Alternatives to traditional medicine include popular healing practices such as acupuncture, herbalism, chiropractic, homeopathy and many other discplines of healing from around the world. Some are gaining reputation in North America due to excellent education in our communities. We like to think that conventional practices are founded solely on scientific knowledge, but often in western medicine as well as any other, observation comes before understanding.

Complementary medicine is aligned with alternative medicine in that practices and medical systems which are not part of the traditional scope of western medicine are used as a complementary healing resource with traditional medical practice. This is somewhat common with terminal and cancer patients who seeking out additional methods for treatment. Nutritional analysis plays a significant role here because it is used to control the food source which the disease also needs to thrive.