Lifestyle choices are critical to health. Naturopathic doctors (NDs) are taught to use the lowest force interventions possible, and in a lot of cases, lifestyle changes are helpful for clients to reach the level of health they desire. Lifestyle consultations involves looking at a client’s case in its entirety (diet, exercise, sleep patterns, water intake, stress levels, etc) and making recommendations to help optimize health. Clients are in charge of their own health and work with their ND to design individual plans for each client.  NDs take counseling classes as a part of their training to learn how to communicate more effectively with their clients to support their health goals. Additionally, naturopaths also have nutrition built into their education, and Dr. Blandford has a Minor in Nutrition as a part of her undergraduate work. She can look at your overall diet and make general recommendations specific to your health goals.

You Are What You Eat

Food preferences are as wide and varied as there are people on the planet. Every person has culture and part of their identity involved with their meal choices. Thus, this a large part of each person’s unique health picture. People can choose to be vegetarians, vegans, paleo or keto enthusiasts, DASH diet followers, etc, depending on daily food choices.

Recent research has started to show the quality of a person’s diet can have a major effect on how they feel. In 2017 researchers conducted a small study which was to see if dietary changes could improve symptoms in adults with major depression; they found roughly one-third of the dietary intervention group had improvement in their symptoms[1]. Another study found a reduction of cardiovascular disease, total cancer, and all-cause mortality with increased consumption of fruits and vegetables [2]. With this in mind, overall health and well-being can be greatly affected by dietary intake. It is important to consider this as a part of a person’s overall health picture.

Lifestyle Counseling Example

An example might be a complaint of poor sleep. Dr. Blandford will look at things like meals before bed, sleep hygiene, water intake, television usage, and even exercise which can all play into poor sleep.  It may be the client has insomnia due to a variety of organic factors, but any one or all of these considerations can make a difference depending on the individual. She offers a Discovery Visit (15 minutes) where you can learn what lifestyle options might be helpful for you!

Note: Please keep in mind naturopathic medicine isn’t yet licensed in the State of Michigan – click here to help with licensing efforts. Naturopathic medicine is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, and any recommendations or advice received are for informational purposes only. Your primary care physician should be consulted before any diet or nutritional changes are undertaken. If you have specific health conditions, a nutritionist or registered dietician can also provide nutrition information tailored to your health  goals.

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Sources:

[1] Jacka, F.N., O’Neil, A., Opie, R. et al. (2017). A randomised controlled trial of dietary improvement for adults with major depression (the ‘SMILES’ trial). BMC Med 15, 23. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-017-0791-y

[2] Aune, D., Giovannucci, E., Boffetta, P., Fadnes, L. T., Keum, N., Norat, T., … Tonstad, S. (2017). Fruit and vegetable intake and the risk of cardiovascular disease, total cancer and all-cause mortality—a systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis of prospective studies. International Journal of Epidemiology, 46(3), 1029–1056. doi: 10.1093/ije/dyw319