Advertising naturopathy

The Committees of Advertising Practice (CAP) write and maintain the UK Advertising Codes, which are administered by the Advertising Standards Authority. On their website, the CAP recently published an updated advertising code for naturopathy. As we have regularly discussed the fact that the public is being frequently misled in this area, I consider the code important in the context of this blog. I therefore take the liberty of repeating it here – not least in the hope that this helps preventing misinformation in the future [the numbers in square brackets refer to me footnotes below].

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What is Naturopathy?

Naturopathy is a holistic [1] approach to healthcare that uses a combination of one or more different disciplines (for example herbal medicine or hydrotherapy) and a healthy lifestyle [2] in order to gain and maintain a healthy body [3].

What claims are likely to be acceptable?

The promotion of a healthy [4] lifestyle is likely to acceptable as are claims that go no further than those commonly accepted for healthy [4] eating, sleeping well, taking exercise and the like.

What claims are likely to be problematic?

The ASA and CAP have not yet been provided with evidence which demonstrates that Naturopathy can be used to treat medical conditions (Rule 12.1).  Therefore, any claims that go beyond accepted claims for a healthy [4] lifestyle are likely to be problematic [5] unless they are supported by a robust body of evidence.  In 2013, the ASA ruled against claims on a marketer’s website which said that Naturopathy could be used to treat acute and chronic illness and disease because the marketer had not provided any evidence in support of their claims (CNM The College of Naturopathic Medicine Ltd, 13 March 2013).

What about serious medical conditions?

Claims to offer treatment on conditions for which medical supervision should be sought [6] are likely to be considered to discourage essential treatment unless that treatment is carried out under the supervision of a suitably qualified health professional (Rule 12.2).

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Naturopathy has been the subject of my posts before – see for instance here, here, here, here and here. Naturopathy can be dangerous to the point where it can kill the patient – see for instance here and here. Therefore it is important that advertising gets regulated. To make it very clear: the above statement by the CAP is, in my view, a step in the right direction, and I encourage alternative practitioners to look up the equivalent CAP documents for their specific therapy.

Having said that, I still feel the need to make a few comments:

1. It is misleading to call naturopathy ‘holistic’. This is often factually incorrect and also gives the impression that conventional medicine is not holistic – see also here.
2. Are we sure that all lifestyles promoted by naturopaths are, in fact, healthy?
3. Maintaining a healthy body is naturopathy speak for DISEASE PREVENTION. Who decides what is effective prevention? On what evidence? How come many naturopaths are against the most effective means of prevention of all times – vaccination?
4. Who decides what is ‘healthy’? On what evidence?
5. Why ‘problematic’? Are they not wrong or bogus or false or fraudulent or criminal?
6. Are there conditions for which medical supervision should not be sought? Which are they?