Editor’s note –
June 2025

What are you calling yourself these days?

OK, I’m a naturopathic Nutritional Therapy Functional Medicine Root Cause Practitioner practising personalised Longevity and Lifestyle Medicine, AND I’m Holistic and Integrated, of course. Does that about cover it?

It was so much easier when we were just “alternative”. Have to say I never liked “complementary”, and it’s time for the CNHC – the Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council – to either change its name or, preferably, shut up shop.

We are absolutely having an identity crisis.

This was one of the many topics that came up in conversation with nutritional therapist Tanya Borowski (page 42), who presented at BANT’s recent NED Science Forum and seemed to be finding, through her mentoring practice, that the advent of functional medicine training in the UK has been causing practitioners a fair bit of stress.

In the US, the efforts of Jeff Bland’s Institute for Functional Medicine have encouraged hundreds of conventionally-trained doctors to try to practise in a more “root cause” way. The IFM’s highly biochemically-angled approach, with its emphasis on massive amounts of expensive “functional” tests, appeals to MDs. And to pharmacists, too. In a new article put out by Rupa Health, a doctor of pharmacy claims that the current shift to personalised medicine is “now a reality, led by pharmacists who focus on individualised care for sustainable, effective healthcare”!
Who knew that pharmacists were leading the way?

The author continues: “With nearly 50% of the US population experiencing chronic health challenges, pharmacists in functional medicine are implementing evidence-based interventions to help manage these conditions, potentially improve longevity, and reduce healthcare costs”.
What MDs and pharmacists do with functional medicine is to run test after test and prescribe on the basis of the results. It’s a “treat the numbers” approach that they are used to, and while it’s to their credit they are taking on a systems approach (previously known as holistic, but now jazzed up to be more science-y) and “prescribing” supplements and herbs where they would previously go just for drugs, they’re lacking something that UK practitioners live and breathe.

That’s the rich background we have in natural health AND the “art” that we bring to developing the all-important therapeutic relationship. Tanya has a lot more to say about this, but the key message is for practitioners to remember – and remember to value – the instincts that brought them to this field in the first place, allied with the exceptional training that the colleges in the UK and Ireland provide. We are not falling down on the job if we don’t run half a dozen tests and “prescribe” 30 supplements at a time.

Meanwhile, let’s all think about what on earth we should call ourselves. Let me know – email, X or Instagram (simon.altmed) – what you think.
Having had a few conversations with Dr Nathan Bryan, PhD, the nitric oxide authority, I’ve taken to his concept of restorative physiology. “If we can restore missing nutrients and remove any toxins in the body, then the body can heal itself”, he says. “It is that simple”. And it is what we do.
From now on, I’m identifying as a Restorative Physiologist!…