It has been documented that 85% of visits to MD's, or pathology doctors, is for functional problems which MD's are not trained to deal with, except by giving symptomatic relief. Kroenke, K., & A.D. Mangelsdorff, "Common Symptoms in Ambulatory Care: Incidence, Evaluation, Therapy and Outcome." American Journal of Medicine 1989

Meanwhile a Naturopathic Doctor's focus is to gain and maintain a person's own level of optimal health, given his/her physical condition and contributing health factors. Improvement is made by successive therapy sessions over time to increase a person's quality of life in vitality and energy.

Many factors can contribute to specific health conditions, but by supporting the weakest link of the physiological, mental, emotional, genetic, and/or environmental factors, a Naturopathic Doctor begins to unburden the imbalanced body to help it target the affected areas and restore them to optimal health.

In the past, use of acupuncture, homeopathy, osteopathy, hydrotherapy, herbal treatments, and chiropractic, all preceded chemical/drug research as the main method of illness treatment. They had been practiced and refined over many years, but the power struggle and interest in scientific explanation overshadowed these other forms of medicine to champion the cause of better health in North America. Therefore, in the late 1800's, organizations such as the American Medical Association (AMA) emerged as the main medical institution to govern citizens' health and well-being.

Still, in 1902, Dr. Lust founded his first American School of Naturopathy in New York. It integrated botanical medicine, homeopathy, nutritional therapy, manipulative therapy, acupuncture and lifestyle counselling to create "naturopathic medicine". Later across Canada, by 1925 in Ontario, 1936 in British Columbia, 1943 in Manitoba and 1952 in Saskatchewan, naturopathic regulations were also established to varying degrees. Today, in the United States, licensure is given in Arizona, Utah, Texas, Oregon, Washington, Montana, Hawaii, Alaska, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Vermont and more states and provinces are being added each year. Therefore, Naturopathic Medicine has had a relatively long existence in North America by taking direction from many worldly philosophies, to try to improve the body naturally.