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Susan Samueli Center Adds Naturopathic Treatments to Integrative Medical Services

Posted on: Wednesday, 23 May 2007, 12:00 CDT

The Susan Samueli Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of California, Irvine, dedicated to advancing patient care through education, evidence-based research and applied integrative medical therapies, today announced that it has added naturopathic treatments to its line of services.

The Center is the first university in Southern California to offer naturopathic treatments, which will be administered by Dr. Suzanne Tang, a Board Certified Naturopathic Doctor and Licensed Acupuncturist fully credentialed through UCI. Dr Tang sees patients at UCI's Gottshalk Medical Plaza and the center's off-campus clinic at Lindora in Irvine. Naturopathic services are designed to optimize treatments and therapies that leverage the body's inherent ability to heal itself.

"Naturopathic principles and treatments are tightly integrated with the most advanced medical treatments available today to create a powerful new approach to diagnosis and therapeutic treatments for the patient," said Dr. John Longhurst, director of the Susan Samueli Center for Integrative Medicine. "While available through private practitioners, naturopathic medicine is only practiced at 20 other hospital sites around the country. We're delighted UCI will now offer it at the Susan Samueli Center."

Dr. Tang has had extensive training in diet and lifestyle counseling, nutrient therapy, Western and Chinese herbal medicine, acupuncture, homeopathy, detoxification and craniosacral therapy, all effective therapies she has used to address myriad conditions. She employs the latest standards in diagnostic examination and laboratory testing to evaluate immune health, digestive function, liver detoxification, hormone balance, cardiovascular health and nutritional status. Dr. Tang's passion lies in educating and empowering her patients to make optimal, healthy lifestyle changes.

About the Practice of Naturopathic Medicine

Naturopathic treatments are based on six core principles:

1. The body has the ability to maintain, repair and restore itself to a healthy state. Physicians facilitate this ability by identifying and treating obstacles to recovery and healing.

2. The underlying causes of disease must be discovered and removed or treated before a person can recover completely from illness. Physicians diagnose the underlying causes and prescribe treatment to handle them.

3. Healing is a process and symptoms are an expression of the process at work. Physicians do not suppress symptoms without first treating the underlying causes.

4. Health and disease are conditions of the whole person and involves the interaction of physical, mental, emotional, environmental, and genetic factors. All factors must be considered when treating a patient.

5. Doctors are teachers. They work to create an effective interpersonal relationship with each patient to maximize therapeutic value. Through education, patients can take significant responsibility for their own health.

6. Preventing diseases is the best cure available. Education and promotion of good health habits can minimize risk factors and hereditary susceptibility to disease.

Naturopathic practice can include the following treatments:

Healthy, nutritious food is often the best medicine and is a foundation principle of naturopathic practice. Many conditions can be effectively treated more effectively with foods, diet and nutritional supplements.

Plants are the basis of effective medicines. Often, botanical medicines are able to address a variety of problems due to compatibility with the body's own chemical makeup, resulting in fewer toxic side effects.

Homeopathic medicine strengthens the body's healing and immune response.

Naturopathic medicine has its own methods of therapeutic manipulation of muscles, bones, and spine, using a combination of exercise, massage, water, heat and cold, air, and minor electrical pulses.

Ancient Asian medicine complements healing via naturopathic medicine. It offers an important understanding of the unity of the body and mind, combined with modern medical knowledge of physiology. Acupuncture treats a variety of illnesses.

Mental and emotional states can cause physical illness. Counseling, support, stress management, hypnotherapy, and other therapies can help patients heal physically through a psychological level.

About SSCIM

Founded in 2000, The Susan Samueli Center for Integrative Medicine at UCI successfully promotes integrative medicine by conducting rigorous fundamental and clinical research on complementary healing practices; educating medical students, health professionals and the public about these practices, and creating a model of clinical care that emphasizes healing the whole person. The Center is rapidly becoming recognized for providing new knowledge bridging complementary and conventional treatments -- all for the singular purpose of achieving better health. For more information or to make an appointment, contact the Center at (949) 824-5763 or visit www.sscim.uci.edu.

Source: Business Wire

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