"The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, in diet, and in the cause and prevention of disease."
(Thomas Edition)

Even in the developed West, it is estimated that only 5% of the population is interested in finding out the nutritional values of food that they consume. While other technologies have gone supersonic, the medical application of research in food and nutrition remains in the “Stone Age”. Medical schools pay lip service to nutritional medicine despite extensive research in genomics. Even in the most technologically advanced country, only 6% of graduating physicians received some formal training in nutrition. Consequently, many orthodox (drug/surgical-based) doctors tend to dismiss the widely proven therapeutic/preventive powers of nutrition since they have little or no formal training or exposure in this area. Pharmaceutical giants shy away from nutritional products since they cannot be patented for higher profits.

Doctors trained in western orthodox medicine are drug-oriented and they spend most of their time and effort identifying a disease process so that they can prescribe one or more drugs as part of their treatment plan. Orthodox medicine does have its special strengths in the areas of trauma and emergency. However, it treats only the symptoms and the disease manifestations, and not the fundamental cause(s) of the disease. Essentially, such treatments are designed to ‘contain’ the acute symptoms of the illness since symptoms are exactly what patients relate to them in their clinics.

The present health care focusing on the use of mostly imported, western-manufactured, expensive drugs leads to the phenomenal growth over the past decades of the all-powerful for-profit pharmaceutical companies supplying symptom -suppression drugs of every conceivable variety. However, the general public is unaware that many of the commonly used drugs were initially extracted from food and herbs used as part of natural medicine for centuries past.

The orthodox treatment model of "waiting for our body to break down before attempting to fix it" may be unacceptable in terms of the huge economic costs to the nation as well as the cost of human suffering. In this 21st Century, preventive medicine is poised to transform itself into a force to be reckoned with. Such a practice was popular in Asia centuries’ ago. A rapidly growing middle-class, educated, and IT-literate population means a much stronger demand for, among others, medical treatments that inflict fewer or no harmful side effects, a more personalized partnership between patients and medical therapists/practitioners in solving their health/medical problems, and access to much less intrusive but evidence-based medicine which is more reasonably priced.

It is now widely recognised that the strongest defense system against diseases is our bodies’ own natural antioxidants and immune system. In the Western developed nations, people are spending increasing amounts in complementary therapies.

It is a branch of complementary medicine which seeks the ultimate cause(s) of an illness/disease and then prescribes a treatment scheme that is drug free. Usually, this involves the use of highly sophisticated diagnostic tests available to science, designing a diet that matches the nutritional needs of the patient, modifying patient’s lifestyle, detoxifying patient, and supplementing patients with the required macro- and micro-nutrients targeted at specific health issues.

Preventive medicine is the hallmark of nutritional therapy. It takes years to develop chronic health problems, which are diagnosed and mapped out well before they reach their critical or even ‘terminal’ stages. This is especially true in the case of treatment for heart disease, stroke, hypertension, diabetes, and cancer. In treating any life-threatening disease, the nutritional therapist would work closely with other medical practitioners in offering an integrated medical therapy.

Basically, there are three parts to the training as a nutritional therapist:

Stage 1 - A degree level training in the combined areas of nutrition, pathophysiology, biochemistry of food sources and nutriceuticals;

Stage 2 - Training in diagnosis, pathology, and treatment of named medical conditions; and

Stage 3 - Supervised clinical training in approved hospital(s)/clinic(s)/health center(s) as prescribed.

Essentially, academic training must fully integrate a scientific knowledge of nutrition with the current understanding of the pathology of medical problems. In addition, a thorough knowledge of evidence-based non-drug medical therapies to be followed by a prescribed period of clinical training/experience is required for practising this fairly well-developed branch of complementary medicine.

The standard at which MSCT aims for is that of Western Europe where, for instance, NTC operates.

There are various alternative qualifying routes available to those wishing to practice in Malaysia, although academic training deemed lower than a British HND is unlikely to be acceptable to MSCT. Those aspiring to join this profession can email nutrition@msct.org.my for advice and counselling.

Nutritional Medicine can offer most of today’s chronic health problems a genuine alternative to drug and/or surgical therapies. These problems include those of the heart (arteriosclerosis, atherosclerosis), digestive/bowel systems, liver, gall bladder, pancreas, immune system. The therapy may also cover specific problems such as high blood pressure (hypertension), allergies (sinus, skin, food), elevated fasting insulin/ insulin resistance/Syndrome X (hyperinsulinemia), glucose intolerance (pre-diabetes II), elevated blood fat (hyperlipidemia), elevated cholesterol(hypercholesterolemia), chronic stress (elevated cortisol), elevated homocysteine (hyperhomocysteinemia), heavy metal poisoning, yeast-connected (Candida albicans), elevated blood uric acid (hyperuricemia, gout), low metabolism (hypothyroidism), overweight/obesity, poor blood circulation, acne, chronic inflammatory problems (sore throat, hemorrhoids), gum diseases (periodontitis), pre-menstrual syndrome (PMS), back aches, fatigue (hypoadrenia), insomnia, and pre-mature aging. These health problems and diseases are generally the cumulative results of poor diet and lifestyles.

In addition, nutritional therapy is being used extensively to help defeat several forms of cancer in their early stages, to enhance optimal growth of children, and to meet other special needs by athletics and senior citizens. Nutritional therapy is indeed a well-documented medical and health care intervention system for these and a host of other modern lifestyle diseases.

To practise as a "Nutritional Therapist", one has to have a Certificate of Practice issued by the Malaysian Society for Complementary Therapies (MSCT), which is an umbrella body for non-drug medical therapies recognised by the Ministry of Health. No practising member must be gainfully employed by any manufacturer or distributor of nutriceuticals/health foods and they are not permitted to publicly endorse any health products from any commercial company.

Graduates in nutrition from JPA-recognised universities may apply to join as an Ordinary Member where further training under Parts II and III could qualify them as Ordinary Practising members. An expatriate who is licensed to practise in the UK or US or Australia, or a Diplomate of the ABAAHP may apply to join as Associate Practising member so long as they have a valid work permit and are able to secure a professional indemnity cover from an insurance company in Malaysia.

In leading medical centers and practices in Western Europe and in North America, complementary practitioners work along side orthodox (drug-based) practitioners to create what is now known as "integrated medicine", which is truly medicine of the future. To help achieve this vision in the coming years, MSCT wishes to invite more graduates in the sciences and other related disciplines to enroll on its current qualifying and/or clinical training schemes, which are expected to be increasingly challenging in view of the rapid global developments in evidence-based medicine. Research evidence will pour in not just from the traditional medical schools, but also from related academic disciplines such as biotechnology, laboratory science, genetics, genomics, psychology, and cellular microbiology.

"It’s a wise man who realizes that Health is his most valuable possession."
(Hippocrates, Father of Western Medicine, 500 BC)