Acupuncture has previously been shown to reduce breathlessness in patients with cancer, and now we can add COPD to the list! In a very exciting development in the world of research on acupuncture, a small-but-promising study published last week in the Archives of Internal Medicine found that acupuncture holds benefit for people with Chronic Pulmonary Obstructive Disease.
Read moreChinese Medicine Makes Sense Of Irritable Bowel Syndrome
Irritable Bowel Syndrome is a chronic and debilitating gastrointestinal disorder that fits into the category of 'functional' diseases in Western medicine. This basically means that, while there are clear and present symptoms for the patient, Western medicine has not yet figured out the cause of the distress. This kind of disorder ('functional', a wide range of symptoms across systems, partly connected to emotions), is exactly the kind of situation where Traditional Chinese Medicine shines forth. Plus, the British Dietetic Association recently published some dietary guidelines for sufferers of IBS.
Read moreSupplements: When Is A Good Thing NOT A Good Thing?
Supplements may help some of us in certain situations, but for others, they may have unintended side effects. So, when is a good thing NOT a good thing? If studies have shown that a particular supplement has beneficial properties, how could it hurt? We'll take a look at four popular supplements that our patients often take and get a better idea of how they should be taken.
Read moreAcupuncture In The News
What's Good For You?? Acupuncture! Seems like acupuncture has been in the news more and more recently. Integrating Health has picked out a few recent highlights to share with you. Whether you're suffering from seasonal allergies, knee pain, digestive distress, or just plain stress, acupuncture can help!
Read moreChange You Can Believe In
If there's something about change that everyone can believe in, it's that it WILL happen. Whether it's in politics or relationships or our health, change is a given. Chinese medicine teaches about the balance of Yin and Yang and this is directly tied to the changes we see around us. All signs and symptoms of dis-ease are ultimately due to imbalances of Yin and Yang in the body (or in our relationships, or in the world) that have gone on for too long.
None of this change happens overnight. It's not like one day we're healthy and the next day we're sick. The body has the ability to correct small imbalances. (This is one of the main functions of sleep.) It's only once the imbalance has gone on for a period of time that we start to see disease. Sometimes it seems like symptoms just show up all of a sudden, and we think "Oh I'm getting older". Well that's true - the balance of Yin and Yang shifts towards Yin as we age, and if we don't shift with it, we're prone to illness and injury. However, often what's also happening is that there's an imbalance in our lives in some way, and it's gone on long enough that the symptoms are starting to show up.
In our world, big acts like the attacks on 9-11-2001, or the dropping of nuclear bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, change our lives in dramatic ways. But most change in our world takes place slowly, through an accumulation of small acts and developments.Similarly, changing the trend towards health takes time. In our pharmaceutical-driven culture we've come to expect that we can take a pill and be done with it. Well, those pills might work for one symptom, but they're often like taking a sledge hammer to a thumbtack. Yes, you see change quickly, but it might come with some unintended consequences! Healthier changes almost always come slowly, giving the body time to assimilate and adapt to the new balance.
Take the example of people trying to lose weight. Everyone knows that losing weight quickly is a recipe for disaster. It throws your body into freak-out starvation mode and slows your metabolism, which means you inevitably end up gaining the weight back, and then some. What's the best thing for your health? Changing your lifestyle to include eating healthier food in portions that make sense for your body, and incorporating exercise that makes sense for your body into your daily life. Whether you lose weight or not, this is a recipe for improved health, no matter what your size.
Change WILL happen. We have an ability to influence that change to some extent but it always takes time. When a person quits smoking, they see some very important effects immediately, but it takes a number of years for all the tissues in the lung to be replaced with healthy non-smoker tissue. Change takes time.
Acupuncture and Chinese medicine work on this scale as well. Instead of taking a sledgehammer to a thumb tack, it's more like taking a chisel to stone. While an acute problem might only need a few treatments to correct itself, a problem that has built up over years might take 3 months, 6 months, or even a year to really resolve completely.
How does change happen? Rarely does it happen overnight. Like most things in life, it starts with a simple commitment and a willingness to change.
[Photo Credits: Peyri Herrera, Simon Cocks]
What We Put On Our Skin Matters
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As a friend once told me, after finding out that I rarely used lotion or oil on my skin, "Your skin is your biggest organ, you have to keep it healthy".
She was right, of course. Our skin is the largest organ we have. It is our great protector - safeguarding our bodies against bacteria and viruses, helping us hold on to water and keeping us warm, or cooling us off when we're hot. It houses one of our most basic senses - touch - which is so important that babies who don't have skin contact with other mammals fail to thrive and can even die. Our skin also nourishes us by taking the light from the sun and producing Vitamin D (really more of a hormone than a vitamin) which is important for immunity, bone health, digestive health, and more. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, the skin and the spaces between the skin and muscle are governed by the Lung organ system, and this is where the defensive Qi of the body (similar to the body's innate immunity) circulates.
As I started to look for moisturizers to put on my skin, I was shocked to learn more about all the ingredients that go into cosmetics and personal care products. Recent research in the news about the link between parabens and breast cancer, as well as the connection between hair relaxer use and the risk of uterine cancer in African-American women, has brought the issue of safe cosmetics to the fore again.
Unlike with foods and drugs, the FDA does not pretest the personal care products turned out by the $30 billion cosmetics industry. Instead, it relies on the companies making the products to ensure the ingredients they use are safe. The Environmental Working Group of Washington, D.C. recently petitioned the Food and Drug Administration to issue warning labels on 356 personal-care products that contain ingredients that have not been thoroughly tested. Lucky for us, the Environmental Working Group has created a database where you can check you personal-care product for toxicity!>
Here's a few tips they offer for reading the labels of your skin care products:
Choose Fragrance-Free - Two years ago, the International Fragrance Association published a list of ingredients that its members reportedly use to make fragrances for consumer products. Of the 3,163 chemicals listed, several stand out as particularly toxic: phthalates, octoxynols and nonoxynols. (Phthalates are potent hormone disruptors linked to reproductive system birth defects in baby boys. Octoxynols and nonoxynols break down into persistent hormone disruptors, as well.) Look for these words as well: "FRAGRANCE," "FD&C," or "D&C." which companies can list in lieu of the actual fragrance ingredients.
A short list of other ingredients to avoid are:
Words ending in "paraben"
ingredients that start with "PEG" or have an "-eth" in the middle (e.g., sodium laureth sulfate)
DMDM hydantoin
Imidazolidinyl urea
Methylchloroisothiazolinone
Methylisothiazolinone
Triclosan
Triclocarban
Triethanolamine (or "TEA")
Phew! That's a lot to remember when you're in the store. We can group a few of them together - if you can remember to 'Tri' to stay away from the "methyl-ones", that takes care of half the list. And once again, you can look up products on EWR's cosmetics database to find out their relative toxicity. Here's a two minute video from EWR about commonly found ingredients in cosmetics and personal-care products: