DAAN Chinese Herbs and Acupuncture

Acupuncture, along with other complementary therapies, can provide relief for back pain.

DAAN’s acupuncturist Susan Yen has years of experience, please contact her today to set up an appointment.

Your back hurts. Is it because of tightened muscles, thickened connective tissue or blocked energy? Depends on whom you ask, but if you seek out alternatives to traditional Western medical treatment, you will be in good company. About four in 10 adults (and one in nine children) use some form of what the government calls complementary and alternative medicine (CAM).

Through its Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, the National Institutes of Health studies a wide variety of nontraditional and non-Western treatments, including herbs and supplements, energy medicine, massage and other manipulative, body-based practices.

The center has found that American adults are most likely to seek out alternative treatments for musculoskeletal problems such as back, neck or joint pain. For detailed information on hundreds of treatments and topics, go to nccam.nih.gov. Here’s a sampling of hands-on treatments in Denver:

Massage

. An experienced certified massage therapist is trained to deal with muscle and tissue dysfunction through hands-on soft-tissue manipulation that both relaxes and improves blood flow to the affected area and the body as a whole.

Massage can be effective preventive medicine, say therapists. Tess Gallegos, a Denver massage and skin-care specialist, says massage also improves posture and body mechanics.

“The goal of a massage therapist is for the client to leave with an understanding of back pain and to feel more in control,” says Gallegos. “Massage is not just relaxing, it can actually change the structure of the body and get to the bottom of the cause of the pain.”

Swedish massage specialist Stefan Paulsson explains that tight muscles pull on the skeleton where the muscle is attached. The body then compensates for the short, tight muscle in another part of the body, causing pain.

“A contracted muscle has poor blood flow; relaxing it improves blood flow,” says Paulsson, who owns Back In Shape in the Commons Park neighborhood downtown. “Keep soft tissue soft, relaxed and with good blood flow, and fewer problems arise.”

Rolfing.

Developed by Ph.D. biochemist Ida P. Rolf more than 60 years ago, Rolfing is the process of examining and reorganizing the connective tissues that envelop the entire body. “Connective tissue provides support for the entire body,” says Marekah Stewart, a certified advanced Rolfer. “It encases all of the body’s systems — muscle, organs, bones — all of them.”

When you combine gravity with any illness or trauma (physical or emotional) the connective tissue thickens, shortens and becomes “stuck,” and we begin to compensate, says Stewart.

The head may pull forward, the shoulders may become rounded, and imbalances in the hips and pelvic girdle may occur. Because of its plasticity, connective tissue responds to warmth and pressure, so Rolfers manually free up the connective tissue over a series of 10 sessions.

Acupuncture can stimulate the brain and in effect make the body feels better, a recent study has found.

While nutritional supplements such as vitamin D may help with pain and discomfort, researchers are looking into how acupuncture stimulates the brain into making the body feel better.

According to findings published in Brain Research, scientists have discovered a sensation called deqi that is obtained through the treatment, which deactivates the feelings of pain in the brain, resulting in the person thinking they feel better.

These findings have given a broader understanding of how acupuncture affects the brain, leading scientists to believe that there should be further investigation into factors such as the exact mechanism that occurs with the treatment.

“The results are fascinating,” said researcher Dr. Aziz Asghar. “Whether such brain deactivations constitute a mechanism which underlies or contributes to the therapeutic effect of acupuncture is an intriguing possibility which requires further research.”

The team is currently researching if acupuncture has the ability to successfully treat irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and depression. Previous studies have indicated that the holistic treatment works on knee pain and migraines.

Acupuncture has been found to be effective in in alleviating depression in pregnant women.

“Depression during pregnancy is an issue of concern because it has negative effects on both the mother and the baby as well as the rest of the family,” said Dr. Schnyer, one of the study’’s authors.

In the study, researchers studied 150 women who were pregnant and classified as depressed in a double-blind study, which is considered the most effective type of experiment.

About one-third of the women in the study were given acupuncture meant to treat depression. Another group was given a sham version of acupuncture and a third was treated with massage.

Each group got 12 treatments over 8 weeks.

The women who received the real acupuncture had a greater decrease in the severity of their symptoms than either control group. More women in the experimental group also responded to the treatment.

The patients getting sham needles and massage had about the same response rates as each other, according to the study.

The study is important because a depressed mother-to-be can have negative effects on herself, her baby and the rest of the family. Many women do not want to take anti-depressants during pregnancy out of concerns for the unborn child.

The study was to be presented at the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine’’s annual meeting.

Susan Yen
L.Ac
It’s only February

With the combination of dreary winter weather and post new year’s resolution letdown, it is hard to be cheery and mentally positive. In order to prevent a downward spiral of negativity, concentrate on improving the everyday stuff.
1. Try to get a good night sleep. When one feels refreshed and energized after a good night of sleep, (without the aid of caffeine of course), one is less apt to be short fused with the hectic morning schedule and be more positive minded the whole day.
Try to link the quality sleeping pattern in succession.

2. Move your body. For those who do not have time to go for a workout or simply detests moving, just turn up the volume and dance to your favorite tune. A song typically lasts 4.5 minutes, so if you can shake your body and have fun at the same time, chances are, you’ll want to hit the repeat button.

The year’s just begun; one’s going to have setbacks in accomplishing the New Year resolution list, don’t let what you’ve started go to waste!

As more consumers look to alternative healthy therapy for treatment, this article explains the basics of Traditional Chinese Medicine.

Regular exercise and consumption of green tea can help breast cancer patients lessen their depression.

Depression is a major health issue for breast cancer survivors, but new research hints that regular exercise and drinking green tea may help.

Health

Exercising regularly and drinking green tea “may play an important role in the prevention of depression among breast cancer survivors,” report Dr. Xiao Ou Shu, at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, in Nashville, Tennessee, and colleagues.

They examined depression-related factors in 1,399 Chinese women who were 54 years old on average and treated for breast cancer in Shanghai, China between April 2002 and December 2006. Six months after their diagnosis, the researchers assessed the women’s physical activity levels; food, tea, and alcohol consumption; cigarette smoking; and use of herbal medicines and supplements.

In depression evaluations at 18-months post-diagnosis, the investigators noted distinct benefits among the women who reported some sort of exercise (62 percent of the total). At this time, exercisers were about 20 percent less likely to be either mildly or clinically depressed, the researchers report in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

They noted just 84 cases of mild or clinical depression among 437 vigorous exercisers (19.2 percent), but 161 cases among the 528 non-exercisers (30.5 percent).

Plus, compared with non-exercising women, the likelihood of depression was 28 percent lower among women who exercised more than 2 hours a week and 42 percent lower among those who increased their post-diagnosis exercise time.

Tea drinking also seemed to lessen depression. Compared with the 1,216 women who did not drink tea, among the 183 women who did, depression risk was about 36 percent lower. The vast majority of the tea drinkers — 90 percent — drank green tea.

The exercise and tea-drinking benefits remained when Shu’s group allowed for multiple other risk factors for depression.

No other factors seemed to alter depression risk.

Beverage makers are going to their archives and revamping recipes for tea-based drinks to pep up flagging sales.

These products, distinguished from green teas or oolong teas, contain a variety of ingredients, particularly herbs and grains.

There has not been a hit in this category since the 1990s when the marketing focus shifted to the fresh taste and healthy image of green teas.