Calgary to lead way for holistic research
New centre breaks ground in Canada
Mario Toneguzzi
Calgary Herald
Monday, February 07, 2005
Calgary is poised to become the national leader in research and training in the field of complementary and alternative medicine.
The city will be the site of Canada's first post-secondary institute dedicated to advancing complementary and alternative health, as well as the first place where information about scientifically proven alternative health options will be offered by the Calgary Health Region on its 24-hour phoneline.
The two initiatives will be announced at a news conference today at Mount Royal College, the Herald has learned.
Pat Trottier, Integrative Health Institute chairwoman at Mount Royal, said "there is a growing demand and need for quality, trustworthy evidence-based information around complementary and alternative health.
"That has grown out of the huge demand from the general public for it," said Trottier.
"We know from previous studies there are more visits to non-conventional healers than there are sometimes to MDs.
"As it has become more and more popular, traditional medicine has looked at it and said, 'What is there about this that we can integrate into our practices?' And they are slowly doing that, but it is all based around what has been scientifically proven to work."
Complementary and alternative health care describes a wide range of therapies and products that are not part of conventional medicine as practised by mainstream doctors.
They share the common characteristic of working in conjunction with the body's self-healing mechanisms, are holistic in treating the whole person, involve the patient as an active participant and focus on disease prevention and well-being.
Therapies include everything from acupuncture to energy healing, yoga and aromatherapy.
Dr. Badri Rickhi, executive director of the Canadian Institute of Natural and Integrative Medicine, said today's announcement is very important because "there are little pieces scattered all around the place we've been trying to connect and work together."
"One of the areas is in education -- doing research in education and teaching people to become researchers," said Rickhi, a clinical associate professor with the University of Calgary's faculty of medicine and vice-president of the Canadian Medical Acupuncture Society.
"Sixty per cent of people in Alberta at one time will use integrative medicine. So getting us all connected to serving them is extremely important
. . . People are looking at options for wellness and prevention and people are just curious on how they can better their health. We're becoming more concerned about our health than we have ever been before. In Alberta, particularly Calgary, we're extremely health conscious. It's one of the most health-conscious cities in Canada.
National polls done in 2000 estimated between 60 per cent and 70 per cent of Canadians sought some type of complementary or alternative health care in the previous year. In a 1999 Canadian survey, conducted on behalf of the Fraser Institute, 73 per cent reported using complementary or alternative health care sometime in their life.
The Fraser Institute survey suggests the Canadian population spent more than $1.8 billion out-of-pocket on visits to providers of alternative medicine in 1997. Additional spending on books, medical equipment, herbs, vitamins and special diet programs pushed that figure to more than $3.8 billion.
Dr. Marja Verhoef, head of the Canada Research Chair in Complementary Medicine at the U of C's faculty of medicine, said it's important to know more about the field because "people are using it a lot."
"People don't always know how effective and how safe they are, and people may not always know how to make decisions about them," said Verhoef. "Those things need to be addressed. People need to be educated about it. They need to be studied. And there needs to be information about it.
"We do need to look at how this can play a role in the health-care system . . . I think the initiative at Mount Royal College is a good beginning, but a lot more needs to happen."
mtoneguzzi@theherald.canwest.com
© The Calgary Herald 2005
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