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Category Archives: Alternative Medicine

Types of Alternative Medicines and Why you should Consider Using Them – Siliconindia.com

Posted: June 29, 2017 at 11:14 am

A hot cup of tea made with herbs and spices at home are considered as the best remedy for common cold and flu. India and Indians have a long history and preference towards traditional medicinal practices. In fact, the reliance on alternative medicine to manage health is a very popular in this country. For instance, as per a survey conducted by NSSO or National Sample Survey Organization, nearly 335 million Indians trust alternative medicinal practices.

However, this trend is not just restricted to India anymore. Western medical practitioners also recommend patients to adopt alternative medicine for pain management and after surgery care. As a matter of fact, homeopathic medicine is used by medical professionals to control and manage the symptoms of cancer.

This is evident from a study conducted at Johns Hopkins University. The excerpt from the study published at Livestrong.com suggested that nearly 40% of American report using alternative medicine therapies for pain control when prescribed medications prove to be ineffective.

What is Alternative Medicine?

Alternative medicine is a comprehensive spectrum of health care management. It includes pain and health care through massage, therapy, acupuncture, Ayurveda, and reflexology. Many mainstream doctors have now started recommending alternative medicine to theterminally ill patient to relieve pain and improve thequality of life.

To further promote the concept of alternative medicines, the Government of India revamped the Department of Indian Systems of Medicine and Homoeopathy to AYUSH in 2014. Short for Ayurveda, Yoga, Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha & Homeopathy, the department is set up to endorse the education and awareness about this formidable form of medical care.

Types of Alternative Medicine

To understand different types of alternative medicine, letsget an understanding of AYUSH. Derivative from Sanskrit word, AYUSH, meaning life, this healing methodologyis quite helpful in managing pain, controlling lifestyle diseases as well as rehabilitation after a major accident or surgery. Lets turn our focus on each of these components

# 1 Ayurveda

In the past, the human civilization relied on natural herbs and plants to cure various illnesses. According to the Ayurvedic philosophy, diseases are caused due to the imbalance of three energies - Vata, Pitta, and Kapha.

In modern day Ayurvedic practice, the discipline focuses on ahealthy lifestyle by consuming Sattvic diet, meditation and concentrate on improving digestive health. Ayurvedic medicinesare prepared from natural plant products, herbs and traditional spices that are known to be bestowed with natural benefits. These medications are readily available from online platforms like 1mg.

Recommended for - Ayurvedic treatment and medicineis recommended for the treatment of common cold, flu, kidney stone diseases, hypertension, diabetes and diarrhea.

# 2 Yoga

The discipline of Yoga has taken the world health industry by storm. It is a popular form of exercise that is known to improve flexibility, body posture, immune system, mental health. The practice of meditation which is an integral component of Yoga also bestows calmness and purity. Yoga is an excellent way to accomplish a healthy lifestyle.

Recommended for Yoga is highly recommended for weight loss, relieve stress, to gain physical strengths (especially after surgery or post-accident recovery).

# 3 Unani

As the name suggest, Unani medicinal practices have roots in Persia or the present-day Iran and the Arabs. This practice was brought to the Indian sub-continent by the Mughals. The principles of Unani medicine is based on four senses of humorPhlegm(Balgham), Blood (Dam),Yellow bile(?afr?') andBlack bile(Saud?').

Recommended for - Several medical doctors prescribe Unani medicine to patients suffering arthritis, cataract and even cognitive impairment. It should be although noted that no form of treatment should be taken without consulting a physician or doctor.

# 4 Siddha

The roots of this ancientmedical care can be traced to the Tamil region. The tenants of Siddha treatment primarily focus on lifestyle and diet. Treatment of Siddha revolves around the restoration of three senses of humor Vaadham, Pittham, and Kabam

Recommended for Siddha medicinal practice is considered useful to treat ailments like a cough, cold, skin condition, joint pain, fever and even digestive disorders.

# 5 Homeopathy

We are all familiar with the use of homeopathic medicines for ailments like cold, flu, diarrhea, migraine and constipation. However,in recent times some evidencehas indicated the role of homeopathic medicines in cancer cure. For instance, research review1entitledThe Evidence: Scientific Studies on Homeopathic Cancer Treatmentpublished inThe American Homeopath concluded homeopathic drugs have proven biological action in cancer;in vitroandin vivo; in animals and humans; in the lower, as well as in the higher potencies.

Recommended for Homeopathic treatment provides relief for different ailments ranging from alung infection, arthritis, psoriasis, hair loss, PCOD, allergies,etc. although considered safe, it is always recommended to consult a physician or doctor before taking any forms of medicine, including homeopathy.

Conclusion

Alternative medicine is mostly treated as a supplement to mainstream treatment. The effects and benefits of this therapeutic technique vary from person to person. It is a good way to adopt a healthy lifestyle. However, any transition or treatment should be taken under the supervision of health practitioners and experts.

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Jerusalem: Alternative healer indicted on rape charges – The Jerusalem Post

Posted: at 11:14 am

Breaking news. (photo credit:JPOST STAFF)

A Jerusalem-based alternative medicine practitioner was indicted Wednesday on multiple rape and fraud charges for allegedly sexually assaulting four Ultra-Orthodox (haredi) women who sought his aid to treat depression, anxiety and other maladies.

While details of the case remain unclear, Dror Rotkowitz, 56, was charged two weeks after complaints were filed by the women to police.

According to police, Rotkowitz opened the downtown Natural Health Clinic on Hillel Street in 2008 shortly after studying alternative medicine overseas and designating himself a doctor.

Rotkowitz primarily treated ultra-Orthodox women from the capital and allegedly falsely claimed he received approval from the haredi rabbinate and leadership to practice holistic medicine.

The women allege that he repeatedly sexually assaulted them while claiming it was part of his holistic treatment plan.

All four victims said when they protested, Rotkowitz assured them that the sexual acts were necessary to cure their ailments.

His office was shut down shortly after police began investigating the complaints.

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In Business: June 28, 2017 – Port Townsend Leader

Posted: June 28, 2017 at 6:15 am

PTEF elects new board members

Port Townsend Education Foundation is celebrating its 10-year anniversary with four new board members: Carma Feland, Steve Feland, Missy Nielsen and Gregg Miller.

Its an exciting time as we approach our 10-year anniversary with such strong talent on our board, stated Holley Carlson, president of PTEF, which has in the last 10 years awarded nearly $400,000.

PTEF focuses on enhancing academic excellence one grant at a time with the guidance of community members like these.

We are thrilled to have them on board.

Those interested in supporting public education or for consideration on the board may contact Holly Petta at pteducationfoundation.org.

Sarah Bacchus has joined the staff of Windermere Hood Canal. Bacchus was born and raised in Quilcene and has extensive knowledge of the Hood Canal area, according to a press release. Her primary goal is to deliver a positive real estate experience for every client.

Port Hadlock resident Drew McKnight has joined Jefferson County PUD as a customer service representative.

Prior to joining the PUD, McKnight worked at First Security Bank, formerly Bank of America, in Port Hadlock.

I treat every customer the way I would want to be treated, said McKnight in a press release.

McKnight was born in California, spent some early childhood years in Montana, returned to and graduated from high school in California. Wanting to be closer to family including his mother, a longtime resident of Port Townsend and two sisters, three nieces and a nephew in Port Hadlock, he relocated to Jefferson County a few years ago. McKnight has an AA from the Art Institute of Pittsburg in interior design.

Dr. Jonathan Collins honored

Dr. Jonathan Collin, MD, integrative family medicine physician in Port Townsend and Kirkland, Washington is to receive an honorary degree from the National University of Natural Medicine in Portland, Oregon on July 1.

The Doctor of Letters honorary degree, Litt. D., recognizes his long-term work providing a forum and journal for physicians involved in integrative and complementary alternative medicine and naturopathic medicine.

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In Business: June 28, 2017 - Port Townsend Leader

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Back Pain? Try Yoga – New York Times

Posted: at 6:15 am

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Yoga works as well as physical therapy for relieving back pain, a randomized trial found.

The study, in the Annals of Internal Medicine, included 320 people ages 18 to 64 with moderate and persistent low back pain. Researchers assigned them to either 12 weekly sessions with a yoga instructor, 15 sessions of physical therapy over 12 weeks, or education with a book and periodic newsletters about back pain therapy. They measured pain intensity and disability with well-validated questionnaires.

In both the yoga and physical therapy groups, about half the participants achieved reduced pain and disability, and about half reduced their drug use. Those in the education group did not do as well: about a fifth showed improved physical function, 14 percent found pain relief, and 25 percent reduced their use of pain medication.

People apparently liked yoga better more people in the physical therapy and education groups dropped out of the study. The researchers controlled for race, age, income, body mass index, medications and other variables.

Id tell my friends to use yoga for back pain, said the senior author, Janice Weinberg, a professor of biostatistics at the Boston University School of Public Health. It is cost effective, it can be done at home or in group settings where there is social support, and it is also thought to have mental health benefits.

A version of this article appears in print on June 27, 2017, on Page D4 of the New York edition with the headline: Alternative Medicine: Back Pain? Try Yoga.

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Healing through alternative medicine: Winona locals choose acupuncture as a cure – Winona Daily News

Posted: June 26, 2017 at 5:15 pm

For Jade Fang, her profession is a real gift.

Born in Taiwan, Fang is a second-generation acupuncturist who followed her parents footsteps and has been helping people heal in Winona for almost a decade.

Fang hasnt always been around the Midwest. When she was 6, she moved to Florida from Taiwan and grew up there, watching her mom curing people at her acupuncture clinic. By being exposed to the techniques from her family, she decided to go into the same field as well.

She then attended college and kept pursuing her education goal through a master program in acupuncture at the Atlantic Institute of Oriental Medicine. Afterwards, she took up an internship in Shanghai that gave her the practical knowledge she needed to start her own business.

In 2009, love brought her to Minnesota, and Fang opened up her acupuncture clinic in downtown Winona.

I was scared at first, Fang said. It wasnt easy to move from Shanghai to Minnesota.

At her clinic, Fang wants to make sure her patients experience complete relaxation in a cozy and warm environment. Her meditation room features a welcoming space that provides enough seats for a group of people.

As the clients walk in, she turns on healing music and asks them to point out the location of their swelling. She then inserts a few needles in a patients ear, calf or knee, asks them to lie on the chair and relax for 20 to 25 minutes.

To relieve pain, Fang has a unique style of acupuncture that consists in placing the needles on the opposite side of the swelling.

Community member Betty Dennis said she was surprised Fang would insert the needles on the opposite side of her calf. She said she had acute back problems, and Jade has helped her make remarkable progress over time. Before trying acupuncture, she could not vacuum or dance with her husband, but she is now able to do so, with small movements.

I feel refreshed, Dennis said. This is the place to come.

While Dennis visited Jade for back problems, community member Rita Hanson went in Jades clinic the first time in 2010, when she had sciatica. Hanson said she used the clinics services frequently and felt a lot better. During the first treatment, she recalled falling asleep from the deep relaxation her body was experiencing.

At the end of each session, I have much more energy for the rest of the day, Hanson said.

Fang said she considers her duties to be different from a doctors. While a doctor prescribes a medication for a patient, she provides the treatment right away. Most people will relax no matter their pain or swelling.

Its like a deep meditation, Fang said. When patients leave, they are immediately calmer; its instant gratification.

For Julie Johnston, acupuncture became an answer to her hand injury. Before coming across Fangs clinic, she used to drive to La Crosse for an expensive private session, and would not sit on the chair long enough to feel relaxed. Fangs technique saved her situation when any other option was working. Treatment after treatment, she healed slowly and was able to use her hand again.

It would surprise me because the swelling would go down, Johnston said.

At the end of her sessions, Fang said people heal in different ways, and their experience is very personalized. Through her technique, she can cure people of all ages for allergies, headaches, dizziness, asthma, colds, and other illnesses. Usually, those who walk in with anxiety or depression, benefit a lot from a group setting, she said.

