Dec 24

Holistic medicine becoming mainstream

Acupuncture, Alternative therapies, East and West No Comments »

Holistic medicine is becoming more integrated in today’s society.

When Jim Thomas, of Westminster, opened his acupuncture business 24 years ago, he was one of only a few in the county practicing complementary and alternative medicine.

Thomas said that if someone were to tell their neighbor more than two decades ago they were getting acupuncture, the philosophy that looks at the interactions of the emotions in the body, the typical reaction would be to say they were strange.

“Now, there’s much more of an acceptance,” Thomas said. “I think people want something different.”

Thomas said a huge media campaign and word of mouth has fueled the public’s interest in complementary and alternative medicines.

More people are living nontraditional lifestyles, eating organic foods and going to complementary and alternative medicine practitioners. As a result, Thomas’ practice in the Center for Healing Arts on Main Street in Westminster has gradually grown. For example, he had about five clients a week in the beginning, but now he has about 35 a week.

The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, the government’s top agency for researching alternative medicines, says alternative medicine is a group of health and medical systems or products that are not recognized as effective, conventional medicine. It includes options ranging from massages and natural products to diet-based therapies and tai chi.

According to a 2007 survey by the Bethesda-based group, about 38 percent of adults and 12 percent of children use some form of complementary and alternative medicine. NCCAM spokeswoman Katy Daniels said those numbers have remained stable since the last survey was conducted in 2002.

As a licensed acupuncturist, Thomas looks at where there’s not a flow of energy to someone’s body and tries to restore that flow by using unique tools like needles, glass cups and scrapers.

His clientele includes pregnant women and individuals from 4 to 80 years old.

Dec 23

Patients seek TCM in conjunction with western medicine

Alternative therapies, East and West, Traditional Chinese Medicine No Comments »

Patients use TCM with western drugs in Singapore.

THERE has been rising interest in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) in Singapore.

I recently asked two friends who practise Western medicine on their views of and experiences with TCM.

One said that when patients asked if they could seek TCM treatment while taking Western medication for certain conditions, he would not discourage them.

He thinks TCM can help as Western drugs have limitations.

However, he would advise them to seek help from qualified TCM practitioners.

My other friend replied that he is seeing an increase in the number of patients suffering from stress, tension and related chronic problems such as insomnia, irritable bowel syndrome and neckache.

Besides counselling them and prescribing medication, my friend would also teach these patients to perform acupressure on certain meridian points.

In China, it is common to treat patients with TCM and Western medicine. Why is this so?

Firstly, TCM can fortify the body’s system to cope with some serious side effects caused by Western treatments, such as chemotherapy and the use of immunosuppressant drugs.

Secondly, TCM can also reduce side effects caused by medication for diabetes and high blood pressure, such as water retention.

Thirdly, TCM may enhance the intended effect of Western medicine, so that a lower dose of Western drugs can be used.

Lastly, TCM can treat the cause, while Western medicine treats the symptoms, of medical conditions, thus lowering the frequency of recurrence of problems.

While TCM has its benefits, there are concerns about whether patients will have adverse reactions if they mix TCM and Western drugs.

There is limited information on drug-herb interactions, but there have been few reports of people dying in Singapore because they underwent TCM and Western medical treatment at the same time.

Dec 21

Indigestion remedies

Culture, East and West No Comments »

Christmas and New Year will undoubtly be a time of parties and festivities. Here are some things to consider if you suffer from indigestion.

CHRISTMAS is a time of indulgence. Tempting and luxurious treats make indigestion a common cause over the festive period.

But you need not suffer from a bloated stomach this year. Holland & Barrett has devised the following tips for healthy digestion:

1. Aloe vera is said to soothe the digestive tract to reduce discomfort.

This is most commonly taken as a juice and is popular amongst those who suffer from irritable bowel-type symptoms.

2. Avoid bloating this Christmas by taking a bitter digestive stimulate.

The bitter compounds found in artichoke, dandelion, devil’s claw, goldenseal and juniper help stimulate digestion by increasing saliva production and promoting both stomach acid and digestive enzyme production.

3. Eat your Ps – Papain and bromelain found in papaya and pineapples, respectively, can be used as natural digestive enzymes.

Try taking a supplement containing these ingredients before meals. Do not eat pineapple after a meal as the fruit may ferment and cause indigestion.

4. Essential oils

“Aromatherapy massage sounds unlikely but it’s a great way to treat indigestion,” Heather Hill, an aromatherapist and owner of Euphoria holistic centre in Nottingham, said.

Chamomile, fennel and peppermint oils have calming and anti-inflammatory properties. Mix five drops of any combination with a base of 10ml sweet almond oil and massage this into your stomach. “Follow the movement of food through your digestive system by rubbing your stomach in a clockwise direction from your right hip upwards, to give general relief to the discomfort in your stomach,” Heather added.

5. Ginger – popular for its distinctive flavour in Oriental cooking, ginger’s various health benefits have been especially valued by the Chinese for many thousands of years.

