.Hom, BHSc.Acu Food allergy Food allergy involves the abnormal reaction of a persons immune system to a food substance, much in the same way that a person can be allergic to pollen. Symptoms of food allergy Common symptoms include hives, eczema, asthma, hayfever and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). A good one in regard to [...]

Recharging The Batteries
- Carina Harkin BHSc.Nat, BHSc.Hom, BHSc.Acu. Our cars are not the only things that are hard to start. Some mornings it takes a while to get the body moving. There are many reasons why we may feel tired. It is important, as always, to see your GP to eliminate any underlying disease. Sometimes however, there seems [...]

A Naturopathic View on Cure
Cure is a term that is used in both Natural Medicine and Western Medicine, but with completely different concepts ascertaining to both. The definition of cure in words is very similar, but the principles and the frame work in which it is measured are different in both. The best way to compare the two concepts [...]

What is Naturopathy?
- Stephen Langley, ND Naturopathy or Nature Cure is underpinned by a fundamental principle - vis medicatrix naturae - the healing power of nature. This was made clear twenty-five centuries ago when Hippocrates said Health is the expression of a harmonious balance between various components of mans nature, the environment and ways of lifenature is the [...]

Naturopathic Principles
- Stephen Langley, ND 1. Vis Medicatrix Naturae - The healing power of Nature. There is a Vital Force or Life Force that, given the right conditions, will self-heal or self-correct. The Vital Force is stimulated by factors, which promote health and suppressed by excesses and deficiencies. For example, the body will heal a wound, absorb [...]

How Safe is the Water We Drink?
- Stephen Langley, ND The definition of pure water is bacteriologically safe water, the tap water having a pH between 6.5 and 8.5. This allows a great deal of leeway in what passes as acceptable water. Over 350 different man-made chemicals have been detected in British tap water. Alum, chlorine and many other inorganic compounds are [...]

History of Naturopathy
- Stephen Langley, ND ANCIENT TIMES 15,000 BC Shamanic rituals on cave paintings in France (healing mind & soul). Ayurveda Medicine (3000-1000 BC) ayur (life) and veda (science). Sacred medicine from Ancient India. Holistic philosophy embracing fasts, herbs, enemas, baths and cleansing diets 2700 BC Shen Nong discovers Chinese herbalism. 2600 BC Imhotep describes ancient Egyptian medicine. c2000 BC The writings of the [...]

Men?s Health - The Big Issues
- Carina Harkin BHSc.Acu., BHSc.Nat., BHSc.Hom. Director of studies and lecturer at the College of Naturopathic Medicine Ireland - Galway. Father’s day is an important time to treat Dad. It is also a good reminder to focus on men’s health and some of the big health issues affecting men. This is especially relevant as some Irish [...]

Supplement Advice
Melanie Stephens, IANT, Head of Nutrition at the CNM, Nutritional Therapist. To arrange a private consultation call Mel on 086-2442708, or email healthforce@gmail.com. VITAMIN C Food sources - Fresh vegetables and fruit, such as broccoli, green and red pepper, potatoes, brussel sprouts, kale, parsley, cauliflower, cabbage, sharon fruit, pineapple, kiwis, strawberries, papaya, citrus fruit, mango. Best supplement form [...]

Unhappy Meals
- Michael Pollan - Published: January 28, 2007 - New York Times Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. That, more or less, is the short answer to the supposedly incredibly complicated and confusing question of what we humans should eat in order to be maximally healthy. I hate to give away the game right here at [...]

The integrated treatment of cancer in Chinese Hospitals
- Henry McGrath MA MRCHM MBAcC Abstract The author is a practitioner of Chinese Herbal medicine and acupuncture in the UK, specialising in the management of cancer. He is the Acupuncture Course Leader for the College of Naturopathic Medicine. He spent two weeks in China, and observed the herbal treatment of around 70 patients with cancer. Some [...]

10 Easy Steps to Clean the Body in 10 Days
- Melanie Stephens, IANT, Head of Nutrition at the CNM, Nutritional Therapist To arrange a private consultation call Mel on 086-2442708, or email healthforce@gmail.com. Step 1 Preparation - if you dont plan, you plan to fail. 1-2 weeks before you start: Prepare your kitchen Prepare your mind Prepare your shopping list Step 2 No tea, coffee, alcohol, sugar, red meat, dairy, refined foods Step [...]

A Brief History of Protein: Passion, Social Bigotry, Rats, and Enlightenment
Nutrition is an emotional subject and nothing arouses people’s passions more than the subject of protein in their diet. Widely divergent opinions on whether more protein or less is best, and on the merits of animal vs. vegetable sources, have been debated for more than 150 years. And for all that time solid scientific research [...]

How to Help a Meathead
Meat is ideal nutrition for my body, I once thought after all, my own body is made of meat like muscles, liver, kidneys, brain, and associated, more-or-less, edible substances, like fat, blood vessels, lymph nodes, tendons, nerves, bone, skin, etc. Most of my friends still believe meat is essential for vigorous health and [...]

