A note from AMAKA: This feature is a researched and extensive guide on African Holistic Health. However, if you do have a health or medical concern or issue, please make an appointment with your local GP or medical practitioner. 

Holistic health is a journey to optimal health and wellness by looking at a person’s mind, body, soul and emotions. Practitioners believe that healing is most effective when you consider the whole person, rather than focusing on the specific illness through pills. Oluwaseyi, a health administrator at FD Naturals, one of Nigeria’s leading Holistic health stores, explains the concept of holistic health this way, “It means healing from a non-invasive to less invasive approach, and this means you come from the level of lowest risk and then scale up. The holistic health approach ensures that a person is not overtly dependent on pills for wellness when other tried and tested routes can guarantee results.”

For Yvonne Hankins, an African holistic health practitioner, and member of the African Holistic Health Chapter, New York, she said, “Holistic health practice is the reliance on ancient natural herbs to heal during modern times.”

The move by the western world into holistic practice is said to have begun in the late 1960s, at a time when people became wary of modern medicine which focused too much on drugs.There are many variations when it comes to holistic health practices, such as Chinese herbology which accounts for the majority of treatments in traditional Chinese medicine. There is Ayurvedic medicine (Ayurveda for short), believed to be one of the world’s oldest holistic healing practices, developed in India over 3,000 years ago. Then there is African holistic health, which is thoroughly grounded in African natural remedies and traditional practices.

African Holistic Health

Dr. Kamau Kokayi, a medical director who runs the Centre for Holistic Medicine in New York, said in an interview with National Public Radio (NPR), “At the heart of African holistic practice is African herbal medicine and at the root of African herbal medicine is its connection to God and the ancestors, it is being a part of community.” Dr. Llaila. O. Afrika — a popular African holistic health expert — in his textbook of African Holistic Health, said that, “African holistic health is any number of healing systems indigenous to Africa. In contrast to western medicine which is based on diagnosing and treating one part of a person, African holistic health systems address the physical, mental, and spiritual causes of disease which affect the entire person.” Afrika postulates in his book that the advent of colonization was a major stumbling block in the advancement of African traditional medicine, especially on the continent. Ali Arazzeem Abudullahi concurs with Afrika in his paper titled Trends and Challenges of African Medicine. He explained that the trajectory and history of traditional medicine, which was widely relied on across the continent, was interrupted once colonialism came on the scene.

However, in spite of the initial set-back, it appears that African holistic health practices have made a comeback, not only on the continent but across the globe. Dr. Dammie Osoba — a member of an African family holistic health organization, and CEO of Dr. Dammie’s Lifestyle Store in Nigeria — said, “African holistic health practice is growing in popularity because people are seeing the results. For example, it is the easiest way to boost your immunity.” For Dr. Kamau Kokayi, the re-emergence of African holistic practices in modern times is due to, “The recognition that there is a profound limitation to routine medical treatment. People are looking for answers as to how they can better improve and fulfil their health needs; thereby going in search of the available alternatives.”

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Benefits

For Hankins, it was her weight loss that proved that an African holistic lifestyle is the best option for living a healthy and wholesome life, she said, “I grew up in [a] Christian household where good food is everything! Over time, I became overweight and began seeking ways to lose the weight. I came across a book titled Fit for Life, and it discussed natural weight loss by eating foods which are compatible. It resulted in me losing 30 lbs. I then read Fit for Life, Book #2 which focused on how the factory farm animals made their way to our plates. After that read, I journeyed toward the path of vegetarianism with the guidance of Baaba Heru and Queen Afua. From them, I learned African history from which all these wellness modalities came. I eventually opened my own wellness centre and established the African Holistic Health Chapter of New York.”

Osoba also benefited in the area of weight loss as she said, “I used to be plus size, a UK 22 to be precise, and I wanted to lose weight the healthy way. I had tried a couple of things but none of them worked. By accessing those natural products and items that would help me realize my weight loss goal, the weight began to drop off so effortlessly.”

