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If you think today’s pharmaceutical-first model is the gold standard humans have always used, I want you to think again. For almost all of human existence, we healed with what the earth gave us. In roughly a single century, that wisdom was pushed to the edges of Western medicine.
Let me be clear up front: prescription drugs have their place. I’ve seen them save lives in the hospital. But after 25 years as a registered dietitian, I can tell you the system we have today is deeply unbalanced. Money, education, and research funding all flow in one direction, and natural medicine is left out of the conversation.
So let’s walk through how this happened, what the newest research says, and why natural medicine is finally having its comeback.
🌿 Key Takeaways
- The 1910 Flexner Report reshaped medical education and sped up the closing of most schools that taught herbal, eclectic, and homeopathic medicine.
- Nature is still the pharmacy’s biggest supplier: roughly half of approved small-molecule cancer drugs come from natural products or are derived from them.
- The NIH center for complementary and integrative health gets well under 1% of the NIH budget.
- In 2025, the World Health Organization adopted a 10-year global strategy to integrate traditional and complementary medicine into health systems.
- Supplements are regulated by the FDA, but differently than drugs. Quality matters, and so does testing instead of guessing.
How the Flexner Report Pushed Natural Medicine Out of Medical Schools
Here’s a piece of medical history most people never learn in school. In 1910, an educator named Abraham Flexner published the Flexner Report on American medical education for the Carnegie Foundation.
And here’s the part that surprises people: Flexner wasn’t a physician. He was a schoolteacher and education reformer by training.
To be fair, the report did some real good. Many medical schools back then were tiny for-profit operations with almost no lab training, and Flexner pushed for science, hospital-based training, and higher standards. But his recommendations didn’t stop at raising the bar. He openly dismissed schools rooted in herbal, eclectic, and homeopathic traditions.
The results were dramatic. Between 1910 and 1922, the number of U.S. medical schools fell from 131 to 81. Historians have documented how the report led to the closing of most complementary and alternative medicine colleges in the decades that followed. The schools that survived were the ones that matched the model favored by the big philanthropic funders of the era, including the Carnegie and Rockefeller foundations. Some of those schools were already struggling financially, but the report hastened their end.
The fallout went beyond herbal medicine. Five of the seven Black medical schools and the women’s medical colleges also closed in that same window, which is a sobering reminder that “standardization” had real costs.
Fast forward a century, and the science of plant and nutritional medicine is still treated like an afterthought, even when the research is strong.
Key turning points in how Western societies have treated natural medicine.
Follow the Money: Where Research Dollars Actually Go
Who is going to fund and share research on natural remedies? Plants and nutrients usually can’t be patented, so there’s little profit motive to run expensive trials. That leaves government funding, and here the numbers tell the story.
The NIH’s National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health received about $170 million in federal funding for fiscal year 2024. The NIH as a whole works with a budget of roughly $46 to $47 billion. That means complementary and integrative health research gets well under half of one percent of the pie.
Bars drawn to scale. Source: NCCIH appropriations history and NIH budget tables.
Meanwhile, interest from the public keeps growing. Roughly three out of four Americans take dietary supplements, and the vast majority say supplements are essential to their health. I’m convinced the rise in natural medicine use is a direct response to people feeling unheard by a drug-only system.
Nature Is Still the World’s Biggest Pharmacy
Here’s the irony. Even as plant medicine was pushed out of medical schools, drug companies kept mining nature for their best ideas. A major review of four decades of drug approvals found that natural products remain a leading source of new drugs, especially for cancer and infections. In cancer alone, about half of approved small-molecule drugs are natural products or made directly from them.
That sweet wormwood example matters. Chinese scientist Tu Youyou drew on an ancient herbal text to isolate artemisinin, and she shared the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for it. Millions of lives have been saved by a remedy that traditional healers used for centuries.
So the question isn’t whether plants work. The question is why we only respect them once they’ve been patented.
What About FDA Regulation of Supplements?
One common argument against natural medicine is that supplements “aren’t regulated.” That’s not quite true, and I want to set the record straight because accuracy matters.
