Perhaps you’re exhausted or struggling with anxiety. Or you want to give your immune system some support. Or keep your brain sharp. Or ease menopause symptoms. Rather than turning to a doctor, you decide to try a natural therapy, perhaps a traditional plant medicine or dietary supplement, to see if it helps. At your health store, you are faced with shelves of products, with packaging that only hints at what the benefits might be, and many of them are costly. So, which do you choose to self-medicate with?
Natural health used to be considered alternative, the province of hippy types who eschewed conventional medicine. However, it is now big business.
A 2019 survey from Natural Health Products NZ found the industry contributes $2.3 billion annually to our economy and is continuing to grow.
Dunedin’s Sandra Clair is a leading plant-medicine expert and founder of Artemis, a range of natural health remedies that includes some based on Central Otago thyme. Growing up in Switzerland, she was accustomed to a system where it was common for traditional medicines to be used alongside pharmaceutical drugs, and a GP might prescribe either.
“If somebody is going through a rough patch, then the GP has the option of saying, we can give you Prozac, but you can also take St John’s wort. Which do you prefer?” she says.
Twenty-seven years ago, when she arrived in this country, she was startled to find what she considered normal healthcare was regarded as “hippy stuff”.
“I felt a bit offended,” says Clair,
