As a therapist, Mihael Mamychshvili deals with a lot of pain. Not just physical, but emotional agonies as well.

Mamychshvili is the co-owner of Angel Hands Integrative Centre, a Vancouver-based clinic that offers a variety of services, from naturophatic medicine to massages, nutrition, and counselling.

“One of our biggest mandates is to build bridges with the medical community,” Mamychshvili told the Straight in a phone interview.

According to him, the medical profession does an excellent job in saving lives, although the sheer volume of cases may be overwhelming.

“But where there’s space for complementary medicine is in the after-care, when people are starting to deal with complex, chronic pain syndrome … emotional and psychological pain,” he said, “and that’s … where complementary medicine is really effective.”

At Angel Hands, natural health products play an important role.

According to Mamychshvili, the centre uses herbal medicine, supplements, vitamins, and minerals.

Because such products are used for health purposes, he wants to be sure that these are checked for hazardous materials.

“I think that regulation is important for the public,” Mamychshvili said.

However, Mamychshvili also noted that over previous years, he has heard from natural health practitioners and dispensaries that certain remedies have been disappearing from Canadian shelves because of government regulation.

In 2004, the Natural Health Products Regulations came into force.

Under the regulations, natural health products must have a product licence in order to be sold legally.

To get a licence, applicants must provide Health Canada detailed information about medicinal ingredients, source, dose, potency, non-medicinal ingredients, and recommended use.

Companies that manufacture, package, label and import these products must have site licenses.

According to information posted online by Health Canada, 87,167 product license applications have been received since 2004.

Since the regulations took effect, the government has issued 54,706 product licenses for 81,629 products.

Health Canada disputes claims that Canadians have had access to fewer natural health products. On the contrary, the number of products available on the market has grown.

Based on what he has heard from practitioners and dispensaries, Mamychshvili suspects there may be a bit of disconnect because some products known to have been good for certain conditions are now gone.

“It’s not a lot, but it seems like every year, certain things are taken away,” he said.

According to Mamychshvili, there may be a need for some representation from the natural health sector when decisions to disallow certain products are made by the government.

“Otherwise, I totally see the importance of safety reasons to have products analyzed and tested for health reasons,” Mamychshvili said.