Under the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA), the FDA regulates dietary supplements as a category of food. Manufacturers must follow good manufacturing practices, can’t make disease-treatment claims, and the FDA can pull unsafe products. What the FDA doesn’t do is approve supplements before they hit the shelves the way it does with drugs.
Does heavier regulation automatically mean safer products? Look at our food supply. Plenty of heavily regulated, ultra-processed foods line grocery shelves, and the rise in obesity tracks right along with them.
Or consider acid-blocking PPI drugs and natural reflux support. PPIs are FDA-approved and sold over the counter, yet long-term use has been linked in research to bone loss, low magnesium, B12 deficiency, kidney disease, infections, and more. The FDA even added a low-magnesium warning to PPI labels back in 2011. Approval doesn’t equal harmless.
Comparing the Risks: Drugs vs. Supplements
Let’s put risk in perspective with honest numbers.
Prescription drugs carry serious risks. Medical errors and adverse drug events are a major cause of harm, although the often-repeated claim that medical errors are the third leading cause of death is debated among researchers. The opioid crisis is the starkest example. It began with prescription painkillers in the late 1990s and grew into a wave of illicit fentanyl. The overdose death rate data from NIDA shows how devastating that became. The good news is that the CDC estimated overdose deaths dropped about 27% in 2024, to roughly 80,000, with opioid-involved deaths falling to about 55,000.
Supplements aren’t risk-free either, and I won’t pretend otherwise. A large national study estimated about 23,000 emergency room visits per year linked to dietary supplements. Many involved weight-loss and energy products, and many were young children accidentally swallowing them. Deaths are rare.
Compare that to the scale of prescription drug harm, with nearly 75% of Americans taking at least one supplement, and you see a clear double standard. Supplements get the finger-pointing while drug-related harm is treated as the cost of doing business.
Conventional Medicine vs. Natural Medicine: Where’s the Gap?
Should we as a society use more natural medicine? The public clearly thinks so. Most people who take supplements find they help them maintain or improve their health. And natural medicine includes food, which is the most underused medicine of all.
| Question | Drug-first model | Integrative / functional model |
|---|---|---|
| Main goal | Manage symptoms | Find and address root causes |
| Tools | Prescriptions, procedures | Food, nutrients, herbs, lifestyle, plus drugs when needed |
| Nutrient status | Rarely tested | Tested and tracked |
| Research funding | Billions per year | A small fraction of that |
| Time per visit | Often 10 to 15 minutes | Often 60 minutes or more |
I was trained in the most conventional way possible. In graduate school for nutritional sciences, we were taught to work around prescription drugs. End of discussion.
But I’ve also spent my career proving natural compounds belong in mainstream medicine. I was the primary author of a randomized controlled trial on vitamin D3 in heart failure patients, published in BMC Cardiovascular Disorders. That’s a nutrient, studied with the same rigor as any drug. I’ve even convinced cardiologists I worked alongside to take berberine themselves.
And I’ve lived it personally. When I finally ran my own food sensitivity testing, my symptoms dropped dramatically, including seasonal allergies I’d accepted as “normal.” You can read the full story in how MRT testing transformed my health.
The Hidden Problem: Drugs That Deplete Nutrients
Many doctors don’t realize that a large number of prescription drugs deplete essential micronutrients, the building blocks of life. This knowledge gap puts people at risk for long-term problems that go far beyond the drug’s intended purpose.
| Common medication | Nutrients it can deplete |
|---|---|
| Metformin | Vitamin B12 |
| PPIs (acid blockers) | Magnesium, vitamin B12, iron, calcium |
| Statins | Coenzyme Q10 |
| Oral contraceptives | Vitamin B6, folate, magnesium, zinc |
| Diuretics | Potassium, magnesium, zinc |
| Corticosteroids | Calcium, vitamin D, potassium |
If you take metformin, my post on why vitamin B12 deficiency guidelines are too low is a must-read. And not all supplements are equal; here’s my list of synthetic vitamins to avoid for gut health.
This is why I always say test, not guess. Functional labs can show exactly where you stand. I offer panels through my functional lab testing page.
Natural Medicines With Strong Research That Doctors Rarely Mention
Sometimes I meet people taking ten prescription drugs at once. In what research study has that exact combination ever been tested? The short answer: none. Yet some providers will scold a patient for taking turmeric, even though there are now more than 20,000 published studies on curcumin in PubMed.