But weight loss is not the only benefit of holistic health practice. Osoba recounts an experience of one of her clients, who had been admitted to hospital for hypertension and diabetes as she explained: “This young lady was discharged and put on a series of medication. She came to me saying she did not want to be hooked on pills all her life, and so we began the journey together. We changed her diet, her way of living, and we addressed her mental health, too. It has been three years now, her blood level is controlled and her sugar level, too. Three years now without the medication.”

In Afrika’s African Holistic Health book, he documents numerous ailments and an extensive list of the supplements, herbs and natural foods that tackle them excellently. For anaemia, which is the reduced number of circulatory red blood cells in the body, he recommends herbs such as thyme, nettle, mullein, dandelion, red raspberry, and elecampane. He also recommends the consumption of apricots, beets, dates, grapes, cauliflower and raisins.

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Another ailment mentioned in Afrika’s book is Candida, a fungus overgrowth resulting in infection, which women tend to be more prone to. Afrika explained that a person with a Candida infection should not consume fermented foods, white sugar, dried fruit, ham, alcohol, honey, high gluten grains, bleached white flour, white rice, soy sauce, chocolate and yeast (used for baking). He further recommends the following herbs for treatment, seed oil, pau d'Aico, uva ursi, clove tea, and grapes. Afrika’s book is a collection of herbs and natural remedies for optimum health and vitality.

Abudullahi in his paper Trends and Challenges of African Medicine, also lists some African plants used for the treatment of ailments, examples are:

• Rauvolfia vomitoria, a tranquilizer and antihypertensive, from Nigeria, Rwanda and Mozambique.
• Syzygium aromaticum, a dental remedy, from East Africa.
• Catharanthus roseus, an anti-leukaemia treatment, from Madagascar.

However, in spite of the documented benefits of African holistic health practices, there are still challenges that persist for practitioners and the industry.

Challenges

For Oluwaseyi, the challenges are not only varying but cumbersome, she said, “For a start, people are so stereotyped in their belief system about western medicine that you literally feel like you are hitting a brick wall communicating to them about holistic health practices. Then there is the high volume and rotation of advertisements and campaigns selling highly processed foods, their voices and pockets literally overshadow the voices of those trying to teach people about healthy and wholesome living. Not forgetting the lack of resource materials, there are no local institutions that train holistic health practitioners, we have to look outside Nigeria to have any meaningful form of training.”

Abudullahi agrees that there is a need for change in mindset towards African traditional (medicinal) practices, however, he believes the change required is the mindset of modern medical practitioners, he writes, “The ethnocentric and medico centric tendencies of the western hegemonic mentality that are usually paraded by most stakeholders in modern medicine remains a very serious challenge, the general belief in western medical circle is that traditional medicine defies scientific procedures in terms of objectivity, measurement, codification and classification.”

For Hankins, the challenge is that a lot of states in America do not recognize Naturopath doctors as legal, she said in a personal interview to AMAKA contributor Nneoma Ekwegh, “In the U.S.A. Naturopath Doctors are not legal in all 50 states. National Association of Naturopathic Physicians is petitioning various State Governments for national licensing for those who want licensing in their local state. The American Medical Association pays its lobbyist well to petition various state governments to make Naturopath illegal, as it would be taking business from them.”

The Remedy

Osoba and Oluwaseyi believe that the challenges encountered are not insurmountable and they proffer solutions. For Osoba, it is the simple yet powerful emotion called passion, she said, “I tell people who want to venture into the business of holistic health, you must have a passion in order to thrive and survive in the industry. I have been on this journey now for four years and it is not easy. If you do not have a passion for it, you will not last long.”

For Oluwaseyi, there is only one thing that will put these challenges in the past, and that is a synergy between African holistic health practitioners and medical doctors as she said, “I envisage a time where we would have medical practitioners synergise with holistic health practitioners to help build a healthier human race. With this approach, we would have less people falling sick and the burden on health care professionals would reduce. Everybody wins. It is happening already but we need more synergy as both sides should be mutually dependent.”