However, progress is gradual.

Its not a miracle cure. It works with your body and its very gentle, Fang said.

Dennis, Hanson and Johnston said Fangs clinic is very affordable for them; one of the reasons they have been able to visit her many times and heal gradually.

Some acupuncturists choose individual acupuncture, but Fang calls her style a community acupuncture, aimed to make her service more accessible and easier for the community. Fang is also a member of Peoples Organization of Community Acupuncture, and receives support from other acupuncturists who share the same goal as her: to work cooperatively to increase affordability and make community acupuncture as widely available as possible.

As a new alternative medicine in the Midwest, when Fang first opened up her office, she said people were afraid of its side effects and had a poor knowledge of the medicine, but then they realized how effective it could be and made her feel more accepted. Most people share with Fang that they are afraid of the needles, and she tells them they are not ejection needles, but they are applied on the outermost layer of the skin.

After I opened, there has been a lot more openness, Fang said. Its becoming more commonplace.

Today, more hospitals and clinics are starting to have their own staff acupuncturists, Fang said. Through POCA, Fang wishes to create social change in health care, as many people cannot get the health they need because they cannot afford it. Moreover, she would like to help open up and recommend even more affordable clinics in other towns, cities, and states, for those who drive far away to reach their closest clinic.

We want to be available and accessible, Fang said. We all help each other. We are like a resource.

In her community, Fangs goal is to educate people on the benefits of acupuncture and to help them understand alternative medicine is not scary, but simple and effective. Sometimes, people visit her as their last choice of treatment, but she hopes to make acupuncture part of an everyday cure.

She mentors new acupuncturists and shares with them the secrets of running a business. What she enjoyed the most as an acupuncturist in Winona has been charging a price everybody can afford, and seeing people gradually get better.

Its really meaningful work, Fang said. I feel like its a gift to do what I do.

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How cupping therapy helps athletes like Michael Phelps as an alternative medicine – Sport360

Posted: at 5:15 pm

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Michael Phelps piques everyones interest when he sported polka dot bruises all over his body during his return to Olympic glory.

Before the internet went wild with their speculations, it was later found out that Phelps had underwent an ancient practice of detoxification known as cupping therapy, and the bruises were in fact cupping marks.

In the middle east, the practice came to be known as Hijama, which literally means sucking and has its roots in Islamic tradition.

The unique process cleans out the cardiovascular system by sucking out waste fluids creating vacuum in them so the cup clings on to the skin and forces the fluids to start accumulatingin the vessel.

The procedure is considered to be quite beneficial for athletes that helps rejuvenate their muscles and enhance their performance.

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Medical journal takes aim at natural remedies – CBC.ca

Posted: at 5:15 pm

An editorial in Monday's Canadian Medical Association Journal is calling on the federal government to crack down on natural health products, which the author argues are poorly tested and can do patients more harm than good, compared to conventional medicines.

"They simply have to show that someone, somewhere once used this as therapy for something," Dr. Matthew Stanbrook, the journal's deputy editor, told CBC Toronto.

The editorial urges Health Canada to stop makers of natural healthproducts from claiming that the products areremedies, because they are not as rigorously tested as conventional, over-the-counter drugs.

Canadian Medical Association Journal deputy editor Dr. Matthew Stanbrook argues that natural remedies are not regulated carefully enough. (Keith Whalen/CBC News)

"The double standard perpetuated by both regulators and retailers that enables the deception of unsuspecting Canadians must end," the editorial states. "Alternative medicines with claims based on alternative facts do not deserve an alternative, easy regulatory road to market."

Supporters of alternative medicines are disputing the editorial's claims.

Shawn O'Reilly, executive director of the Canadian Association of Naturopathic Doctors, said the editorial doesn't accurately reflect the standards that natural health products must meet before they can be sold to the public, which she called "robust."

Shawn O'Reilly, executive director of the Canadian Association of Naturopathic Doctors, says natural health products are tested more rigorously than an editorial in the new edition of the CMAJ lets on. (CBC News)

And Mike Hannalah, a Toronto pharmacist who dispenses both traditional and naturalremedies, said no natural health product can be placed on his shelf until it has received a "natural product number" from Health Canada, which is only issued once the federal government has approved the medicine for therapeutic use.

"So to me, it's the same kind of safety measures," he told CBC Toronto. "I do feel comfortable as a practitioner, as a pharmacist, to dispense those natural health products that met those requirements."

However, the editorial states that some natural health products are allowed make claims that have not been tested by Health Canada.

Manon Bombardier is director general of natural and nonprescription health products for Health Canada. (CBC News)

"If consumers are unable to separate products with no scientific proof behind them from products supported by evidence, then we need to separate them in stores," the editorial states. "Natural health products shouldbe pulled from the shelves where they are mixed with nonprescription drug products and confined to their own separate section."

Stanbrook also wants Health Canada to be given the power to remove natural health products from shelves a power it currently doesn't have.

Health Canada is currently reviewing the regulations that govern the sale of self-care products, including natural remedies. At a recent stop in Toronto, Manon Bombardier, Health Canada's director general of natural and nonprescription health products, said under the current rules, she has no authority to remove from shelves a natural remedy that proves to be harming people.

"We need to change that," she said. "Health Canada has the power to recall a bag of chips, but does not have the power to to recall an unsafe natural health product."

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Alternative Medicine That Doctors Recommend | Reader’s Digest

Posted: June 25, 2017 at 2:10 pm

istock/Tassii

Last year, I had a few months of odd symptomsheart palpitations, insomnia, and a feeling of being over-amped, followed by intense fatigue. Finally, after some blood tests, my gynecologist whipped out her prescription pad and scribbled the name of an ancient herb. Two things about this were strange. First, the herb, ashwagandha, seemed to help. Second, my mainstream doctor in suburban Florida recommended an herb?

But my physician is not the only one dabbling outside the boundaries of conventional medicine. While many doctors remain skeptical, a recent Harvard study found that physicians had pointed more than 6 million Americans to a mind-body remedy in the previous year. And the American Hospital Association says more than a third of the nations hospitals offer integrative medicine.