Historically used to treat stomach complaints, clinical trials have revealed that the active constituents of ginger root may have anti-nausea and anti-vomiting effects, which help to re-balance the gastric juices, soothe the stomach and maintain a healthy digestive system.

6. Little, often and slowly

“Going for hours without eating and gorging on a big meal is a recipe for indigestion,” said Sarah Stanner, from the British Nutrition Foundation.

“Aim to eat smaller meals at regular intervals during the day to regulate your stomach acid and keep your digestion ticking over.” Chewing food thoroughly also helps your digestive enzymes work easily.

7. Liquorice sticks – the medicinal use of this perennial herb has a long and varied history. It remains one of the most important and widely used herbs in Chinese medicine.

Liquorice is believed to help protect the mucous membranes lining the digestive tract by increasing the production of mucin – a compound that protects against stomach acid.

8. Plan ahead

Fast-paced, modern lifestyles often mean we grab high-fat snacks and foods in a rush.

But Catherine Collins, a state-registered dietician with the British Dietetic Association, said: “Rich, fatty foods can play havoc with the muscle separating the oesophagus and your stomach.”

Pre-planning by making lunches that contain wholegrain sandwiches, cereal bars and fruit can lead to nutritional benefits, as these foods are believed to contain higher nutritional value than sweets and release energy slowly over a long period of time.

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Nov 20

San Diegans Turning To Alternative Treatments For Flu

Alternative therapies, Disease, East and West No Comments »

Many in San Diego are turning to alternative medicine to treat flu.

SAN DIEGO — Many San Diego County residents sick with flu-like symptoms are heading to clinics specializing in Chinese medicine, 10News reported.

Last week, University of California, San Diego junior Chris Gauthier came down with a high fever and other flu-like symptoms.

“I was miserable,” said Gauthier.

Nov 18

Why consumers turn to alternative medicine

Alternative therapies, East and West No Comments »

Consumers are increasingly turning to alternative medicine for answers and this study examines the reasons.

Alternative health remedies are increasingly important in the health care marketplace. A new study in the Journal of Consumer Research explores how consumers choose among the many available remedies.

“Examples of the wide array of health remedy options available to consumers include drugs, supplements, acupuncture, massage therapy, Ayurveda, and Traditional Chinese Medicine (to name a few). Such medical pluralism is common in both developed and developing countries and raises the questions: How do consumers choose among health remedies, and what are the consequences for a healthy lifestyle?” write authors Wenbo Wang (New York University), Hean Tat Keh (Beijing University), and Lisa E. Bolton (Pennsylvania State University).

The authors use “lay theories of medicine” to explain how consumers choose between Western medicine and its Eastern counterparts, Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and Ayurvedic medicine.

Nov 13

Why Subtle Action Is a Powerful Tool to Change Your Energy

East and West, General No Comments »

Deepak Chopra explains why it only takes subtle changes in your behavior to have a shift in your energy

Subtle action is the most powerful tool we have to change our energy. Deepak Chopra explains how we can change the energy in our daily lives by viewing our bodies as a flowing process guided by energy.
Recently I’ve been discussing how to change your energy. Many problems—physical and mental—seem to come down to a person’s beliefs, habits, lifestyle, moods and emotions. We use the words “positive” and “negative” to describe people we know, yet modern medicine hasn’t been able to find the source of these factors. There’s plenty of data to prove that people who undergo traumatic events, such as being widowed or losing a job without warning, suffer from lowered immune response. There are countless studies linking stress and poor health.

Oct 03

The complexity of Chinese medicine

East and West, Traditional Chinese Medicine No Comments »

Chinese medicine has been developed over the course of thousands of years. Its increasing popularity in the West is due in part to people looking for alternatives to more aggressive Western medicine as well Chinese medicine’s more individualistic view of treatment:

“Oriental medicine is based on the idea that humans are not just a collection of physical molecules, Balusik said. Instead, people are a complex and interrelated system of energies known as Qi, which is pronounced chee, she said.

Acupuncturists use a complex chart that defines pressure points in the body and how they interconnect to regulate the flow of Qi. Acupressure massage of pressure points is used on children rather than acupuncture.

Acupuncture is also successfully used in treating the effects of modern cancer treatments, alleviating pain and restoring appetite, she said.

Each treatment is used in conjunction with prescribing Chinese herbal medicines.

Many people, trying to stay away from chemicals found in modern drugs, are turning to cures found in the natural ingredients of Chinese herbal medicine.

Herbal medicines can be prescribed in tablet and liquid form, sometimes as teas, or items that can be cooked up in a soup, she said.

More than 5,000 different ingredients made from plants, animals, and minerals are used.

Chinese herbs are a good alternative to some of the drug-based anxiety remedies many doctors prescribe, she said.

A Chinese herbal formula may include up to 20 different items carefully balanced to work in unison when taken by the patient.

