Jennifer Lush, ND
Doctor of Naturopathic Medicine
907.770.6700

Dr. Lush graduated from the University of Washington in 1994 with a B.A. in psychology with an emphasis on the biology of behavior and neuroscience. Additionally, she focused on public health and HIV/AIDS prevention in Latin America, working in medical clinics in rural Paraguayan villages for several months. Jennifer focused on behavioral research at UW and began her career at Bastyr University in 1995 in the newly created research department. She attended the naturopathic medicine program from 1996 to 2001 at Bastyr, earning her doctorate in naturopathic medicine.

While a graduate student at Bastyr, Jennifer continued to research alternative medical approaches to HIV/AIDS and breast cancer. She has contributed work to Breast Cancer, Beyond Prevention, published in 2002. Jennifer owned and operated a natural health clinic and private practice in Seattle from 2001 to 2006. She was also a medical researcher for Salugenecists, Inc. from 2003 to 2006. In Washington, Jennifer had been a consulting naturopath at Pharmaca integrative Pharmacy and served on the board of the Washington  Association of Naturopathic Physicians (WANP) from 2002 to 2004.

Upon moving to Anchorage, Dr. Lush joined Avante Medical Center in June 2005 where she provides general family medicine, with an emphasis on women's health, environmental medicine, detoxification, nutrition, and botanical medicine. She is also a new member and current secretary of the Alaska Association of Naturopathic Physicians.

Jennifer firmly believes nutrition plays an overwhelming role in preventing disease; therefore, she works alongside Dr. Liane Erickson in providing detoxification cooking courses and group cleansing on a quarterly basis.

"Naturopathic doctors practice as primary care providers. They make a conventional Western diagnosis using standard diagnostic procedures such as physical examination, laboratory tests, and radiology. However, they also make a pathophysiologic diagnosis using physical and laboratory procedures to assess nutritional status, metabolic function and toxic load. In addition, a considerable amount of time is spent assessing the patient's mental, emotional, social and spiritual status. Therapeutically, NDs use virtually every known natural therapy: dietetics, therapeutic nutrition, botanical medicine, physical therapy, naturopathic manipulative therapy, lifestyle counseling, exercise therapy, homeopathy,  psychological and family counseling and hydrotherapy. Naturopathic medicine concentrates on whole-patient. wellness-the medicine is tailored to the patient and emphasizes prevention and self-care.  Naturopathic medicine attempts to find the underlying cause of the patient’s condition rather than focusing solely on symptomatic treatment.  Naturopathic doctors cooperate with all other branches of medical science referring patients to other practitioners for diagnosis or treatment when appropriate."