Root Cause Medicine

boy seeking the root cause of health problems, always asking why

Naturopaths are Always Asking “But Why?”

This blog post comes to us courtesy of my son, when he was 3. At that time his favourite phrase was “but why?”.   This has me firmly convinced that he’ll make an excellent naturopathic doctor one day. You see, it’s an inherent part of the job that you must always be asking yourself the question “but why?” in order to get to the root cause of the problem.

You can insert your own health condition here but as an example I’ll use asthma.

Say you or your loved one has asthma.

The first question we have to ask is, but why?

Because your bronchi restrict in response to certain stimuli, like pet dander, dust, exercise or cold weather.

But why?

Because you have developed a hypersensitivity to those things.

But why?

Maybe because you had excessive stress and you became depleted in vitamin C and B6, or maybe you hate fish and you’re allergic to nuts so you are low in essential fatty acids, or maybe you took antibiotics that messed up your gut bacteria or your liver isn’t clearing toxins effectively and environmental toxicity has created excessive inflammation in your body.  Our naturopathic doctors, Dr. Frank and Dr. Vong will ask all kinds of questions of you to get to the bottom of these.

But why?

Maybe because of an improper diet, or poor absorption of vitamins/minerals, or stress-related depletion of the nutrients you need to keep your immune system healthy or for your liver to do its job.

But why?

The Root Cause

You get the idea, at some point you’ve reached the end point of explanations and there’s where you need to start to treat the root cause of the problem. In a simplistic world we could give herbs to open up the bronchi, but that’s nowhere near the root cause of the problem. Without asking “but why?” we would only be masking the underlying cause rather than treating it.

The “but why?” philosophy can be applied to any life situation, not just health problems. In health and in life, I do think it’s important to keep asking the question to eventually get a satisfactory answer and a place to start finding solutions.

Our naturopathic doctors are experts at asking “but why” to get to the root cause of any health concern.  Book now.

By Dr. Pamela Frank, BSc(Hons), ND