The Menen Centre for Optimum Health

This is the term used to describe various forms of treatment that are aimed at allowing a person's body to heal itself and to either restore or maintain good health.  Naturopathic Medicine was known as "Alternative Medicine" for quite a while since it was thought that this medicine was an "alternative" to conventional medicine or drugs.  It is now understood that Naturopathic Doctors are better seen as "complementary" to conventional medicine.  So now it is politically correct to refer to this medicine as "Complementary Medicine."  At the Menen Centre, we feel strongly that neither types of medicine can treat every condition alone, and can work wonderfully in conjunction with one another.  Naturopathic Doctors in Toronto are licensed to practice seven different treatment modalities and are trained in each of these areas for four years (after undergraduate work).  These modalities are:

• Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine
• Herbal Medicine
• Nutrition
• Massage and/or Spinal Manipulation
• Hydrotherapy
• Homeopathy
• Counselling

Different Naturopathic Doctors will specialize in different modalities.  We focus most on Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture which you can read more about on the TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) page.

Before choosing a Naturopathic Doctor to work with, always consider the practitioner's educational background.  In Canada, The Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine is presently the only College that licenses Naturopathic Doctors.  Other Colleges in Canada may have programs that are very good, but the practitioners are not actually legally licensed to practice--which means they hold little legal responsibility if anything goes wrong with a patient.  This is not to say practitioners from other Colleges are not good--it's just good for patients to know some of the legal implications of their choices!

We hope this information has been useful!