Protein Overload
Muscle, vitality, strength, power, energy, vigor, aggressiveness, and liveliness are words that come to mind when people think of the benefits of protein in their diet. The truth is quite the opposite. Bone loss, osteoporisis, kidney damage, kidney stones, immune dysfunction, arthritis, cancer promotion, low-energy, and overall poor health are the real consequences from overemphasizing [...]

Dairy Products and 10 False Promises
Milk is as pure white as fresh fallen snow and as familiar as a mother’s warm touch. Common sense once led me to believe that if a single food, milk, could sustain a baby as the sole source of nutrients, then it must be nature’s most perfect food. Milk builds strong bones I have [...]

When Friends Ask: Where Do You Get Your Calcium?
One of the first questions concerned family and friends ask when they learn you have become vegan and now avoid all animal products, including dairy products is, Where do you get your calcium? Begin your dialog with them by assuming that the questioners have sincere interests in expanding their knowledge about good nutritionrather than just [...]

Marketing Milk and Disease
The Dairy Industry is really big business with sales of over $11 billion for milk and $16 billion for cheese annually in the USA alone so you might expect hard line marketing from them but would you expect them to aggressively sell their products if they were known to be harmful to [...]

Tragedy and Hype - The Third International Soy Symposium
Far from being the perfect food, modern soy products contain antinutrients and toxins and they interfer with the absorption of vitamins and minerals. Each year, research on the health effects of soy and soybean components seems to increase exponentially. Furthermore, research is not just expanding in the primary areas under investigation, such as cancer, heart disease [...]

Natural Health Products: Guilty Until Proven Innocent?
- Kathryn Alexander D.Th. D | http://www.getalife.net.au/ The complementary medicine industry is huge. World-wide it nets billions of dollars annually, and in developed countries more than half the population is increasingly turning to complementary medicine for their preferred treatment. Given these statistics it is hardly surprising that governments wish to rationalize the industry along similar lines to [...]

Naturopathic Nutrition
- Linda Lazarides | www.health-diets.net Naturopathic nutrition has been around for thousands of years. It is quite a simple concept: using foods to help the body heal itself. In various foods, there are ingredients such as vitamins, minerals and flavonoids, which contribute to the bodys metabolic processes. If you are very lucky, your normal diet [...]

Environmental Poisons
- Judy Evans Hormone related and degenerative diseases have escalated since the 2nd world war. Men, women and children are all affected, but interestingly enough these diseases occur predominantly in Western cultures. There is evidence that the problem is now spreading to the rest of the world. Researchers are linking the rise in hormone related diseases to [...]

Yeast Infection - Candida - The Enemy Within
- Erica White, Dip.ION, Member of the British Association of Nutritional Therapists One in three people in the Western world is thought to be suffering from yeast infection. For some, it causes chronic, incapacitating illness; for others it triggers just nuisance symptoms, but they can be both physical and mental. In our intestines there live about five [...]

Ritalin - Target Brain: Do doctors know what they are doing to the children?
- Dr. med. Heinrich Kremer, of Barcelona, Spain (retired) The devastating effects of the drug Ritalin and the long-term side effects in the brain The number of Ritalin prescriptions for children and teens has risen twenty times within the last 8 years. These horrifying numbers point to a more than thoughtless dealing with the drug Ritalin by [...]

A Critical Look at Vaccination
- Dr Patrick Quanten MD, January 2000 The overwhelming view presented to the public by mainstream science and medicine as well as the media is that immunisation is a safe, scientific procedure which protects and safeguards health. Historically, the story of vaccination and immunisation is one of sweeping claims coupled with apparent successes, tragic failures, and, [...]

Viruses
- Dr Patrick Quanten, MD, November 2004 Let’s start with a medically well-known fact: viruses aren’t themselves alive. They are smaller and simpler than bacteria and by themselves they are inert and harmless. So, the immediate question then has to be: How can you “catch” a virus if it isn’t a living thing? The answer is: You [...]

The Kidney and Your Health
- Debbie Cotton, Ad.Dip.Nat The kidneys are an amazing organ of the body that are so widely overlooked and ignored. They facilitate very important processes such as filtering our blood that rids us of waste and toxins, maintaining blood pressure, fluid and electrolyte balance and on top of that the adrenal glands sit on top of [...]

Summer Health Tips
So the summer has finally arrived… The time of BBQs, lounging in the park with friends and unfortunately for some, the itchy, puffy, swollen eyes, runny nose and scratchy throat that are all associated with hayfever. How can you help yourself to get through this trying time? We asked CNM Naturopath Debbie Cotton to give [...]

Eat, Drink (Red), and be Merry
- Danielle De Natris, Naturopath BScND, CNM Lecturer Wine has been around for at least 7000 years and folklore has long attributed it with medicinal properties Wine is a drink that evokes images of good food and festive occasions. Good wine goes with good company. Perhaps wine brings back memories of student parties with lots of cheap [...]

Weight Loss and Willpower
Weight gain occurs when energy consumption (measured in calories) exceeds energy output (exercise). It seems such a simple matter to adjust the two, but the fact that millions of people are trying to lose weight and not succeeding and in a country where its predicted that by the year 2010, one in three* adults will [...]

Treatments for Liver Pathologies
- Jacqueline Garman DipNat. DipAcc, Naturopath, Practitioner and Director of Studies (CNM Brighton) Firstly, I will explain the principle of naturopathy. A Naturopaths ethos is to heal using natural methods. Having a broad knowledge of many diagnostic and treatment methods and a good understanding of the physiology and anatomy of the body, the competent Naturopath [...]

An Interview with Martin Walker
In 1993 Martin Walker wrote and published his ground-breaking book ‘Dirty Medicine: Science, big business and the assault on natural health care’, exposing British medical politics and its resistance to alternative medicine. He set up his own publishing house, Slingshot Publications so he could do this. This week Martin Walker spoke to over eighty students at [...]

Natural Health Remedies - Colds
- Debbie Cotton, Naturopath and CNM Lecturer “I’ve started to feel the first warning signs of a cold and I want to do all I can to prevent it from taking hold. I’d like to find a good natural remedy but I really don’t know where to start looking - what can you suggest?” Echinacea is still [...]

Avoiding the Ups and Downs of Life (Blood sugar and energy levels)
- Erica White, Dip.ION, Member of the British Association of Nutritional Therapists Many people experience a yo-yo effect in their energy levels throughout the day. In the morning, they find it hard to get going after a restless night, but an early-morning cup of tea or coffee helps them on their way, with perhaps a piece [...]

Summer Health Tips
This season brings lots of activities and fun bank holiday weekends, but with it there are the usual late nights, a little bit too much alcohol and the over-indulgence of food. So, whats the best way to get through this month without feeling like a mess? We asked CNM Naturopath, Debbie Cotton to help out… [...]

Managing Food Intolerances
In this day and age, it is very common for people to have food intolerances. Weak digestion, unbalanced bowel flora, hypersensitive immune function, stress and poor dietary habits can all play a role in contributing to the symptoms of intolerance. It is very common in clinical practice to see clients showing symptoms related to an [...]

Salt: A Dentist?s Viewpoint
- Dr. M. Amir In an effort to amend the salt tax, imposed by the British colonial rulers in India on March 2, 1930 Ghandi wrote to the Viceroy, Lord Irwin: “If my letter makes no appeal to your heart, on the eleventh day of this month I shall proceed with such co-workers of the Ashram as [...]

Massage: Therapy or Relaxation?
- Danielle De Natris, Naturopath BScND, CNM Lecturer There are not many people in this world who would say no to an offer of a massage. In actual fact, these days a gift voucher for a massage treatment is a highly appreciated present. Massage has been around for a long time. Basically, as long as there have [...]

Homoeopathy for Flu
- Rose Nightingale, Senior Lecturer, CNM Homoeopathy is a complete system of medicine which is based on the principle of “The Law of Similars” - the principle of like curing like - a substance which can cause symptoms in a healthy individual can also be used to treat those symptoms when they manifest as part of [...]

Judge Anger at Ritalin Kids
26 April 2007 A New South Wales judge has slammed doctors for creating a generation of Ritalin kids now committing violent crimes and coming before the courts. Judge Paul Conlon said attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) was the most over-diagnosed condition in the community, with “naughty kids whacked” on to drugs like the powerful stimulant Ritalin. Last year [...]

A Case of Bad Irritable Bowel Syndrome
- Michael Franklin, The IBS and Gut Disorder Centre Susan was a 35-year old from Lanacashire who consulted me in the summer of 2005 with extremely bad abdominal pain, bloating, and diarrhoea. She gave all three symptoms 10 out of 10 on the scale which we ask people to use in our questionnaires. She also complained [...]

A Peek Into The Toxic Life of an Average Londoner
- Tina Andersen - BSc Psychology, Naturopathic Consultant Jolted out of a dream by an annoyingly loud alarm clock, barely able to stagger to the kitchen for the first fix of caffeine of the day brewed with some chlorine, fluoride, lead, aluminium, nitrates, traces of radioactive iodine, steroids, oral contraceptives and antibiotics (found in the tap [...]

The Modern Naturopath
- Cornelis van Dalen Naturopathy is a 19th century word meaning “nature cure” Historically, a Naturopath was one who healed using treatments incorporating water, air, light, good nutritious food, as well as massage, to cleanse, detoxify and stimulate the bodys inborn healing powers. While Naturopathy often brings up ideas of cold baths, exercise, fresh air, it is [...]

The Naturopathic Philosophy
- Cornelis van Dalen The Naturopathic axiom that “nature-cures” is largely forgotten in the world of modern medicine. We have become accustomed to modern drug therapy that overrides the understanding and realisation of our body’s own healing power. Without this innate healing power we would remain in the disease state. Perhaps the body is ever in a [...]