The Whole Person Research Workshop by National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health discussed examples of research studies in these three areas from diverse fields and explored methodologies potentially appropriate for whole person research.

https://www.nccih.nih.gov/news/events/methodological-approaches-for-whole-person-research

#research #nhs #wholeperson #ecologymedicine #medicine #alternativemedicine #person #acupuncture #neijing

Gastrointestinal problems, Irritable Bowl Syndrome, constipation, allergies, Crohn’s disease, etc., are all connected to the gut. On the alternative medicine corners of the internet, the advise given is mostly about food and supplements.
While eating good food is an important pillar of health, there can be a certain obsessive quality to these recommendations. If the digestive system is not strong enough, foods cannot be broken down and absorbed properly, nutrition cannot be taken adequately from the food. Focussing on what is missing and supplementing those deficiencies, is typical for Industrial Medicine and the forms of alternative medicine that mainly mimic Industrial Medicine with other means.
Nature-based medicine focuses on the root causes, like emotional disturbances, unhealthy breathing or exercise habits, scars, tensions in the body and ancestral legacies and uses things like acupuncture to increase the blood flow to the abdomen, and creating a healthy “fermentation vessel” in the gut, so that the balance between the “good” bacteria and the “bad” ones shifts naturally, and the intestines can function properly, increasing the uptake of nutrients. Instead of focussing on what suppositiously is lacking in our lives or, the opposite, focussing on “detoxifying” what we perceive as being unwanted, natural medicine, like traditional acupuncture, aims to optimise the body’s normal, healthy functions, and trusts that this will allow the body to re-align itself with its true purpose according to nature’s design.

All this being said, here is a page full of wonderful ideas by Salvador Katz. He is a master of the dark arts of fermentation, the process that pre-digests your foods, adds flavour and good bacteria as well. Incorporating some fermented foods into your diet will be a great way to enhance it. Doing the fermentation yourself is cheap and fun, and can have you experimenting with flavours you would never get in the store. Fermenting foods is a traditional practice, and fits well into how our bodies have evolved.

https://www.masontops.com/pages/sandor-katz-fermentation-workshop

#acupuncture #gastrointestionalhealth #fermentation #traditionalmedicine #medicine #alternativemedicine #neijing #health #gut

Nocturnal enuresis (NE), often known as bedwetting, is a common condition in children and, as a result, they may have subsequent social impairments. The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of low-level laser therapy (LLLT) in children with NE.
https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/acu.2022.0002

Metformin is a very commonly used drug used to treat type 2 diabetes mellitus. The latest NHS guidelines (1) point out that this can commonly lead to reduced vitamin B12 levels, which than can lead to many neurological problems, including fatigue, lethargy, pins and needles (paraesthesia), changes in the way that you walk and move around, irritability and depression (2).

If you take metformin, please pay attention to see if you experience these symptoms, and consider having vitamin B12 injections to help. If you suffer from diabetes type 2, make life style changes, specifically a low carb diet, regular exercise and managing stress. In many cases, diabetes type 2 can be reversed and the patient symptom free without medication. This may not be possible in all cases, but it is always worth a try.

(1) https://www.gov.uk/drug-safety-update/metformin-and-reduced-vitamin-b12-levels-new-advice-for-monitoring-patients-at-risk
(2) https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/vitamin-b12-or-folate-deficiency-anaemia/symptoms/

Dat Industriële geneeskunde enorm vervuilend is, zou niemand moeten verbazen. Maar de impuls om daarin te vergroenen, is nog niet eens begonnen. Traditionele Chinese geneeskunde, met zijn eeuwenlange toepassing, ook in tijden van zeer beperkte middelen, zou een enorme besparing van afval kunnen betekenen.
Een acupunctuurbehandeling levert aan afval slechts een paar naalden, misschien wat watjes, handschoenen en wat as op. Goede traditionele kruidengeneeskunde slechts wat plantaardig materiaal, dat voor de kruidendrank werd gebruikt, en massagetherapie nog minder. Is het een idee om traditionele acupunctuur en Chinese geneeskunde te verkennen als methode om the verduurzamen?

https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2022/08/03/27-kilo-afval-van-een-operatie-de-zorg-is-vervuilend-a4138091

In het Nijmeegse Radboudziekenhuis bekijken onderzoekers de afvalstromen uit operaties. „Ik heb me lang niet gerealiseerd dat we met de zorg een groot deel van de klimaatcrisis veroorzaken.”

