FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Many of the questions most frequently asked by prospective patients are given below. Most of them relate to diet supplements. If you can’t find the answer to any query you may have about one of the treatments available at Marlborough House, please don’t hesitate to contact us with your question.

What is complementary medicine?

A. Complementary medicine – also sometimes called integrative medicine or natural medicine – includes a broad range of healing philosophies, approaches, and therapies. A therapy is generally called complementary when it is used in addition to conventional treatments. Complementary therapies are used to help prevent illness, reduce stress, or minimise side effects and symptoms.

What are minerals, and why do we need them?

A. Minerals are non-organic substances that are necessary for the proper functioning of the body. There are 60 minerals in the body, and of these 22 are considered necessary for good health. While the human body can manufacture some vitamins, it cannot manufacture a single mineral. We can see the importance of minerals when we realise that all body tissues and fluids contain minerals. Minerals are in bones, teeth, soft tissue, muscle, blood, and nerve cells, and are indispensable for mental and physical well-being. All the complex substances the body needs to build new and healthy cells are dependent on minerals. Our bodies cannot maintain good health without a complete set of minerals in our daily diet. The human body also contains minerals that exist in minute quantities and traces (trace elements); their quantities may be small, but they play a major role in our health, for they are essential to the assimilation and use of vitamins and other nutrients.

Why do we need to take nutritional supplements?

A. We would not need to take supplements in a perfect world. However, the mass production and processing methods used by the food industry today strip out many of the natural nutrients normally found in foods. Therefore, to keep our bodies anywhere near optimal nutritional levels we need to supplement our diet with important vitamins, minerals and trace elements. There are also a number of other factors that deplete our bodies of nutrients. For instance, smoking destroys 25mg of vitamin C for each cigarette smoked; stress uses up a large quantity of B-complex vitamins and minerals; and eating sugar and other refined products will strip chromium, zinc, vitamin B3 and other minerals from our bodies.