Natural health has no official definition, so we offer a working one

Key takeaways

• In 2022, 36.7% of U.S. adults used at least one of seven practices, such as yoga, meditation, massage or chiropractic care, up from 19.2% in 2002; that count leaves out supplements⁴.
• A separate federal survey found that in 2021–2023, 60.2% of adults 20 and older took a dietary supplement in the past 30 days, and 15.4% took four or more⁵.
• The national association of naturopathic doctors adopted six guiding principles in 1989, starting with “the healing power of nature”⁷.
• Most people who use these approaches also see conventional clinicians, and NIH’s own research center says the line between the two is blurring¹³.
• This library rates every claim on the same four-level evidence scale, whether it comes from a plant, a practice or a pharmacy.

How many Americans practice natural health? The answer depends on what you count.

In 2002, a large federal health survey asked adults about care outside mainstream medicine. Counted one way, 36% had used some form of it in the past year. Count prayer for health reasons, and the number jumped to 62%⁶.

Twenty years later, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) reported that 36.7% of adults used at least one of seven approaches in 2022: yoga, meditation, massage, chiropractic care, acupuncture, naturopathy, or guided imagery and muscle relaxation⁴. That count skips supplements.

Supplements are tracked by a different federal survey. In 2021–2023, it found that 60.2% of adults 20 and older had taken at least one in the past 30 days⁵. Because the two surveys count different things, their numbers can’t be added together.

So natural health is everywhere. It is also hard to pin down. The NIH center that studies this field defines “complementary,” “alternative,” “integrative” and “whole person” health. “Natural health” isn’t on its list¹.

This article is the front door to our library. It maps what natural health usually includes, the beliefs behind it, where those beliefs came from, and what the movement is not. Then it offers a working definition that respects both your values and the evidence.

Natural health is three things at once: tools, beliefs and an identity

When people say “natural health,” they usually mean a mix of three things.

• Tools: food, movement, sleep, plants, time outdoors, touch and mind-body practices.
• Beliefs: prevention comes first, the body can heal, causes matter more than symptoms, and the gentlest option that works is best.
• An identity: “I take charge of my health, and I look for natural ways first.”

Official bodies tend to define only the tools, and each uses its own words. NIH’s National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) calls a non-mainstream approach “complementary” when it is used with conventional care. It calls the same approach “alternative” when it replaces conventional care¹.

The World Health Organization (WHO) speaks of “traditional medicine.” It means the knowledge, skills and practices that grow out of a culture’s own theories and experience, used to stay well and to prevent or treat illness of body and mind¹⁰. WHO adds a telling detail: the definition holds whether or not science can explain how a practice works¹⁰.

That detail is the real center of the debate. Natural health includes practices science has tested and confirmed, practices it has tested and rejected, and many it hasn’t tested well at all.

The word “natural” on a package adds its own confusion. Our guide to food labels explains why it promises so little.

A map of the field: eight territories

Here is one way to map what natural health usually covers. The last column shows the closest match in NCCIH’s system, which sorts approaches by their main input: nutritional, psychological, physical, or a combination¹³.

Territory	Common practices	Closest NCCIH category
Food and eating	Whole foods, home cooking, fermented foods, gardening, fasting traditions	Nutritional
Plants and supplements	Herbs, teas, vitamins, minerals, probiotics	Nutritional
Movement	Walking, strength work, yoga, tai chi, dance	Physical, or a combination
Rest and rhythm	Sleep, daylight, rest days, slowing down	No separate category
Mind and spirit	Meditation, breathwork, prayer, guided imagery, journaling	Mostly psychological
Hands-on care	Massage, chiropractic, acupuncture	Physical; acupuncture is a combination
Nature and connection	Time outdoors, clean air and water, community, family meals	The social and environmental parts of whole person health
Whole traditional systems	Naturopathy, Ayurveda, traditional Chinese medicine, homeopathy	Combinations, used within their own frameworks

Two things stand out on this map. First, most of it is daily life, not treatment. Second, the territories overlap: yoga is movement, breath and meditation at once. That overlap is one reason NCCIH changed how it sorts the field, as you’ll see below³.