Acupuncture Relief Project Nepal - Episode 5: Compassion Connects: SOBER RECOVERY

Acupressure for Labour Preparation by Sarah Tewhey L.Ac

http://www.sarahtewhey.com/downloads
A simple five-page guide to acupressure for labour preparation which hopefully birthing people and their partners, along with doulas, nurses, midwives and doctors will find useful!

#acupuncture #acudoula #laborpreparation #acupressure #birthpreparation #doula #midwifery #obstetricacupuncture

Why nature-based medicines, like traditional acupuncture, work so well: they harness the power of the cosmos, the miracle of evolution, the force of natural laws, all applied skilfully and elegantly.

#acupuncture #cosmos #evolution #miracle #naturallaws #universe #alternativemedicine #healing #elegantly #power

Evidence based acupuncture therapies are underused

A recent overview of acupuncture systematic reviews found that of 77 diseases investigated, acupuncture showed a moderate or large effect with moderate or high certainty evidence in eight diseases or conditions: improvement in functional communication of patients with post-stroke aphasia; relief of neck and shoulder pain; relief of myofascial pain; relief of fibromyalgia related pain; relief of non-specific lower back pain; increased lactation success rate within 24 hours of delivery; reduction in the severity of vascular dementia symptoms; and improvement of allergic rhinitis nasal symptoms.

However, instead of endorsement in health policies and wide use in clinical practice, only a few healthcare systems incorporated acupuncture into clinical practice guidelines and national health coverage for these conditions.

https://www.bmj.com/content/376/bmj-2021-067475

#acupuncture #underused #medicine #research #healthpolicies

How The World Came To Ice
Writen by Mel Hopper Koppelman:

As someone fascinated by the epistemology of medicine, I frequently come across an intriguing, pervasive value judgment that Industrial Medicine inflicts on traditional methods of caring for the sick, which is that direct observation and anecdote is to be scorned and rejected, even if it constitutes billions of observation points over thousands of years.
Industrial medicine attempts to distance itself from this way of knowing (e.g. "It worked for my parents, my grandparents and so on going back generations, so I will continue to do it . . .") by perpetuating the myth that its own methods and treatments are based on the only valid way of knowing anything: the randomized, double-blind, placebo controlled trial and systematic reviews thereof. (There's actually two myths here: that randomized clinical trials are the only valid way of knowing if something is clinically effective AND that the majority of Industrial medical recommendations have been validated by high quality evidence; it hasn't).
In this vein, I was intrigued to come across the story of where the recommendation to use ice for treating injuries came from. In Chinese Medicine, icing an injury is known to impair tissue healing by restricting blood flow to the area, potentially causing further damage, and would be contra-indicated. From this world-view, it's obvious not to use ice on injuries.
While the author who originally recommended the R.I.C.E protocol (Rest Ice Compression Elevation) for injuries back in 1978, Dr Gabe Mirkin, came out a number of years ago recanting this recommendation after 4 decades of use, acknowledging that both rest and ice can delay healing.
Here's the origin of how the public came to believe that icing injuries was helpful in the first place:
"On May 23, 1962, twelve-year-old Everett (Eddie) Knowles jumped on to a freight train in Somerville, MA resulting in his arm being completely severed from his body. The young boy was taken to Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) where Dr. Ronald A. Malt, a young chief resident, attempted to save Eddie’s detached limb. Despite the fact that there had never been a successful reattachment of a major limb recorded in medical literature, Dr. Malt and a team of twelve doctors performed the first successful limb reattachment in history.
The operation’s success quickly became a global phenomenon. Newscasters swarmed the team of doctors to obtain essential facts about the miracle limb reattachment touted as one
of the most monumental operations in medical history. However, the essential facts about the surgery were rather complicated and would not be understood by the general public.
Instead, reporters focused on the aspects of the story that would be intriguing to the reader.
As a result, the application of ice to preserve the severed tissue became the main focus of the story. The use of ice to treat injuries was never part of medical protocol prior to the events of May 23, 1962 and the notion to utilize ice for tissue preservation was quickly published by newspapers around the globe. Subsequently, as the story was continuously retold by individuals not directly involved in the surgery, facts began to change. Eventually, the general public was quickly accepting the notion that any injury should be treated with the application of ice, regardless of its severity or how it occurred."
Scialoia, Domenic, and Adam J. Swartzendruber. "The RICE protocol is a myth: a review and recommendations." The Sport Journal 19 (2020).

#ice #industrialmedicine #medicine #alternativemedicine #injuries #epistemology