Over the weekend I attended the largest complimentary and alternative medicine conference in the world. The 21st annual anti-ageing and restorative medicine conference (A4M) hosted hundreds of lectures on many different medical topics, from oncology to endocrinology. This was my second year attending this 4 day event, which provided over 30 hours of lectures.
Some of the highlights were lectures from Suzanne Somers, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Dr Travis Stork from the popular TV show “The Doctors”, discussing different health topics and their passion for preventative medicine. These celebrities deserve some credit because of the passion and dedication they have for alternative and preventative medicine.
At 67 years of age, Suzanne Somers is one of the most famous health advocates in the world. Although she is most known for her promotion of bio-identical hormone therapy, I learned that her interest for natural medicine goes much deeper than this. Suzanne grows all of her own organic foods, she has had cutting edge natural treatments for breast reconstruction, and she understands and practices a lot of mind body medicine.
Dr Stork, outlined his 5 lessons on health. A healthy diet of limiting grains, trans-fat, and excess salt was number one while moderate exercise was number two, of course. The other three health lessons were around stress reduction, improving sleep, connecting to others and the encouragement of people to strengthen the mind-body connection through deep breathing. Dr Storks take home point was that good health happens between doctor visits and involves work!
The Govenator, what can I say. Not surprising that he’s a fitness junkie. He has been an exercise advocate for greater than 4 decades and is a huge supporter of natural health and nutritional supplementation. I thought the nicest thing about seeing Arnold speak was the clear passion he has for health and exercise, along with his dedication to California and its people.
When I attend these conferences, what I come back with, over anything else, is a reaffirmed confidence in naturopathic and integrative medicine. Over 90% of the attendees are medical doctors, excited and interested about what naturopathic doctors have been doing for many years. Most of the concepts around integrative or restorative medicine are the foundations of naturopathic medicine, the most important of which is treat the whole person! Of course, this has been and will continue to be the focus at Westcoast Integrative Health. Not only are we on the cutting edge of modern medicine, but my goal is to provide these services to my clients that the most reasonable cost possible.