The principles: what natural-health followers tend to believe

The clearest written statement of natural-health principles comes from naturopathic medicine. Work on it started in 1986 at the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians. A select committee spent roughly three years on the text, and in 1989 the group’s House of Delegates approved it without a single vote against, at its convention in Rippling River, Oregon⁷.

From the start, the drafters agreed that naturopathy would be identified by what it believes, not by the therapies it uses⁷. Here are those beliefs in plain words. They are the profession’s stated principles, not research findings.

1. The healing power of nature (vis medicatrix naturae): living systems tend to heal themselves, and the healer’s job is to remove what blocks that process.
2. Identify and treat the causes (tolle causam): look for the root of an illness instead of only quieting symptoms.
3. First do no harm (primum non nocere): use the least force needed.
4. Doctor as teacher (docere): teach patients and encourage them to take responsibility.
5. Treat the whole person (tolle totum): weigh body, mind, emotions, genes, environment, social life and spirit.
6. Prevention (preventare): stop disease before it starts.

The association reaffirmed the statement in 2000 and 2011⁷. When the World Naturopathic Federation polled naturopaths in 42 countries in 2015, support for the original 1989 wording averaged about 94%⁷.

You don’t need to see a naturopath to share these instincts. Plenty of people who cook from scratch, walk every day and ask “why?” before taking a pill hold the same values.

Where the ideas came from, and why medicine shares some of them

Some natural-health principles are older than modern medicine, and mainstream doctors claim the same roots.

Take “first, do no harm.” It is often credited to the Hippocratic Oath, but the phrase isn’t in the Oath. Harvard Health Publishing notes that the closest wording appears in another ancient Hippocratic text, Of the Epidemics, which asks healers to do good, or else to avoid doing harm⁹. Natural health and conventional medicine claim the same ancestor.

Naturopathy as an American profession began in 1901, founded by Benedict Lust⁷. It faded in the 1950s and 1960s and revived in the 1970s⁷. NCCIH traces its roots to traditional practices and to health care that was popular in 19th-century Europe. The goal, the agency says, is to find and treat the root cause of disease⁸.

Licensed naturopathic doctors today typically complete four years of graduate school. Their schools answer to the Council on Naturopathic Medical Education, an accrediting agency that dates to 1978⁸. Each state sets its own licensing rules, and so-called traditional naturopaths aren’t eligible for a license⁸. NCCIH counts about 5,000 licensed practitioners in the United States, after the profession more than doubled between 2000 and 2016⁸.

Use is still small. Only 1.3% of adults used naturopathy in 2022, though that was up from 0.2% in 2002⁸.

Other roots run deeper and wider: Ayurveda, traditional Chinese medicine, Indigenous healing and folk herbalism. WHO’s broad definition of traditional medicine takes in systems like these¹⁰.

Medicine now speaks natural health’s language

For decades, natural-health followers said health is more than the absence of disease, and that daily habits matter most. Federal agencies now say similar things.

NCCIH uses the term “whole person health.” It means looking at the whole person rather than separate organs, across biological, behavioral, social and environmental factors². NCCIH describes health and disease as points on one path, with each of us moving toward one or the other². Its examples include the VA’s Whole Health program and an intensive lifestyle program for heart disease that Medicare covers².

NCCIH has also acknowledged that its old categories stopped fitting. In its 2021–2025 strategic plan, it wrote that “the line between conventional and complementary approaches is blurring”³. Cardiac rehabilitation now often combines nutrition advice, exercise and help with stress, and it increasingly adds tai chi. Niacin, a B vitamin, can be a food, a supplement or a prescription drug³.

Federal nutrition advice moved too. The Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2025–2030, issued in January 2026, sum up their message as “eat real food”¹⁵. They call for sharp cuts in highly processed foods, refined carbohydrates, added sugars and sodium. They also name fermented foods such as sauerkraut, kimchi, kefir and miso¹⁵.