We wanted to know why. So we went to top-of-the-line MDs who have given a few choice remedies the ultimate seal of approval: They use them on their own patients. We asked these highly credentialed docs, what do they use and why?

1. Guided Imagery to Speed Recovery From Surgery Gulshan K. Sethi, MD, cardiothoracic surgeon at the Arizona Health Science Center and professor at the University of Arizona College of Medicine

Why I use it: Whenever I saw [integrative medicine guru] Andrew Weil in the hall at my hospital, I never paid him any attention because I dismissed his ideas as unscientific. But when my wife developed a serious autoimmune skin problemit was like she had second-degree burns all over her bodyit was Dr. Weils prescription of plant and herbal remedies, biofeedback, and hypnosis that cured her. Once I started looking into mind-body medicine, I became intrigued by guided imagery, in which recorded suggestions or a script help you visualize something good, like your immune cells attacking a tumor.

Well-done studies show how powerful it can be for patients about to undergo procedures like the heart operations I perform. Thats because imagining yourself recovered has physical effects, including lowering your heart rate and speeding healing. Not all my patients agree to do it, but most take my suggestion seriouslyI suspect because it comes from such an unexpected source. I used guided imagery myself recently when my knee was replaced, which I believe contributed to my being able to take a short walk just hours after the operation.

How strong is the evidence? There have been only a few solid studies, but results were promising: Guided imagery cut the need for pain medication in surgical patients and allowed them to leave the hospital earlier.

Also might help: conditions worsened by stress, such as asthma or migraine.

2. Acupuncture to Treat Pain Lonnie Zeltzer, MD, director of the pediatric pain program at the Mattel Childrens Hospital in Los Angeles and professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

Why I use it: People with chronic pain often experience a snowball effectthe longer the pain goes on, the harder it gets to treat. Acupuncture is one of several methods I use. We dont know exactly how it works, but it has been found to increase levels of feel-good brain chemicals like serotonin and endorphins, and it may also deactivate parts of the brain involved with pain perception. In a small study we did, kids who had been absolutely miserable with intractable pain felt better and slept more easily after six weekly treatments. I recommend acupuncture for most pain patients, unless theyre hypersensitive to needles.

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How strong is the evidence? Research has been mixed. The Institute of Medicine said that sham acupuncture (in which a person is needled at non-acupuncture spots) worked as well as real acupuncture in some studiesbut that both appear to reduce pain.

Also might help: symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. And it may increase the chances a woman will get pregnant after in vitro fertilization.

3. Yoga for Depression and Anxiety Patricia Gerbarg, MD, psychoanalyst and assistant clinical professor at New York Medical College

Why I use it: I got interested in complementary medicine when medical treatments failed to restore my health after severe Lyme disease. Lyme affected my memory, joints, and energy, and the medicinal herb I got from my husbandan associate professor in psychiatry at Columbia University and an expert in herbs from around the worldhelped me recover. Then we heard a lecture about using yoga for depression and decided to do some research. We found that yoga breathing practices, in particular, seem effective for people who are moderately or even seriously depressed. Just inhaling and exhaling in equal measure at roughly five breaths per minute is good. We think changing the breath sends signals up the vagus nerve, telling the brain that the body is relaxed, so the brain can relax too. It quiets the fight-or-flight responses and also boosts nervous system activity put on hold when youre very stressed: the rest-and-digest responses. Theres no drug that can do that.

I still prescribe medication for patients who need it. But Ive seen people with depression, anxiety, and even PTSD, who hadnt responded to drugs or psychotherapy, improve after practicing this kind of breathing for 20 minutes twice a day. How strong is the evidence? Imaging tests show that yoga affects brain activity. Studies of yogas effect on mood are small, but one was especially tantalizing: When survivors of the 2004 tsunami in Southeast Asia learned a version of yoga breathing, they had a 90 percent drop in depression scores, compared with no significant improvement in other survivors in the refugee camps.

Also might help: insomnia, high blood pressure, asthma, back pain.

4. Hypnosis to Calm Irritable Bowel Syndrome David Spiegel, MD, psychiatrist and professor at Stanford Medical School

Why I use it: My father, who was also a psychiatrist, was a pioneer in hypnosis, so I was curious enough to take a course in medical school. Then, while I was still a student, I hypnotized an asthmatic teenager gasping for breath, who within minutes was able to breathe almost normally. That brought about a three-day debate within the hospital administration about whether Id done something dangerous! But I realized how potent this practice is. By now Ive hypnotized some 9,000 patients, for everything from phobias (where half are cured or greatly improved after just one session) to irritable bowel syndrome [IBS]. Research shows that hypnosis not only reduces the pain of IBS but also lessens diarrhea and bloating. Hypnosis is so much safer than the drugs we use for so many conditions that I believe it should be widely prescribed, although it wont work in the 20 to 30 percent of people who arent hypnotizable.

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How strong is the evidence? Its clear that hypnosis, like yoga, activates certain parts of the brain while deactivating others. Studies of the therapy for specific conditions have been too small for firm conclusions.

Also might help: phobias, weight loss, hot flashes.

5. Supplements to Help Cancer Patients Gary E. Deng, MD, internist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City

Why I use it: I grew up in China, where its taken for granted that youll use herbs and teas as medicine. But my medical education was Western based, and I firmly believe supplements have to be studied with rigorous science. When patients ask me whether supplements might help, I tell them that in most cases, we dont have definitive evidence, and some supplements can even be harmful.

Still, the research on a few is intriguing enough that a patient can consider them, under a doctors supervision. For instance, sometimes chemotherapy causes a lot of nerve damage. The pain, tingling, and numbness can get so severe that the chemo has to be stopped. But some research suggests a supplement called alpha lipoic acid [ALA] may help. For patients with digestive-tract cancer, an extract from a certain mushroom, Coriolus versicolor, seems to make the chemotherapy drugs more effective. And theres some evidence that vitamin D or green tea extract may lower the risk of developing cancer.