A special formula is created for each patient, so there can be no sharing of Chinese herbal medicine prescriptions, she noted.

Balusik said it is important that an expert in herbal medicines insure the right dose is taken, so there is no interaction between any modern drugs that might be prescribed by a doctor or over-the-counter remedies that a patient may take.

Many patients want to be able to sleep better at night or not consume so many anti-anxiety or pain-relieving medicines that they know are not good for their liver and other organs, she said.

As holistic medical practitioners, acupuncturists consider lifestyle and environmental factors when deciding the best course of treatment that includes lifestyle and nutritional recommendations along with acupuncture and herbal formulas, she said.

Sep 29

Healing foods

East and West, Food, Health and fitness No Comments »

In Ann Arbor, Chinese medical doctor Dr. Yun Lu has incorporated healing foods into the products he sells at the Ann Arbor Farmer’s Market. Here he explains how to use certain foods to stay healthy and balanced:

Lu described the food that the group was eating, noting that some of the items used locally grown ingredients, such as kale in the steamed vegetable buns from Tantré Farm and eggs from Holtz Farm. He talked about nature’s two main energies – yin and yang – and how different foods are linked to these energies. Eggs are a yin energy, and should be eaten in the fall – which accounted for the tea eggs that were served, hard-boiled in tea and herbs. All the ingredients are selected to help balance and heal the body’s systems, Lu said – the hot rosebud chrysanthemum tea, for example, balances the liver system.

The food is prepared in part based on family recipes that date back generations, at least to the 1600s. Lu’s family was royalty in the Manchurian Qing dynasty, which ruled from the mid-1600s to the early 1900s. Their role was to provide the emperor with food and medicine, Lu said. “So this is just an extension of the family business,” he joked.

…

There is a connection between the stomach and the brain, Lu said. Practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine look at the digestive system. In America, most people – including health professionals – don’t pay attention to their diet, he said. It’s important to take a holistic approach, looking at yin-yang balance and energy flow.

Roger Newton pointed out that the country is getting a wake-up call regarding its food system, noting that in China, most food is produced locally and with no preservatives. There are some promising signs here, however. He cited an increase in the number of local farmers markets, and a growing interest in heirloom vegetables as examples.

“I think people are becoming a lot more conscientiously conscious of what they put in their mouths,” Newton said.

Aug 27

How acupuncture works

Acupuncture, East and West No Comments »

A brain scan study illuminates how acupuncture works:

Traditional Chinese acupuncture, increasingly popular in the West for a variety of ills, eases pain by regulating key receptors in the brain, according to a new study.

The study showed that acupuncture increases the binding availability of mu-opioid receptors in regions of the brain that process and weaken pain signals — specifically the cingulate, insula, caudate, thalamus and amygdala. By directly stimulating these chemicals, acupuncture can affect the brain’s long-term ability to regulate pain, the study found.

A report on the findings is in the September issue of NeuroImage.

Using positron emission tomography scans of the brain, the researchers examined 20 women with fibromyalgia, a chronic pain condition. The women took no new medications for their pain during the study period.

“The increased binding availability of these receptors was associated with reductions in pain,” Richard Harris, a researcher at the University of Michigan’s Chronic Pain and Fatigue Research Center and a research assistant professor of anesthesiology at the University of Michigan Medical School, said in a news release from the university.

What’s more, Harris said, the findings could prompt doctors to use morphine and other opioid drugs with greater pain-killing effectiveness after treatment with acupuncture because those drugs bind to the same receptors.

Aug 22

Cnhinese herbs for arthritis treatment

Disease, East and West, Herbs, Traditional Chinese Medicine No Comments »

A recent study in the US shows that a traditional Chinese herbal remedy may help arthritis pain and inflammation:

Rheumatoid arthritis is a painful condition that affects your joints. It happens when your immune system malfunctions and attacks healthy tissue, making your joints swollen and painful. Over time, this can cause permanent damage.

There are several treatments that can reduce the swelling, pain, and joint damage caused by rheumatoid arthritis. But these treatments don’t work for everyone and often cause side effects. As a result, many people look into alternative treatments, including herbal remedies.

In traditional Chinese medicine, extracts from a vine called Tripterygium wilfordii Hook F (TwHF) are often used to treat rheumatoid arthritis and other conditions that cause inflammation. (This vine is also known as lei gong teng or the thunder god vine.) In the new study, researchers explored how TwHF extract compares with a drug for rheumatoid arthritis called sulfasalazine.
What does the new study say?

The researchers found that people who took TwHF extract had greater improvement in their pain, swelling, and other symptoms than those who took sulfasalazine.

The study included 121 people with rheumatoid arthritis who had six or more painful joints. After six months, 65 percent of those taking TwHF extract had at least a 20 percent improvement in their symptoms, compared with 33 percent of those taking sulfasalazine. They also scored better on scales rating how their symptoms affected their day-to-day life, and they had lower levels of chemicals linked to inflammation in their blood.

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