The federal Physical Activity Guidelines point the same way. They say 150 to 300 minutes a week of moderate activity, plus strength work twice a week, lowers the risk of early death, heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, depression, dementia and eight cancers¹⁴.

If you have argued for prevention for years, this may feel like vindication. It is, in part. The difference is method: these agencies adopted each idea after testing it, and they set aside ideas that failed. That is the standard this library uses too.

What natural health is not

Natural health gets caricatured from both sides. Here is what the evidence says it is not.

It is not anti-medicine by default. NCCIH says most people who use non-mainstream approaches also use conventional care¹. In the 2002 federal survey, the reason users gave most often was that combining an approach with conventional treatment would help⁶. Our article on why people turn to natural health looks at the other reasons.

It is not proof that natural means safe. Supplement makers don’t have to prove their products are safe and effective before selling them¹¹. St. John’s wort can interfere with antidepressants¹¹. Some products sold for weight loss, sexual health and bodybuilding have contained hidden prescription drugs¹¹. In 2017, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warned that some homeopathic teething tablets held too much belladonna, a toxic substance¹³.

It is not a reason to delay care for serious illness. NCCIH states that no complementary approach has been shown to cure cancer or put it into remission, and that delaying cancer treatment lowers the chance of a cure¹². Our companion article on complementary, alternative and integrative care shows what the survival data say.

It is not one thing. A daily walk and an unproven cancer “protocol” can both get called natural. They deserve different verdicts. NCCIH’s advice fits here: judge each product or practice on its own¹¹.

A working definition that keeps respect and evidence together

Each part of that definition does a job.

• “Prevention and daily habits first” honors natural health’s strongest instinct, which is also the one with the most evidence behind it.
• “Tradition” respects knowledge built over generations, without assuming that old means proven.
• “The least invasive option that works” keeps the spirit of “first do no harm.” The words “that works” matter: a gentle remedy that fails can cost more than a stronger one that succeeds.
• “A whole person” matches what NIH now calls whole person health².
• “Tests each specific claim” means plants, practices and pills all face the same questions.
• “Alongside medical care” reflects how most people already use these approaches¹.

This definition leaves out two things on purpose: suspicion of everything mainstream, and faith in everything natural. Both are shortcuts, and neither one protects you.

Our promise: four levels of evidence for every claim

Every article in this library uses the same four-level scale when it describes whether something works.

• Strong evidence: consistent results from good human trials or reviews.
• Promising but early: small or few trials, mixed results, or mostly lab and animal work.
• Not enough evidence: little or no human research.
• Evidence says no, or unsafe: tested and failed, or documented harm.

We apply the scale to supplements and to prescription drugs, to ancient practices and to new gadgets. Tradition and personal stories are worth hearing, and we’ll say so. They are not the same as proof.

Here is how the scale sorts a few common parts of natural health.

Practice or claim	Evidence level	What the research shows
Regular physical activity for long-term health	Strong evidence	Lowers the risk of heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, depression, dementia and eight cancers14
Acupuncture, yoga, hypnosis or mindfulness to ease cancer symptoms	Promising but early	May help with nausea, pain, fatigue, anxiety or sleep; the strength of evidence varies by practice and symptom12
Multi-part “whole person” programs	Promising but early	NCCIH notes a shortage of randomized trials testing programs with several parts2
Herbs and supplements as a group	Can’t be rated as a group	Each product has to be judged on its own evidence11
Homeopathy for any health condition	Evidence says no, or unsafe	A 2015 Australian government review, using strict criteria, found no reliable evidence that it works for any condition13
St. John’s wort taken with antidepressants	Evidence says no, or unsafe	The herb can interfere with these drugs11
Any complementary approach as a cancer cure	Evidence says no, or unsafe	None has been shown to cure cancer or cause remission12

Notice the pattern. The daily habits at the center of natural health score best. Claims for single products, and claims to replace medical treatment, score worst.