How strong is the evidence? Support for ALA and C. versicolor extracts is stronger than for many supplements. There are many hintsbut no proofthat vitamin D and green tea may lower the risk of some cancers.

Also might help: ALA reduces the pain from nerve damage caused by diabetes; a green tea ointment is FDA-approved for genital warts; vitamin D may help ease chronic pain.

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Quotes About Alternative Medicine (30 quotes)

Posted: at 2:10 pm

I am a cuddly atheist... I am against creationism being taught in schools because there is empirical evidence that it is a silly notion... I am passionately concerned about the rise in pseudo-science; in beliefs in alternative medicine; in creationism. The idea that somehow it is based on logic, on rational arguments, but it's not. It doesn't stand up to empirical evidence.

In the same way in medicine, alternative medicines like homeopathy or new age therapies reiki healing a lot of people buy into it and it grates against my rationalist view of the world. There is no evidence for it. It is deceitful. It is insidious. I feel passionately about living in a society with a rationalist view of the world.

I will be vocal on issues where religion impacts on people's lives in a way that I don't agree with if, for instance, in faith schools some of the teaching of religion suggests the children might have homophobic views or views that are intolerant towards other belief systems...

I am totally against, for example, bishops in the House of Lords. Why should someone of a particular religious faith have some preferential treatment over anyone else? This notion that the Church of England is the official religion of the country is utterly outmoded now. Jim Al-Khalili

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Alternative Medicine: Does it work and how?

Posted: at 2:10 pm

Interview by Bonnie Horriganin Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine, Nov. 1996, Vol.2, No.6, p.85-91

Used with permission from InnoVision Communications

Dr. Pomeranz's scientific achievements include being first to publish that analgesia in acupuncture is mediated by endorphins and that acupuncture accelerates wound healing in shin by activating sympathetic nerve terminals in the skin.

Well known - for his work in the field of acupuncture, Bruce Pomeranz, PhD, has been a professor in the Department of Zoology at the University, of Toronto since 1979, and a professor in the Department of Physiology since 1982. He received his doctoral degree from Harvard Medical School in 1967. Dr. Pomeranz has received numerous awards throughout his career including the Clifford Woolfe Award from the Acupuncture Foundation of Canada in 1994, the Weigand Foundation Lectureship from the University of Toronto in 1991 and the Dag Hammersjold Medal from the Academie Diplomatique tie la Paix (Brussels) in 1986. He has published over 66 papers oil acupuncture research in refereed journals, and 8 acupuncture textbooks. Dr. Pomeranz is currently president of the I American Society of Acupuncture (1992-1996), and serves oil the advisory boards of the World Federation of Acupuncture Societies; Harvard Medical School, NIH Center for Alternative Medicine; and the University of Maryland NIH Center for Alternative Medicine.

Alternative Therapies interviewed Dr. Pomeranz at his office at the University of Toronto in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Alternative Therapies: How would you describe yourself?

Bruce Pomeranz: I'm a neuroscientist whose job is to disprove. Karl Popper, a famous philosopher of science, said you never prove anything, but you try to disprove your hypothesis. You do everything possible that any skeptic could think of to show that the hypothesis doesn't work; in spite of that, if it still survives, then you're okay.

AT: Is that what happened with your acupuncture-endorphin theory?

Pomeranz: Yes. I have spent 20 years disproving my hypothesis. Disproving it! The real impact came after we accumulated 16 lines of evidence. I'm not talking about 16 experiments-there could have been 2000 experiments. Sixteen lines mean there were 16 different kinds of experiments that were based on 16 different assumptions. The chances of all 16 having the same error and converging on the same answer is highly unlikely.

According to my hypothesis, acupuncture stimulates peripheral nerves that send messages to the brain to release endorphins (morphine-like compounds); these endorphins block pain pathways in the brain. In testing our acupuncture/endorphin theory, one line [of evidence) was based on measurement of endorphin levels. Endorphin levels went up, but that could have other meanings. Other things were also going up. How do you know that it wasn't just stress that raised the endorphins? So that one line of evidence, though very compelling, doesn't prove anything.

We got another line of evidence (by asking]: What happens when you block the endorphins? We used naloxone, a powerful endorphin blocker, but you can argue that it's a drug and has side effects we don't know about. It may be blocking something else, not the endorphins; but naloxone worked, so we had two lines of evidence. They're very compelling, but they don't yet prove a darn thing. You have to have many lines, all of them independent.

In the subsequent years, we accumulated these 16 different lines of evidence all supporting our hypothesis. So my conclusion is that we have more evidence in favor of the acupuncture-endorphin hypothesis than we have for 95% of conventional medicine.

AT: Could you elaborate?

Pomeranz: Most medical theories are based on only a few lines of evidence. We don't know how most drugs work in conventional medicine. You give a drug and you know it binds to the drug receptor in the body. That's one line of evidence, but it doesn't prove that the drug is working on the receptor and thereby helping the patient.

Much of medicine resides on these one-dimensional proofs. Another common mistake is when you take one line of evidence and repeat the research over and over again. We don't trust one lab, right? They could be cheating. They could be doing the experiment slightly wrongly. So it's good to replicate in other labs. But 16 replications are not the same as 16 lines of experiments.

Other unknowns in conventional medicine are the side effects of drugs. There is very little research on this topic. I believe that the side effects of drugs are the raison d'etre for alternative medicine. I have spent the last 2 years studying the side effects of drugs, and I'm writing a paper on this subject. I can't tell you the results right now, but I can tell you that it's 10 times worse than anybody thought.

AT: Is this your new focus?

Pomeranz: My new passion is this whole issue of why alternative medicine. I'm writing a book on the subject. As I write, I keep telling myself, "If conventional medicine works, why bother with alternative medicine?" Now, I love conventional medicine -- molecular biology is spectacular in its intellect, one of the great achievements of our lifetime -- but if it works and it's glorious, why do we need alternative medicine? Then I ask this other question, "Does conventional medicine really work?"

