With the rising prevalence of chronic disease, more Americans are choosing holistic, lifestyle-based care like naturopathic medicine. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, this demand for alternative health care will continue to grow because of “research and changing attitudes about alternative, non-invasive health care practices.”

In order to make naturopathic care accessible, more states are recognizing and licensing naturopathic doctors (NDs). Currently 20 states, the District of Columbia and two U.S. territories license NDs with three states gaining licensure approval in the last year alone: Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania.

While several states continue their effort toward ND licensure, NUHS naturopathic medicine graduates are still finding lucrative careers in prelicensed states like Illinois where their program is based.

Below, three NUHS graduates describe their current careers and provide insight into their success.

At one point or another, stress affects everyone. And if you’re a working professional trying to balance your career and your personal life, you are even more likely to feel pressure and stress. Luckily, there are effective and natural measures you can take to ease the stress you’re experiencing.

Read on to uncover how complementary and alternative medicine can help relieve your stress!

If you’re like most massage therapy students, you may be returning to school for the first time in years. In fact, 82 percent of students who start a massage therapy program do so as a second career, according to the American Massage Therapy Association.

It’s OK to have a few apprehensions about returning to school. You’re not alone. At our campus, which includes other undergraduate and graduate level programs, NUHS has many resources available to help students succeed.  And, they do succeed, as evidenced by the NUHS graduates who consistently score above state and national averages on their state licensing board exams.

National University offers a rigorous massage therapy program that can make all the difference in passing board exams and having a successful career no matter what massage therapy profession you choose.

Many celebrities including Halle Barry and Gwyneth Paltrow have been touting the weight loss benefits of the Ketogenic diet. But before celebrities began using the diet for weight loss, did you know it was first recommended for those with certain health conditions?

Originally created to help people with seizure disorders, the Keto diet can also benefit patients with pre-diabetes or non-insulin dependent diabetes. Some studies suggest the diet may be able to help those with mental disorders like Alzheimer’s Disease, autism, bipolar disorder and depression, as well. 

The diet is very high fat (70-80 percent of daily total calories), low to moderate protein and very low carbohydrates (usually less than 5 percent of total calories). Because of the very low carbohydrate and very high fat content, the Keto diet changes what fuel your body runs on. Instead of glucose (a sugar), ketone bodies derived from fat become your body’s energy source. This process helps to stabilize blood sugar and decrease appetite allowing for more efficient weight loss.

Whether you’re trying to lose weight or you’re trying the diet for other health reasons, here are some tips that can help ensure you are successful with the Keto diet.

Interested in a future career in health care? Make sure to choose a university that will invest in your success by providing outstanding facilities and faculty members. Both will have a significant impact on your education and preparedness for a future career in complementary and alternative medicine.

At National University, we pride ourselves on providing a campus full of helpful resources along with a group of expert teachers who are dedicated to helping our students excel. If you’re considering NUHS, here are the key facts you need to know about our facilities and faculty.

Careers in health care are among the most lucrative and rewarding careers. Within the health care field, complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is unique. Compared to traditional Western medicine, CAM seeks to provide a much less invasive and more holistic approach to the health of a patient. CAM practitioners identify a patient as a whole person rather than simply a collection of symptoms and conditions.

More hospitals, clinics and private practices are integrating this type of care into their services by employing both mainstream medical techniques as well as complementary and alternative medicine. This integrated approach involves a wellness-based model of care as opposed to a disease-based model of care. Preventative lifestyle changes, low-tech, and low-cost measures are put into place with CAM patients before pharmaceutical or invasive procedures are considered.

In addition to being passionate about this approach, with the high cost of a medical degree, you need to be confident that the return on your investment will be worth it—especially if you take on debt to finance your degree.

Fortunately for those interested in a CAM degree, the career outlook for complementary and alternative medicine practitioners is excellent.

The field of massage therapy today is about much more than helping someone feel pampered and relaxed. Successful massage therapists employ a variety of techniques that can not only help with relaxation but can treat health ailments too. Recent research has shown massage can effectively treat conditions such as high blood pressure, fibromyalgia, headaches, osteoarthritis, and several other
types of conditions.

In a rigorous massage therapy program, you will learn how to treat these conditions as a health care professional. More importantly, this type of education will give you the skills you need to work in any environment you may choose.

Here are four additional ways a rigorous education can better prepare you for today’s massage therapy industry. 

Elizabeth Toth, Communications Coordinator at National University of Health Sciences, shares how alternative medicine helped her have a natural, unmedicated birth. 

When I found out I was pregnant, one of the first things that came to mind was what childbirth might be like. I had images of women screaming in pain, cursing their husbands, begging for drugs. With how birth is portrayed in movies, it's no wonder I was a little nervous about it.

While giving birth in real life isn’t exactly like that, I still needed to educate myself and prepare for the experience both mentally and physically. For most doctors, giving birth is considered a major medical event. Luckily it was one I could prepare for.

The rising cost of higher education is old news at this point, but most people would be surprised to find out exactly how much a medical degree, either in traditional medicine or complementary and alternative medicine, costs today.

In the past 20 years, average tuition and fees have increased over 165% for private medical schools and 312% for public medical schools. The average debt with which medical students leave school has also increased dramatically: today, most students graduate with an average of $183,000 in debt.

If you’re going to spend $25,000+ a year on an education, you need to be confident that the return on your investment will be worth it—especially if you take on debt to finance your degree. That’s why it’s important to take the return on investment (ROI) on your degree into account, and discuss your financial aid options with a financial aid advisor before deciding to take out loans.

Celebrity suicides from Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain to Linkin Park lead singer Chester Bennington are bringing to light the increasing prevalence of depression. Despite the stigma, more celebrities like Lady Gaga and Jim Carrey are speaking out. Mental health issues are not limited to celebrities, however. They are actually much more widespread than many may think.

According to a report by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), antidepressant use has risen by 65% between 1999 and 2014. A 2017 study also shows depression increased “significantly” among persons in the U.S. from 2005 to 2015, from 6.6% to 7.3%.

Research tells us that one of the biggest triggers for depression is chronic stress both from physical health issues such as chronic pain and psychosocial issues. So it is no surprise that with the economic and social stressors during the last 10 years that rates of depression would be on the rise.

Alongside pharmaceuticals, utilizing various types of treatment modalities including complementary and alternative medicine techniques often can lead to better outcomes than single modality interventions. These techniques may also help those who might want to rely less on pharmaceuticals in the long term.