Holistic Medicine Builds Healthy Clientele in Britain

Sue Edwards drove for an hour and half to get six little clumps of herbs and bark, which Dr. Chen Ruiqi gently scooped into brown lunch bags.

“I read all the bad things steroids can do,” said Edwards, 43, an asthma sufferer who is now “keen on holistic healing.”

The Chinese Health Center, where Chen dispenses his herbal cures, is part of a growth industry in Britain. Prince Charles has been a royal crusader for alternative medicine and has helped bolster its social standing.

Holistic medicine has “really just taken off in the past three years or so,” said Shelly Olivier, a holistic health consultant in London who previously practiced in California. She also is the daughter-in-law of the late Laurence Olivier.

“When I started treating my father-in-law, I had to work with his British doctors who would giggle and laugh. They thought it was all hogwash,” she said.

Three years later, “my toughest critics are taking classes in holistic medicine,” Olivier said.

Practitioners prefer the term “complementary” to “alternative” to stress that their therapies are not offered as a substitute for modern medicine.

Physicians and complementary healers say its popularity has been fueled by growing dissatisfaction with the National Health Service, increasing awareness of the limitations of Western medicine and the back-to-nature trend of the ‘90s.

“People are getting despondent in terms of doctors, they hear bad press about drugs, and they see they’re not getting the care they should at the NHS,” said Lisbeth Giampaolo, manager of Espree The Club. It offers reflexology and a form of Chinese meditation.

Complementary medicine is Britain’s latest American import. Stair machines, step classes and personal trainers have already found a niche among the trendy and health conscious.

Michael Endacott, director of the Institute of Complementary Medicine in London, said the last survey estimated about 4 million alternative treatments given during 1984. He speculated the number has at least doubled since then.

The British Medical Assn. created a committee to investigate both alternative therapies and the practitioners, said Nigel Duncan, an association spokesman.

A 1986 report focused on therapies. “It cast doubt on many of the treatments because they lacked proper scientific proof,” Duncan said. “Now we are beginning to look at the practitioners.”

The Institute of Complementary Medicine is starting a register of healers, at the urging of the BMA.

“The BMA shares our anxiety to make sure the public is treated safely,” said Endacott. The problem, he said, is establishing criteria. It’s tricky to evaluate diplomas from schools in China or India.

At the same time, the National Poisons Unit at Guy’s Hospital in London is investigating herbal remedies for potential toxicity.

Nick Edwards, manager of the information for the National Poisons Unit, said the study is based on more than 1,500 reports received in the last five years linking herbal remedies to dangerous side effects. One report blamed arsenic contamination for damaging a patient’s nervous system.

Preliminary results revealed mercury, arsenic and lead--all toxic metals--in some herbal medicines. It also identified hazardous levels of arsenic in one brand of kelp tablets.

Beverly Parkin of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society said the growing popularity of holistic cures is worrying. “What concerns us is that people assume because it’s natural, it’s safe,” she said.

Ray Hill, spokesman for the British Herbal Medicine Assn., said herbal remedies are rigorously monitored.

Other healers say time has proved the benefits of herbal remedies, many of which have been used for thousands of years in India and China.

Bad reactions to orthodox remedies steered Sue Edwards toward complementary medicine. She said she has not abandoned Western medicine, but supplements it with herbs.

“Perhaps, it’s a last resort,” she said.