I've recently done a review of 85 papers assessing drugs used in conventional medicine. The side effects of drugs are horrendous. In contrast, the side effect profile for acupuncture is almost zero. If you do proper acupuncture, you can't hurt anybody. You can't say that about drugs. In the best of hands at Harvard and the Mayo Clinic, drugs are going to have a certain side effect profile. So as a first line of treatment, why not try the conservative, the safe acupuncture treatment?

To put my book on alternative medicine in perspective, 20 years ago I set out to disprove acupuncture. I thought it was full of beans because my mentor, Patrick Wall, said that acupuncture was just placebo, a distraction. He had traveled to China to investigate it, and he knew more about pain than I'll ever know, so who was I to argue? But a Chinese student of mine working in my lab studied acupuncture on anesthetized animals. If it was placebo, then it should not have worked, because for placebos you need consciousness. I thought it was very fishy that acupuncture worked in farm animals, That it also worked on infants had me wondering as well. So we did these experiments on anesthetized animals where there was no placebo going on, and we got acupuncture to block the pain pathways.

When I got these results, I didn't publish them, because I knew nobody would believe me. It didn't make sense because you had to give acupuncture for half an hour. You can block pain by rubbing yourself, or with transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS), but that works in milliseconds through something called "the gate." Acupuncture took a half hour to get going and lasted an hour or two. It made no sense in ordinary neurophysiological terms, where things happen rapidly in fractions of a second.

So I just kept collecting the data. As luck would have it, at this time I was also researching morphine and pain. Because of this, I was at the conference in 1975 when endorphins were announced. The whole room broke out into euphoric hysterics. So I rushed back to Toronto because I suspected that it was endorphin effects that we were seeing. I suspected that it took half an hour for endorphins to build up, which is why it takes half an hour for acupuncture to start working.

AT: You immediately connected the presence of endorphins to your acupuncture research?

Pomeranz: Yes. Not only that, but the tools to study it were so simple. The key is naloxone, a drug that specifically blocks the endorphins. It binds to receptors. It was called a "morphine antagonist" in the early days, and now it's called an "endorphin antagonist." For example, if you have an unconscious addict in the emergency room and you want to know if it's an overdose of morphine, you inject tiny amounts of naloxone. Because it blocks so powerfully, if it's morphine, he will completely wake up.

So my hypothesis was that if endorphins were involved and if I injected tiny amounts of naloxone, it should block the acupuncture effects we were seeing on these cells. Sure enough, it did. So that's how 16 lines of evidence, 20 years of research, 66 papers from my lab, and 8 books on acupuncture got started.

AT: It seems that all our research is structured to find out why acupuncture works within the Western scientific paradigm. But why do the Chinese think it works?

Pomeranz: They have a whole different cosmology and to them it works [within their framework]. You can explain things many different ways. The question is, in the Popperian sense, is it falsifiable? If you explain what happened to you because god in her wisdom did something, how are you going to test that? When you try to falsify it, you're stuck. The traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) paradigm is energetic. Chi energy is flowing through meridians. This may be one possible explanation of a thousand things that are going on. But so far, I've looked at the evidence for chi. There's nothing.

AT: You can't find any evidence of chi?

Pomeranz: Not so far.

AT: But you described one experiment in which acupuncture needles were inserted, but not in the meridian points. It did not work; the pain was not blocked.

Pomeranz: That's very true, and that's easily explained by the ordinary nerve-endorphin story. You need to stimulate specific kinds of nerves. When you put the needle in the famous Hoku point, which is on the meridian, you're activating a certain kind of a nerve in the muscle. Not any nerve, because there are nerves all over the place. There are only certain nerves, and they're concentrated only in certain muscles that activate endorphins, and those are the points on the meridian that work well for pain because they release endorphins.

The second very important fact that is missed by too many people is that not only do you put the needle in, but you have to twirl it. It's very important to twirl the needle. You get an aching sensation from stimulating the nerves. It's called d'ai chi-not to be confused with chi, the energy.

AT: So the acupuncture points correspond with a certain type of nerve?

Pomeranz: Yes. Not all points, but certainly the ones involved with treating pain and releasing endorphins. Understand, the Japanese don't put their needle in very deep. They just put it through the skin. There are a lot of [acupuncture] points that don't have muscles or nerves you're going into tendons or into the ear lobe. But if you're doing those things, you're getting effects that are not [related to] endorphins. Only endorphin release requires nerve stimulation and d'ai chi; but, there's more to acupuncture than endorphins. I'm not claiming this is all of it. I'm just claiming a small part of it.

I would be delighted if chi could be found; but to me, that's like asking, "Is god a woman?" It's a belief as opposed to a real, testable theory.

Let me make myself clear. I think there are two ways of being a scientist or even a modern person. There's the empirical approach, which is trial and error: Does it work? If it works, then I'll use it. In alternative medicine you see this in spades. If chicken soup works, use it. You don't have to have a theory about chicken soup. Then there's the theoretical approach. To me, those are the two ways of handling yourself. If acupuncture works, then use it; it doesn't matter whether it works through chi or endorphins.

Modern medicine has gone down the theoretical route and alternative medicine has stayed closer to the empirical route. My favorite example to help explain the dichotomy is this: A cook will use spices - salt, pepper, cumin - and he will mix them in certain proportions and taste them. If it tastes good, he will use it next time, but there's no theory of spices. You don't have to know which nerves in your tongue are affected by which spice in what proportion. You do it empirically. The theoretical approach is the other one. And we could do it. We know which nerves cumin affects, we know which nerves salt affects, and we could work out an equation for which ones are the best, but we wouldn't end up cooking for another thousand years until we figured it out.

The Chinese were very empirical in the early days of acupuncture (2200 years ago). They were Taoists, and the Taoists didn't want to explain nature. They just wanted to be in harmony with it, so they were very empirical about nature. Now, the Chinese are no different from the rest of us. Two hundred years later (2000 years ago), along came the Confucists and the theoreticians, and they tried to explain how acupuncture works. And I think that's the problem with chi and yin and yang: they were explanations, theories. Unfortunately, they were not testable theories.

