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A Natural Approach
by author Sandi Gauvin

“If things are real, they can be proven.” With this motivating philosophy, Dr. Michael Lyon embarked, at the age of 16, on a medical quest that would feed his desire to prove the relationship between good nutrition and good health.

Over the years, Dr. Lyon’s career has taken him full circle, from an early membership in Calgary’s first natural food co-op and its emerging health food culture to a doctor of medicine degree, family practice, a stint with Sport Canada, and finally to his full-time devotion to proving–and then sharing–the connection between natural food and health.

A Shaky Start

As a fit, vital, and passionate Dr. Lyon recounts his early years, it’s difficult to imagine the young, out-of-control, and overweight young boy he describes: “I started smoking when I was in Grade 3; by 16 I was very unhealthy. I had asthma, I felt bad all the time with terrible allergies, and I was doing very poorly in school, acting out, and getting into a lot of trouble.” It was at this critical time in his life that a serendipitous event placed a life-altering book–written by natural health pioneer, Dr. Paul Bragg–in his hands.

The Turning Point

The formerly out-of-control teenager was inspired. He read as many books about natural health as he could find, quit smoking, began an exercise program, completely altered his diet to incorporate natural, organic foods, and joined a natural food co-op. He also consulted a naturopath who put him on a program that, as Dr. Lyon says, “revolutionized my whole life–I went from being a pretty marginal student to being the best student in my high school.”

So good, in fact, that he was offered grant money to conduct research during his years at medical school where he fed his passion for looking beyond accepted wisdom for new insights about the role of natural medicine in health maintenance and disease prevention. “Unfortunately, at the end of 11 years of medical training and residency, the system creates a doctor who is very efficient at writing prescriptions, but really not very good at thinking about the causes of illnesses and conditions,” says Dr. Lyon about his indoctrination into allopathic medicine.

Laying the Groundwork

After a short and frustrating interval in conventional medical practice, “with some prevention sort of thrown in,” Dr. Lyon spent some time as a physician with Sport Canada where, among other programs, he helped the bobsleigh team build from a 27th-place position to among the top in the world by improving their nutrition, optimizing their supplementation, and helping them enhance their body biomechanics.

“Bit by bit,” says Dr. Lyon, “I gradually veered over to natural and complementary medicine. Since 1993, I’ve been doing either natural medicine or complementary medicine practice or research and almost nothing but natural medicine research since 1996.”

A Natural Approach to Research

“My interest is to bring some balance to natural medicine research,” says Dr. Lyon. “Unfortunately, a lot of the research on nutrition or natural medicine is designed to fail because it’s done by conventional researchers who really don’t believe in natural medicine and don’t really understand how nutrients work or how they synergize.”

“The studies I’ve been involved with, though, are based on using natural health products in ways which are more in line with the way they’d be used in the real world and would be most effective. Rather than designing a trial to fail, we use rigorous double-blind, placebo-controlled trials of certain natural products that end up providing a fair investigation.”

Choosing a Course

With the incredible diversity of benefits made possible by natural therapeutics, I asked Dr. Lyon how he narrows his area of interest. “I like to do research on things that have an application to my own life,” he responds.

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Sandi Gauvin is a writer and editor for alive magazine.

Source: alive #287, September 2006

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