Over the next five years, the natural health sector is expected to generate $210 billion in revenue annually, making it one of the top three fastest growing commercial sectors in the world. Outside of retail, only tech and cosmetics are growing faster.

As the second decade of the millennium draws to a close, I want to take a moment to look back at how the sector has developed, to highlight why I believe natural medicine has a critical role to play in prevention and treatment in the years to come, and to look at why the clinical medical sector remains resolutely opposed to ensuring patients are properly informed about their care options.

The media explosion of the last five years means that broadly speaking people now have access to much more knowledge and information about healthcare strategies than ever before.

With that awareness comes an understanding that we all now have a range of options to choose from when it comes to deciding how we want to take care of ourselves – and the internet has put those choices squarely within our reach.

Although it’s hard to imagine a world without the world wide web, it’s not all that long ago that we relied more or less entirely on our GP to recommend the best treatment for whatever ailed us – and we trusted that they would prescribe not just the right medicines to cure or treat us, but also the best medicines.

The world has moved on a lot in the last two decades – and as the months have passed, so the resources available to us to help us make critical health decisions have multiplied.

That has brought much greater understanding that natural health treatments have an important part to play in keeping us well, just as we have also learned that some of the standard curative and preventative options we once took for granted aren’t necessarily as effective or safe as we once believed.

We now know that mammography, for example, has very specific risks and disadvantages associated with it.