AT: Then why bother with theories?

Pomeranz: You don't need a theory to do empirical acupuncture: but, the advantage of having the endorphin theory is that you can improve the acupuncture treatment. For example, there's a cumulative effect of endorphins. The first treatment is mildly effective, the second, if given within hours or a day, is potentiated. Endorphins have a memory. If you give [the acupuncture treatment] the third time, it's even stronger. There's a reason for giving many treatments before you give up, or before you decide whether the patient is appropriate for treatment. Another feature of the endorphin theory is d'ai chi produced by nerve stimulation. Now, if you look at the literature on the controlled clinical trials of acupuncture, you will find that 90 percent of the papers don't mention d'ai chi. So you don't even know if they were stimulating adequately. Even worse, they'll give one or two treatments and decide whether it was effective. Well, one or two treatments are neither here nor there. You must treat appropriately to optimize endorphins.

Another advantage of the endorphin theory is that it fits the Western model. There are more Western-trained doctors who are buying into acupuncture because of endorphins. In a way, the endorphin and nerve hypothesis is easier for them. If they can do a Western diagnosis and then stimulate nerves -- which they understand -- it fits the medical model. Not that I am trying to usurp the TCM model. It's a progression. First, physicians learn acupuncture because of the endorphin theory; they try it and see that it works, then they want to learn about TCM and chi. But where this is going to lead scientifically, I don't know. It may turn out that chi is what is going on. Many traditions talk about energy. Yogis talk about energy and prana. But so far, there is no evidence for chi or prana. Unfortunately, people often throw out the baby with the bath water. What scares me about acupuncture and chi, is that, ultimately, somebody may disprove chi. They may disprove it, but we shouldn't throw out acupuncture because chi doesn't exist.

AT: Because that's theory as opposed to the phenomenon?

Pomeranz: That's exactly right. In the ancient textbooks of acupuncture, they found 11 meridians. But because of the zodiac, they had to have 12 meridians. Do you follow me? Everything they did was to make it fit. Everyone needs an explanation. Nevertheless, we cook without a theory, we marry without one, we do incredibly intuitive things in our fives, but we think we have to have an explanation for everything. We think we must understand the world to control it. Instead, what we should do with our lives is be empirical: use trial and error.

Now, there is good empirical science and bad empirical science. Clinical controlled trials are good empirical science. Acupuncture has been shown to work based on clinically controlled trials.

AT: What do you think of meditation?

Pomeranz: There's no doubt in my mind that meditation works. It works for high blood pressure, it works for pain, and it works for arrhythmias. I suspect most of this can be explained by stress reduction and not by prana.

You can measure stress. Herbert Benson, for example, did a very elegant study many years ago that showed that meditators have a down-regulation of their adrenaline receptors. Stress is the over-secretion of adrenaline. A racing heart rate is a result of stress. And meditation produces the opposite.

To me, meditation works by reducing stress. Why is that good for you? Because stress slows down your immune responses. Stress causes heart trouble, arteriosclerosis, cancers -- many things are exaggerated by stress. Benson has shown that people who meditate routinely have chronically down-regulated their stress system. Their receptors are way down. There is a cumulative effect and a beneficial effect.

AT: Do you meditate?

Pomeranz: I've meditated for years. I started 30 years ago. My teacher was the granddaughter of Alexander Graham Bell. She was very interested in teaching scientists and I spent 20 years meditating through her groups. I am very interested in consciousness, and meditation is an empirical way to look at consciousness.

AT: You also did some research in homeopathy.

Pomeranz: Yes, I was one of the replicants on that notorious 1988 paper in Nature co-authored by Jacques Benveniste. Unfortunately, the scientific community went after us like the Spanish Inquisition going after heretics, but that's another story. If you ask me today, do I believe that homeopathy's for real, do I believe the phenomena that we saw, my answer is, "I don't know." I would love to do more research, but there is no grant money for homeopathy research. I believe it is real, but whether this is a Popperian, tested hypothesis? Not yet.

I'm doing other things now; for example, food sensitivity is one of the most exciting projects I have ever done.

AT: Is this your environmental sensitivities research?

Pomeranz: Yes. But it's a sad story. I received a million-dollar grant and was working with a brilliant professor from England. We got important results and actually developed a blood test. The skeptics claim that 95% of the [people who have environmental allergies] have psychosomatic problems, that there's nothing wrong with them because of the results of the IgE blood tests; but it doesn't have to be IgE mediated allergy. We found 70% of our patients had abnormal basophils. But my associate died of ovarian cancer when we were within a year of finishing, so I'm still sitting on the data.

Aldous Huxley once asked, "How could a needle in the toe possibly help your liver?" Then he added, "If it works, we ought to change our theory about the liver." Unfortunately, we keep hanging on to our old theories. That's modern thinking. What fits your paradigm is acceptable and what's outside your paradigm is not. For example, IgE theories preclude environmental sensitivity, and chemistry precludes homeopathic results.

AT: This is your famous white crow, isn't it?

Pomeranz: Yes. An empiricist sets out to study crows: white crows or black crows. He doesn't have a preconception if he's a really good empiricist. But if he's caught up in theories, he's just going to go on precedents, so he basically looks for only black crows. If he sees a white crow, he says, "Oh well, it must be a seagull, because there's no such thing as a white crow." And that's the tragedy of modern science.

It should be the other way around. First ask: What are the empirical observations? Then create a theory to explain them. You stick a needle into the patient and the pain goes away -- that's the observation. Now you could say it's placebo, because placebo does the same thing. But you must took a little closer. Placebo only works in 30% of the population. Placebo doesn't work in animals. It doesn't work in children, it doesn't work under anesthesia, and it doesn't work on single cells. So then you have to say, "Well, it can't be placebo." So you persist and eventually find that endorphins can explain it.

If you do see a white crow, you've got to shoot it and stuff it to make sure it's a crow, and check that its genes are not a seagull's genes. The reason a white crow is a great example is that very often white crows are hard to find. It's easy to find a black crow. Any day of the week you can find one: but white crows are mutants. They're hard to find.

That's the trouble with homeopathy. It's a white crow. It's difficult to conduct experiments with homeopathy. The phenomenon comes and goes. I think a lot of parapsychology is like thAT: very subtle. When you're studying a subtle phenomenon, you're in a whole new ball game. Medicine and biology usually work with what I call "sledgehammer" experiments. In other words, you give a drug at a high dose and you see a large effect. You compile the statistics, and you say, "Yes, there's something happening." But if you treat something very subtly, the results are slow to come, hard to prove. How do you prove that you really healed [the patients], that they didn't heal spontaneously? How do you know that the change in symptoms wasn't going to happen anyway?

Patients prefer medicinal drugs because they are like sledgehammers. They go home and have side effects like nausea and feel that something's happened to them; but if they take a homeopathic medicine, not very much happens. I have a classic example: My homeopathic doctor said to me, "You know, if I'm really lucky you're not going to feel any different." I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "If you don't get a reaction, then you're okay. If nothing happens to you, I'm going to be really pleased." I said, "But how are you going to know that you did anything?" And he said, "In the long run, 6 months from now, a year from now, you'll be a different person. You won't get all these exacerbations." So it's very subtle.

AT: And our society has a difficult time with that "6 months down the road" business.

Pomeranz: That's it. We're not patient. We don't believe in it enough. The Chinese believe in acupuncture, so they're willing to do it slowly, come back every week for months on end.

I've spent 30 years of my life looking for white crows. To study parapsychology, I've had long-running relationships with some of the most famous psychics on the planet, trying to figure out what was going on -- if it was going on in the first place. There were two questions for me: first, are they for real; and second, if real, how do the psychic phenomena work?

AT: Do you think it's real?

Pomeranz: Part of me knows there's something going on, and I would love to do the experiment to show it; but you can count these occurrences on one hand. I'm two-sided. On the one side, I'm extremely skeptical. That's my job, that's my training. I want Popperian proof. I'm from Missouri. I've got to be shown. On the other hand, I'm fascinated by the borderline stuff. To me, that's the frontier; that's the unknown.

But it is important to work with the most solid technology, so if you do get an answer, nobody will deny it. In other words, if you're going to go chasing white crows, you better be sure, when you find one, that it is a white crow. It's not enough just to look up in the sky and say, "I saw it," because they can say, It was an illusion." You have to shoot it, bring it down, stuff it, make sure it's got the DNA of a crow. That's been one of the problems with mind-body research.

It's very hard to do mind-body experiments and measure the outcomes. When you get into mechanisms such as the change in white blood cells with prayer, it's getting closer to good science, but I've been very frustrated by those experiments. I don't find the blood cell measurements that meaningful. Is an increase in white blood cells good for the patients or harmful? That's why I like the wound-healing experiments I've been doing lately. When a wound heals, the outcome is unambiguous; it's always good for the patient.

[We're investigating] acupuncture on would healing. We get huge effects: 50% faster wound healing. So it's good stuff, The Chinese have known it for thousands of years. They call it "surround the dragon." If you have a cut you just put 10 or 15 acupuncture needles around it. And 1 think 1 know how it works.

AT: How?

Pomeranz: It stimulates the sympathetic nerves in the skin around the wound. There's a healing effect. It's a beautiful story, actually. The neurochernicals that are released cause healing. The results are unbelievably wonderful. To me, they are as interesting as endorphins. It's a nice, whole other approach to acupuncture mechanisms that came from this empiricism.

AT: Is there anything you want to say in closing?

Pomeranz: I want to emphasize that acupuncture is better than placebo. The reason I'm saying this is that there have been quite a number of misconceptions about alternative medicine, some saying that it could all be placebo, or that it could all be mind. I have problems with that, because placebo, particularly for pain, is a mild, transient thing on some people. Acupuncture works much better than placebo. Acupuncture works on 70% to 80% of pain patients as shown in clinically controlled trials, and placebo only works on 30%. Moreover, the second acupuncture treatment is more powerful than the first, whereas placebo gets weaker the more you do it.

The nice thing about acupuncture is that it is an objective act. You can define how the needling was done, and everyone believes you can measure endorphins. So you have some solid end points. Most of my 66 papers were on the acupuncture brain circuits and how they were interconnected, and how the endorphins were working. That is tangible stuff. They were all published in major refereed basic science journals; but try to study healing by prayer - it's really tricky.

When you're a scientist, you'd love to make a discovery based on a 2000-year-old phenomenon. I studied acupuncture and found this endorphin story. Then there was this crazy homeopathy phenomenon. I studied it and the cells performed in a really amazing way when treated with high dilutions of chemicals. To me, these are wonderful clues with which to experiment. So I'm not out to discredit TCM or chi. I'm out to take TCM and find out how it works. So far, I've failed. But that doesn't mean that I hold the secrets of nature. Nature is far smarter than most of us.

AT: But, as you said, the failure of research on chi doesn't mean that acupuncture doesn't work. I think that's a great distinction.

Pomeranz: That's right. You shouldn't confuse theory with empiricism. Max Planck, who discovered quantum mechanics, said that a new idea will not win by the strength of its arguments; it will only win when the old generation dies out and the new generation accepts it as fact. That's what happened in quantum mechanics. When Heisenberg and Bohr were talking about it, everybody said they were nuts-it couldn't be; but the old generation died and the young kids said, "It's crazy, but it works. We'll accept it."

It's the same thing in alternative medicine. We say, "Homeopathy can't be." Then some young physicians say, "Reilly did some convincing double-blind studies. The next thing they're trying it and doing it and laughing all the way to the bank because it's working.

It's difficult to live through change. Change comes very slowly, but it comes. Thank goodness for the Office of Alternative Medicine: that's progress. That was unthinkable 5 years ago. The FDA recently took acupuncture needles out of the "experimental" category and legitimized it in America. There are now over 1 million acupuncturists outside China, and that number is growing So we're moving, however inexorably slowly, in the right direction.

Originally posted here:

Alternative Medicine: Does it work and how?

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