Five questions to bring to any natural-health choice

Use these before you start a new remedy, practice or program.

1. What exactly is it, and how much? “Turmeric” can mean the spice in your curry or a concentrated capsule. Dose and form change both the benefit and the risk.
2. Where does it sit on the four-level scale? Look for studies in people, not only tradition, testimonials or lab work.
3. Is it alongside my care, or instead of it? Adding a practice is usually low-stakes. Replacing a proven treatment for a serious illness is where danger piles up.
4. What could it interact with or delay? Check your medicines, pregnancy, upcoming surgery and any chronic conditions.
5. Who benefits if I say yes, and does my care team know? Follow the money, and tell every clinician what you use.

Get help fast if symptoms are severe, sudden or getting worse. Call 911 for chest pain, trouble breathing or signs of a stroke. For a possible poisoning or a bad reaction to a product, call Poison Control at 1-800-222-1222. You can report a harmful supplement to the FDA through MedWatch or its Safety Reporting Portal.

Questions readers ask

The bottom line

Natural health has no official definition, yet a majority of U.S. adults practice some part of it. At its best, it is a set of values: prevention first, respect for the body’s ability to heal, care for the whole person and the gentlest option that works. Many of those values now sit at the center of federal health advice.

What turns those values into good decisions is evidence. This library will rate each practice and product on its own record, honor tradition without treating it as proof, and help you keep your clinicians on your side.

Related reading

• Complementary, alternative or integrative: one word carries most of the risk
• What complementary care means, and why the word misleads
• How to tell real integrative care from a marketing label
• Why “natural” on a food label guarantees almost nothing
• What to say when a doctor isn’t taking you seriously

Sources

1. National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. “Complementary, Alternative, or Integrative Health: What’s In a Name?” NIH, updated April 2021. nccih.nih.gov
2. National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. “Whole Person Health: What It Is and Why It’s Important.” NIH, updated May 2021. nccih.nih.gov
3. National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. “Reframing How We Think About Natural Products and Mind and Body Practices.” NCCIH Strategic Plan FY 2021–2025, NIH, 2021. nccih.nih.gov
4. National Institutes of Health. “NIH analysis reveals a significant rise in use of complementary health approaches, especially for pain management” (on Nahin RL, Rhee A, Stussman B, JAMA, 2024). News release, January 31, 2024. nih.gov
5. Stierman B, Couch CA, Gahche JJ, Mishra S. “Dietary Supplement Use: United States, August 2021–August 2023.” NCHS Data Brief No. 561, National Center for Health Statistics, CDC, May 2026. cdc.gov
6. Barnes PM, Powell-Griner E, McFann K, Nahin RL. “Complementary and Alternative Medicine Use Among Adults: United States, 2002.” Advance Data No. 343, National Center for Health Statistics, CDC, May 27, 2004. cdc.gov
7. Snider P, Zeff J. “Unifying Principles of Naturopathic Medicine: Origins and Definitions.” Integrative Medicine: A Clinician’s Journal, 2019. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
8. National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. “Naturopathy.” NIH, updated April 2025. nccih.nih.gov
9. Shmerling RH. “First, do no harm.” Harvard Health Publishing, Harvard Medical School, 2015, updated 2020. health.harvard.edu
10. World Health Organization, Regional Office for Africa. “Traditional Medicine.” WHO, accessed October 2026. afro.who.int
11. National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. “Safety Information.” NIH, accessed October 2026. nccih.nih.gov
12. National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. “Cancer and Complementary Health Approaches: What You Need To Know.” NIH, updated October 2021. nccih.nih.gov
13. National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. “Homeopathy.” NIH, updated April 2021. nccih.nih.gov
14. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. “Top 10 Things to Know About the Second Edition of the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans.” HHS, accessed October 2026. odphp.health.gov
15. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and U.S. Department of Agriculture. “Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2025–2030.” January 2026. cdn.realfood.gov