Will AI replace your naturopath?
Can naturopathy survive in the age of AI ? I’ve asked myself this question increasingly over the past year.
Fellow practitioners have shared stories of clients presenting AI generated health protocols and found that superficially some are actually ok.
However, this strategy can fall short in the following ways.
- Correct diagnosis: My rule is ‘never accept someone’s diagnosis without personally assessing the client’. I’ve lost count of the number of times clients have shared incorrect diagnoses, including some life-challenging conditions that were missed. An AI protocol is useless if it doesn’t include the true cause of the symptoms.
- Multiple complex health issues: This further complicates the picture and how you treat the person living with these conditions. Often an experienced practitioner can prescribe a clever multi-tasking herbal, which covers many of the issues in one bottle, rather a massive list of remedies for each condition.
- Polypharmacy: Can an AI protocol for a conditions take into account all the prescribed over-the- counter medication and supplements a person is taking? Can it rule out symptoms that are caused by polypharmacy and avoid drug/nutrient interactions?
- Quality: Australia has some of the most stringent therapeutic goods regulations in world. Supplements and herbs from other countries (including the US and China) notoriously don’t always contain what’s stated on the label, with substitutions, contamination and incorrect dosages. Even in Australia, there can be a big difference between ‘practitioner only’ and over-the-counter products.
- Posology: When treating an individual there’s rarely a ‘standard’ dose. After selecting the right herb/nutrient dosage, you need to account for other factors like timing and absorption. How long you need to take a supplement, monitoring for effectiveness and potential interactions are skills that most Australian-trained naturopaths/herbalists/nutritionists spend four years studying to acquire.
- Expertise and care: Sometimes I don’t prescribe anything other than individualized, holistic support. Knowing how and when to implement change is an art. A single dietary or lifestyle tweak, can often make a positive difference without an extensive and hard to follow treatment plan.
- Human connection: Developing trust and collaborating together to prioritise your health needs is an art. Everyone is different and requires individualised care.
Is AI prescribing dangerous?
Using AI for health information is no different to consulting Dr Google and wellness influencers. In fact artificial intelligence trains on these often-dubious sources. It takes medical and CAM knowledge to know if the information is correct.
As much as I love exploring AI for research, I still need all my clinical knowledge to check the references cited, as AI is prone to hallucinating. AI makes stuff up (including fake studies!)
A central tenet of naturopathy is ‘treat the individual not the disease’. A health professional who follows this philosophy can bring far more to the healing journey than a diseased-centric source – human or AI.
Finding the right practitioner
Naturopathic care is more than the sum of its parts. But finding the right practitioner, or any new member of your healthcare team can be challenging.
What I look for when searching for a naturopath:
- A website that is easy to navigate and provides the information required.
- How long they’ve been practicing? This is a tricky one as years in practice doesn’t always equate to the number of clients they’ve worked with. Aim for at least five, but ideally a minimum of 10 years.
- What are their qualifications? A bachelor degree is considered a minimum qualification for naturopaths who completed training since the late 1990s or early 2000s. Before this a diploma (or advanced diploma) of applied science was standard. The only legitimate Australian ‘ND’ (naturopathic diploma) qualification relates to few graduates earlier than the late 1980s who are still in practice. There is no ‘naturopathic doctor’ accreditation.
- If they claim to have a specialty – what backs this up? My professional association defines a ‘specialty’ as a practitioner with a minimum of 10 years’ experience and post-graduate study in the specialised field.
- How are consultations conducted? How to make bookings and what are the fees? Do they need to be online or in person?
- Is additional ‘testing’ standard and, if so, what’s the science backing it up and the costs?
- About the practitioner. Do they have an ‘about’ section that gives you a sense of who they are, why they do this work and whether this gels with what you’re looking for?
- Beware of testimonials. As of 2025, only testimonials (including a social media photo, words in a thank-you card or review) regarding a client’s experiences of the service (ie non-clinical aspects, like the friendliness of staff or convenient parking) are permitted. Testimonials referencing anything clinical such as symptoms, treatments, or specific outcomes of care, remain forbidden. It’s wise to work with practitioners who comply with professional regulations and national law.
- Word-of-mouth recommendations can be useful. Especially when asking a trusted friend or relative what they like about working with the particular practitioner, what they typically come away with, how easy is it to follow the treatment plan, and how much do the extras (remedies, tests etc) usually cost?
As of December 2025 Gill is no longer working in clinical practice with naturopathic clients. She continues to mentor health practitioners .
Similar Posts:
