Jan 15

Green tea may reduce lung cancer in smokers

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More benefits of drinking green tea have been revealed in a recent study; it may reduce lung cancer even for smokers.

For thousands of years, the people of China, Japan, India, and Thailand have consumed green tea and used it medicinally to treat everything from headaches to flatulence. In fact, the ancient Chinese proverb, “better to be deprived of food for three days, than tea for one,” gives us an idea of how much they believed in its curative abilities. Over the past few decades, however, research in both Asia and the West has begun providing scientific evidence of green tea’s numerous health benefits.

As a whole, studies indicate that regular consumption of green tea may slow or prevent conditions including high cholesterol, heart disease, rheumatoid arthritis, impaired immune disease and liver disease. In addition, some studies have indicated green tea may have cancer-fighting properties, lowering the rate of gastric, esophageal, and mouth cancers. And in a conference this week sponsored by the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) and the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC), researchers reported that Taiwanese smokers who consumed one cup of green tea each day significantly reduced their chances of developing lung cancer.

For their study, Dr. I-Hsin Lin, of Chung Shan Medical University in Taiwan, and her colleagues recruited 170 people with lung cancer and 340 healthy patients as controls. The participants completed questionnaires regarding their lifestyle habits, including how much they smoked, how much green tea they drank, their dietary intake of fruits and vegetables, cooking practices and family history of lung cancer. They also underwent genotyping on insulin-like growth factors: IGF1, IGF2, and IGFBP3, all of which have been reported to be associated with cancer risk.

The results showed that both smokers and non-smokers who did not drink green tea were 5 times more likely to develop lung cancer compared to those who drank at least one cup of green tea per day. Smokers who did not drink green tea at all were more than 12 times more likely to be diagnosed with lung cancer than those who drank at least one cup of green tea per day. However, the protection was greatest for those carrying certain genes. Green tea drinkers, whether smokers or non-smokers, with non-susceptible IGF1 (CA)19/(CA)19 and (CA)19/X genotypes reported a 66 percent reduction in lung cancer risk compared with green tea drinkers carrying the IGF1 X/X genotype.

Jan 15

Acupuncture can ease hot flashes

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A recent study have found that acupuncture can greatly ease hot flashes in women undergoing treatment for breast cancer.

NEW YORK – A new study provides more evidence that acupuncture can help ease hot flashes in women with breast cancer who are being treated with the “anti-estrogen” drug tamoxifen. Acupuncture, researchers found, is free of side effects and has a side benefit for some women: an increased sex drive.

“Acupuncture appears to be at least as effective as drug therapy,” Dr. Eleanor M. Walker of Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit and her colleagues report, “and it may provide additional and longer-term benefits without adverse effects.”

Breast cancer patients with estrogen-sensitive tumors are typically given estrogen-blocking drugs for years at a time. These drugs, which include tamoxifen, bring on menopausal symptoms like hot flashes and night sweats.

The antidepressant drug Effexor (venlafaxine) is the standard treatment for these symptoms, Walker and her team note in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, but it can have unpleasant side effects, including dry mouth, nausea, and constipation. Non-drug treatments with few or no side effects are “urgently needed,” they add.

To investigate whether acupuncture might be an option, Walker and her team randomly assigned 25 women to receive Effexor or acupuncture for 12 weeks, following them for up to year after the end of treatment.

Both treatments reduced hot flashes, night sweats, and symptoms of depression to a similar degree, and also significantly improved mental health, the researchers found. But within two weeks after treatment ended, women in the Effexor group saw their hot flashes increase; this didn’t happen in the acupuncture group.

Eighteen women in the Effexor group had side effects, such as dizziness and anxiety, while none of the women given acupuncture had such side effects. About a quarter of the women given acupuncture said their sex drive had increased. “Most women also reported an improvement in their energy, clarity of thought, and sense of well-being,” Walker and her team note.

The researchers also point out that Effexor could impair the effectiveness of tamoxifen in some patients, because it can block the body’s metabolism of the drug.

Acupuncture, they conclude, is a “safe, effective and durable treatment” for hot flashes and other menopausal symptoms stemming from anti-estrogen hormone therapy in women with breast cancer. They hope this study will “lead to a change in the pattern of practice” of treating these symptoms in patients with breast cancer.

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Jan 11

Acupuncture can reduce breast cancer treatment symptoms

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A recent study have found that acupuncture can greatly reduce the symptoms resulting from breast cancer treatment.

Aside from skin cancer, breast cancer is the most common cancer among American women, and the second leading cause of death in women. The American Cancer Society estimates that the chance of a woman getting breast cancer at some point during her life is slightly less than 1 in 8, and the chance of dying from breast cancer is about 1 in 35. However, as a result of early detection and vast improvements in treatment over the past two decades, breast cancer death rates have been decreasing. Today in America, there are more than 2.5 million survivors.

Although each person’s treatment will be slightly different, it most often involves some combination of surgery, radiation therapy and chemotherapy, followed by five years of hormone therapy and drugs like tamoxifen, which counters the effects of hormones. These treatments often cause uncomfortable and sometimes debilitating side effects, including decreased sexual desire and in younger women, early menopause—hot flashes, night sweats and mood swings. Venlafaxine, an antidepressant drug also known as Effexor, has been the treatment of choice for women undergoing breast cancer treatments, but it comes with its own set of side effects: dry mouth, decreased appetite, nausea and constipation. However, researchers say there is another option for these patients; one that works as well as drugs, without the side effects—acupuncture.

Previous studies have shown that acupuncture can reduce hot flashes in healthy postmenopausal women. So, researchers decided to find out if it could also benefit premenopausal women being treated for breast cancer. “We need something that’s accessible that doesn’t add adverse effects,” said Dr. Eleanor Walker, division director of breast services in the department of radiation oncology at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. For the study, 50 women with breast cancer were randomly chosen to receive either 12 weeks of acupuncture (twice a week for four weeks then once a week) or daily Effexor. They were followed for a year.

Initially, both groups experienced a similar reduction (about 50 percent) in hot flashes, depression and other menopausal symptoms as well as improvement in mental health. But two weeks after treatment stopped, hot flashes increased in the antidepressant group but remained minimal in the acupuncture group. It wasn’t until three months after the last treatment that hot flashes began to return for those receiving acupuncture. Additionally, about 25 percent of women receiving acupuncture reported better sex drive and many reported increased energy and clearer thinking. Adverse effects, including nausea, headache, difficulty sleeping and dizziness were reported by the antidepressant users, whereas no adverse effects were reported with acupuncture. “Acupuncture offers patients a safe, effective and durable treatment option for hot flashes, something that affects the majority of breast cancer survivors,” Walker said. “Compared to drug therapy, acupuncture has benefits, as opposed to more side effects.”

Jan 08

Headache treatments

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Acupuncture is one of the four treatments that have been found to be effective in treating headaches.

The feeling is familiar: a band cinching your skull, a dull ache in the back of your neck. It’s a tension headache, and it’s by far the most common type—about 90 percent of women and 70 percent of men will experience one during their lifetime. Neurologists don’t completely understand the reason your head hurts, but they do know that many headaches are linked to stress, contraction of the neck muscles, poor sleep, and, in women, monthly hormonal fluctuations. Which is why most headache experts recommend relaxation techniques, exercise, limiting caffeine and alcohol (which interfere with sleep), and, for women, discussing birth control pills with a gynecologist. Here, four approaches to treating headaches.

Neurology
The first thing a neurologist would do is order a CT scan or MRI to rule out potentially serious causes such as a tumor, aneurysm, or stroke, says Marc Sharfman, MD, director of the Headache and Neurological Treatment Institute in Longwood, Florida. If those are ruled out, then, besides the nondrug treatments above, Sharfman might suggest biofeedback: He connects patients to devices that monitor muscle tension, blood pressure, and heart rate, then has them practice breathing patterns to identify what helps them relax. Drugs—over-the-counter and prescription—are part of a neurologist’s arsenal, but Sharfman notes that patients do best by combining nondrug approaches with minimal medication use.

Acupuncture
A primary goal for an acupuncturist is to wean the patient off prescription and over-the-counter painkillers that can trigger rebound headaches (people who regularly take these medications can suffer a headache as soon as the pills wear off), says Daniel Hsu, a practitioner of traditional Chinese medicine and founder of New York AcuHealth, an acupuncture clinic. Acupuncture can help patients relax as well as transition off medications; what’s more, a recent review of research found that the technique could halve the number of days a month a person experiences head pain.

Homeopathy
Along with prescribing a remedy for the headache, a homeopath will typically offer advice on improving diet or, say, reducing exposure to chemicals in the environment, says Dana Ullman, who runs Homeopathic Educational Services in Berkeley. Because homeopaths believe the body’s response to an illness is the correct one, they give heavily diluted substances—often the herbs nux vomica and belladonna for headaches—that are supposed to mimic the patient’s symptoms, thereby helping the body defend and heal itself. (Though these two herbs are poisonous, the doses contain no toxins.) Often, the patient can begin to feel much better after one treatment, Ullman says.

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Jan 04

Acupuncture eases eczema

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Acupuncture can lessen the itchiness that comes with a skin condition, eczema.

An acupuncture session may relieve itching in those with an allergic skin condition known as atopic eczema.

Eczema is a general term for conditions marked by inflammation and dry, red, itchy patches on the skin. The most common form, atopic eczema, is seen in people with a predisposition to allergies, like hay fever or asthma. Acupuncture has been used for more than 2,000 years in Chinese medicine to treat a wide variety of ailments. According to traditional medicine, specific acupuncture points on the skin are connected to internal pathways that conduct energy, or qi (“chee”), and stimulating these points with a fine needle promotes the healthy flow of qi.

Researchers looked at the short-term effects of acupuncture on skin inflammation and itching in 30 people with atopic eczema in Germany under three different test conditions. In one, patients had their skin exposed to either pollen or dust-mite allergens, then received true, or point-specific, acupuncture – in which needles were placed in traditional acupuncture points that, according to
Chinese medicine, are related to itchy skin. In another situation, the allergen exposure was followed by placebo-point acupuncture, where the needles were inserted into skin areas not used in traditional Chinese medicine. In the third situation, patients received no treatment.

It was found that overall patients’ itchiness ratings were lower after they received true acupuncture, compared with both no treatment and placebo acupuncture. Then, when the researchers exposed patients’ skin to the allergens a second time, skin flare-ups tended to be less-severe following the point-specific acupuncture. As for itchiness, however, both the true and placebo therapies had similar benefits compared with no treatment.

Modern research has suggested that acupuncture may help ease pain by altering signals among nerve cells or affecting the release of various chemicals of the central nervous system. The researchers explained that pain and itchiness have similarities in their underlying mechanisms, so acupuncture’s effects on pain mechanisms may also account for the benefits seen in this study.

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Jan 03

Green tea and cancer

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A recent study provides more evidence that drinking green tea regularly can reduce one’s risk to cancer.

A new U.S. study has shown that green tea may help reduce the risk of oral cancer, although scientists are reluctant to officially endorse green tea as an effective way of cancer prevention.

The study was published in the November issue of the Cancer Prevention Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

Researchers at the University of Texas’ Anderson Cancer Center assessed clinical response of green tea in oral pre-malignant lesions and found 58.8 percent of patients at the highest doses displayed clinical response, compared with 18.2 percent among those taking placebo.

They also observed a handful of biomarkers that may be important in predicting cancer development.

During the study, patients were followed for 27.5 months and atthe end of the study period, 15 of them developed oral cancers.

Patients with mild to moderate dysplasia had a longer time to develop an oral cancer if they took green tea extract, but there was no difference in oral cancer development overall between those who took green tea and those who did not.

Although encouraged by the results, lead researcher Vassiliki Papadimitrakopoulo, a professor of medicine, cautioned against any recommendation that green tea could definitely prevent cancer.

“We cannot with certainty claim prevention benefits from a trial this size,” said Papadimitrakopoulo.

“More long-term research including studies in individuals at high risk is still needed to answer that sort of question.”

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Dec 29

Colds and flu remedies for kids

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The cold and flu season is upon us; here are some home remedies to help your kids.

You tried to prevent it, but your child caught a cold or even the flu. Now you have a miserable kid on your hands.

There are ways to help your youngster feel better without over-the-counter medicines. Kathi Kemper, chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics Section on Complementary and Integrative Medicine, offers these home remedies to relieve some of the symptoms.

Sore throat. Make a cup of warm tea with honey and lemon. Use herbal teas with slippery elm or cherry bark, or Yogi Throat Comfort tea, which you can find in supermarkets.

Cough. Offer mints for your child to suck on; menthol is soothing.

Stuffy nose. You don’t need to buy a humidifier. Have your child eat dinner leaning over a steaming bowl of pasta or soup. And tuck extra pillows under his head while he sleeps to help relieve nasal congestion.

Sleeplessness. Put chamomile or lavender fragrances into a warm bath. The steam from the bath also helps soothe nasal dryness.

Fever. If your child is alternating between hot and cold, dress him in layers so he can adjust as needed.

Headaches. Use a cool, damp towel on his forehead. The cool temperature shrinks dilated blood vessels.

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Dec 27

Green tea and prostate cancer

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Yet another benefit of drinking green tea regularly; it could delay the onset of prostate cancer.

Active compounds in green tea may slow down the progression of prostate cancer, researchers reported on Friday.

Capsules made using green tea extracts called polyphenols lowered levels of proteins that tumors use to grow, the researchers found.

Made by Polyphenon Pharma, the capsules called Polyphenon E contain epigallocatechin gallate or EGCG, a green tea extract that has antioxidant properties.

Jim Cardelli of Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in Shreveport and colleagues tested 26 prostate cancer patients, aged from 41 to 68.

Each took four Polyphenon E capsules a day — equivalent to drinking 12 cups of green tea — for about a month before they had their prostates removed.

Blood tests showed levels of three proteins associated with the growth and spread of prostate cancer fell. Hepatocyte growth factor or HGF fell 18.9 percent on average, vascular endothelial growth factor or VEGF fell by 9.9 percent and prostate specific antigen PSA fell by 10.4 percent, they reported in the journal Cancer Prevention Research.

HGF and VEGF are produced when tumors spread and some patients showed “significant” reduction levels of more than 30 percent, Cardelli said.

Few side effects were reported and liver function of the patients remained normal.

“It’s still in an early stage. Green tea can keep cancer from growing very fast, but it may not be able to shrink tumors,” Cardelli said in a telephone interview.

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Dec 17

Traditional Chinese medicine and the swine flu

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Tradtional Chinese medicine appears to be effective in treating the swine flu.

Some Beijing medical officials think so, at least for mild cases of the disease. On Thursday, Chinese medicine officials announced that a traditional formula called Jin Hua Qing Gan” (金花清感) has been designated as the world’s first “optimized effective agent” for alleviating the symptoms of the H1N1 virus.

“The clinical study showed that Jin Hua Qing Gan can shorten the duration of fever, alleviate respiratory tract symptoms like sore throat, coughing etc.,” said Zhao Jing, director of the Beijing Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine at the press conference where the finders were announced.

Currently, however, it’s unclear if Jin Hua Qing Gan would directly replace other Western medicines to treat H1N1, especially in serious cases. “This is indeed an issue, as the target of our research are all H1N1 patients with slight symptoms”, said Wang Chen, President of Chaoyang Hospital.

The formula was developed and tested at several Western and traditional medical institutes in Beijing over the past six months. It is based on two major components, both of which have been used for centuries to treat fevers. One is Ma Xing Shi Gan（麻杏石甘汤), which has been used in China for more than 2,000 years, and Yin Qiao San (powder of lonicera and forsythia — 银翘散), which has been used for over 200 years to reduce fever.

The researchers said no adverse reactions have been found so far in patients who took the formula from the 28 traditional hospitals in Beijing that have been using it. A course of treatment costs about 80 yuan ($11.72).

In the future, Zhao said the new formula will have to go through an approval process. A license could be granted in January and the formula could come on the market in Beijing then.

