As a benefit for the patients of The Mind-Body Clinic, as well as for visitors to our home on the web, we are offering this extraordinary library of natural health resources. We hope that they will enable all of those who use them to educate themselves about various medical conditions, and to learn about the potential effects of natural medicines on those conditions.
Beyond that, our aim is for this knowledge base to play a part in antidoting the passivity and confusion that are often side effects of being treated in conventional medical settings. Information can help people in need of health care to authorize themselves as equal participants in the process of treating their illnesses and restoring optimal wellbeing.
The data bases assembled here were painstakingly compiled by an interdisciplinary organization of clinicians and researchers called Natural Standard, a company founded for the purpose of providing high quality, evidence-based information about modalities used in natural and integrative medicine.
This international collaboration now includes contributors from more than 100 eminent academic institutions. Natural Standard is impartial. It is not supported by any interest group, professional organization, or product manufacturer. For each therapy covered by Natural Standard, a research team systematically gathers scientific data and expert opinions. Validated rating scales are used to evaluate the quality of available evidence. Information is incorporated into comprehensive monographs, which are designed to facilitate clinical decision-making. All monographs undergo blinded editorial and peer review prior to inclusion in Natural Standard databases.
One important caveat must be held in mind while using this library. The information here is about diseases and treatments, not individual patients. So, with any particular person this data may or may not be applicable. As the cause of someone’s illness may be very different from what causes the same condition in many other people, the therapy for that person must be tailored to his or her biochemical uniqueness. While the general and well-researched findings in these databases may be valuable aids to formulating a treatment plan, they are not a substitute for personalized medicine or the knowledge that can be gained from a collaborative doctor-patient relationship.