Milk thistle for liver health, blood sugar, and more has research supporting its use in liver disease and type 2 diabetes, with early studies in PCOS, and it has a very high safety profile. Yet I have never met a patient whose doctor recommended it.
Probiotics for UTI prevention are another example. In one randomized trial, a Lactobacillus crispatus probiotic cut recurrent UTIs roughly in half compared to placebo. With antibiotic resistance on the rise, that should be front-page news for doctors.
A few more natural options with solid research behind them:
- Vitamin D for joint pain and immunity
- Quercetin for allergies and heart health
- Ashwagandha for cortisol and stress
As my studies expanded beyond conventional medicine, I kept coming back to what the earth provides. Hippocrates knew it. Many functional medicine providers know it now. Given what it needs, the body has a remarkable ability to heal.
The Global Comeback of Traditional Medicine
The tide is turning, and not just in wellness circles. In May 2025, the World Health Assembly adopted the WHO Global Traditional Medicine Strategy 2025–2034. Its four goals are to strengthen the evidence base, ensure safety and regulation, integrate traditional, complementary, and integrative medicine into health systems, and maximize its broader value.
That’s a big shift. The world’s top health authority is now saying, in effect, that natural and traditional medicine deserve rigorous study and a seat at the table, not a pat on the head.
We live in a world of double standards. It’s time to hold every medicine, natural or synthetic, to the same honest standard.
How to Use Natural Medicine Wisely
- Test, don’t guess. Check nutrient levels and look for hidden triggers before adding a cabinet full of pills.
- Start with food. Personalized nutrition beats generic diet advice. My complete guide to MRT testing and the LEAP method explains how I find each client’s reactive foods.
- Choose quality. Look for third-party testing and practitioner-grade brands.
- Tell your providers. Some herbs interact with medications, so share everything you take.
- Don’t stop prescriptions on your own. Work with a knowledgeable provider to adjust safely.
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Work With Heidi Get Cortisol FixFrequently Asked Questions About Natural Medicine
Why is natural medicine marginalized in Western societies?
Natural medicine was pushed aside largely after the 1910 Flexner Report reshaped medical education around a drug and laboratory model, which sped up the closing of most herbal, eclectic, and homeopathic medical schools. Today, natural remedies are still sidelined because plants and nutrients usually can’t be patented, so far less money goes into researching and promoting them.
What was the Flexner Report?
The Flexner Report was a 1910 study of medical education in the United States and Canada, written by educator Abraham Flexner for the Carnegie Foundation. It raised scientific standards for medical schools but also led to the closing of most schools that taught natural and alternative medicine. Between 1910 and 1922, the number of U.S. medical schools dropped from 131 to 81.
Does the FDA regulate dietary supplements?
Yes. Under the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994, the FDA regulates supplements as a category of food. Manufacturers must follow good manufacturing practices and can’t claim to treat disease, but supplements don’t need FDA approval before they’re sold the way drugs do.
Are natural medicines safer than prescription drugs?
Many natural medicines have strong safety profiles, and serious harm from supplements is rare compared to prescription drugs. However, natural doesn’t mean risk-free. Some herbs interact with medications, and low-quality products can be contaminated, so choose third-party tested brands and work with a knowledgeable provider.
How many prescription drugs come from natural sources?
A large share. Research reviewing four decades of drug approvals found that natural products remain a leading source of new medicines, and about half of approved small-molecule cancer drugs are natural products or derived from them. Aspirin, digoxin, metformin, paclitaxel, and artemisinin all trace back to plants.
Is the World Health Organization supporting traditional medicine?
Yes. In May 2025, the World Health Assembly adopted the WHO Global Traditional Medicine Strategy 2025–2034. It aims to strengthen evidence, ensure safety and regulation, and integrate traditional, complementary, and integrative medicine into health systems where appropriate.
The information on this website has not been evaluated by the Food & Drug Administration or any other medical body and is shared for educational purposes only. Consult your doctor or healthcare provider before making changes to your supplement regimen or lifestyle. This post contains affiliate links; I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.