It’s not clear if the formula can be exported. Ma Xing Shi Gan Formula contains Ma Huang, (herba ephedrae). Although this herb is widely used to treat asthma in China, it was sold in the U.S. as a weight-loss product in dosages far higher than commonly used in traditional Chinese medicine. After several highly publicized deaths, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration banned it in 2004.

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Dec 16

Tea and coffee can lower diabetes risks

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i00331Recent studies have indicated that high intake of coffee, decaffeinated coffee, and/or tea is associated with a reduction in the risk of new-onset type 2 diabetes.

DAAN offers a variety of tea for your consumption.

“Tea and coffee drinkers have a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes,” reported the BBC, adding that the protection may not be down to caffeine since decaffeinated coffee has the greatest effect.

This story is based on a systematic review and meta-analysis that pooled data from studies of the association between tea and coffee consumption and the risk of developing type 2 diabetes. It found the more tea, coffee or decaffeinated coffee was drunk, the lower the risk of developing diabetes.

People should not drink more tea or coffee on the strength of this evidence. The review did not account for diet, exercise and lifestyle, and the studies included were varied. The results do, however, suggest that further research is warranted. Maintaining a healthy weight, choosing a sensible diet and participating in physical activity remain the best ways to protect against type 2 diabetes.

Where did the story come from?
This research was carried out by Dr Rachel Huxley and colleagues from the University of Sydney. It was funded by the National Heart Foundation of Australia. The study was published in the peer-reviewed medical journal Archives of Internal Medicine.

The newspapers highlighted the benefits of tea and coffee based on this research, but generally also reported that other factors such as diet and exercise also play a role.

What kind of research was this?
This was a systematic review and meta-analysis of a number of studies. The researchers say it has been suggested that coffee may be able to reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes. To investigate this, they searched scientific databases to look for prospective studies on coffee, decaffeinated coffee and tea that estimated the effect of these drinks on diabetes over time.

What did the research involve?
The researchers searched several scientific databases for relevant articles using the keywords ‘tea’, ‘coffee’, ‘decaffeinated coffee’ and ‘diabetes’. These search results were then condensed further, using the abstracts of the articles as guidance. Studies in animals, cross-sectional studies and case series (which did not include a time component to the analysis) were excluded, as were studies of only type 1 diabetes.

To be included, studies had to be prospective cohort studies giving an estimate of the risk of type 2 diabetes over time and the number of cups of tea, coffee and decaffeinated coffee consumed. They also had to take into account age and body mass index (BMI), which are major risk factors for type 2 diabetes.

This resulted in the pooling of data from 18 studies. As there was some variability in what each study tested, the researchers grouped the participants into two groups for analysis, those who drank three to four cups versus those who drank less than two cups or no cups. The researchers also classified tea drinkers as people who drank green, black or oolong tea rather than analysing each type of tea separately.

The study populations were predominantly white with 21% of the data derived from Asian cohorts.

The majority of the studies asked the participants to keep a drinks diary to record their tea or coffee consumption. In one study, participants were asked to estimate their tea and coffee consumption over the past 24 hours. Type 2 diabetes was either determined by the participants reporting their diagnosis or with an oral glucose-tolerance test.

What were the basic results?
The 18 studies had a total of 457,922 participants, in which coffee drinkers had a 25% lower risk of developing diabetes than people who drank no coffee or up to two cups of tea a day (relative risk [RR] 0.76, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.69 to 0.82). As these studies were varied, the authors refined their analysis to 11 studies, which they adjusted for age, sex other confounders and found the same association. The researchers also found that smaller studies tended to show larger effects so decided to include only the six largest studies. This resulted in a smaller, 15% reduced risk of diabetes in people who drank three to four cups of coffee a day.

In six studies that looked at decaffeinated coffee (a total of 225,516 participants) individuals that drank three to four cups of decaffeinated coffee a day had approximately a third less chance of developing diabetes (RR 0.64, 95% CI 0.54 to 0.77).

The effect of tea on diabetes was investigated by seven studies with a total of 286,701 participants. The pooled results showed the risk of diabetes was about a fifth lower in people who drank more than three to four cups of tea per day compared to people who drank no tea (RR 0.82, 95% CI 0.73 to 0.94).

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