There has been a lot of talk about health care reform, but there is one area that has not been addressed: natural health care. There has been a lot of research lately showing that natural health care – especially chiropractic and acupuncture – is safe, effective and cost effective. Unfortunately, most doctors and health care decision-makers still feel natural health care is not an important part of the overall health care picture.

The two main issues in the current health care debate – costs and safety – can be very effectively addressed by natural health care. A number of studies have shown how effective, as well as cost effective, natural treatments can be. A study commissioned by the government of Ontario showed that the current medical treatment of low back pain is wasteful and ineffective. The author suggested that if all cases of low back pain were seen by chiropractors first, the results would be better patient outcomes, as well as savings of hundreds of millions of dollars annually for that province alone. (It is interesting to note that low back pain and headache – both of which have been shown to respond very well to chiropractic – are the second and third most common reasons for doctor visits.)

The benefits of natural health care are not limited to treating low back pain. A large HMO in Chicago allowed patients to choose chiropractors as their family doctors, or “primary health care providers.” A review of the expenses over two years found that the patients that chose the chiropractors had their health care expenses reduced by 60 percent. When the two groups of patients were examined, it was discovered that both groups – those that chose chiropractors and those that chose medical doctors for their primary health care – had about the same overall degree of health and illness.

The reasons for the savings? Reduced testing, hospitalization and drug costs in the chiropractic group. The chiropractors provided only natural treatments, including acupuncture, and nutritional and herbal supplements. If a patient needed medical care, they were referred to the appropriate specialist, but the chiropractors were able to deal with most of the patient’s routine health care problems without resorting to drugs or surgery.

There is also some very positive research about acupuncture; a recent study showed acupuncture to be very effective for high blood pressure- even when the patients were checked a year after the treatments. Just ask any of the other local health natural care providers, such as acupuncturists and naturopaths, and they also will be able to tell you of patients who were able to discontinue expensive and dangerous medication or avoid surgery – all with natural remedies.

Researchers have begun to question the safety of medical care. A study published seven years ago estimated that prescription drugs cause 2 million hospitalizations each year, at a cost of 40 billion dollars, and 140,000 deaths each year. In a recent article titled, “Tired of killer cures?,” James Gordon, M.D. mentions the fact that medical treatment is the fourth leading cause of death in the United States, killing more people than auto accidents, and that many prescription drugs are “often unnecessary, redundant and dangerous, and prohibitively expensive.” His solution is to encourage alternative health care.

In 1991 there were more visits to nonmedical health care providers (chiropractors, massage therapists and acupuncturists were the top three) than to medical doctors, despite the fact that most of those visits were not covered by insurance. Now is the time for the policy makers to follow suit, and include these natural forms of health care as a major part of the solution to the current health care crisis. Until that time, countless millions of dollars will be wasted, and thousands of patients will be subjected to needless surgery and medication.

True health care reform will encourage the most effective, safest and most cost effective treatment available – which in the majority of cases will be a natural form of health care, not a drug.

Dr. Michael Noonan is a chiropractor

in Old Town.