September 22, 2008, 6:23 pm
Acupuncture Offers Relief for Breast Cancer Patients
An acupuncturist inserts needles into a patient. (M. Spencer Green/AP)
Treatments for breast cancer can lead to unpleasant side effects for most women, including hot flashes, sweating and lack of energy. Now, new research suggests relief can come from an unconventional therapy — acupuncture.
Research from the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, presented this week at the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology's annual meeting in Boston, studied acupuncture use among 47 women who were receiving anti-estrogen treatments, including tamoxifen or anastrozole (Arimidex). The drugs are known to lower the risk of breast cancer recurrence, but they can trigger menopause-like symptoms, including hot flashes and night sweats. Half the women were given the antidepressant Effexor, which has been shown to reduce hot flashes in breast cancer patients. The other half received acupuncture therapy once or twice a week during the 12-week study.
The acupuncture worked just as well as the antidepressant Effexor to curb hot flashes. Women who received acupuncture also reported fewer side effects and more energy, and some reported an increased sex drive, compared to women who used Effexor, the study showed.
Dr. Eleanor M. Walker, director of breast radiation oncology at the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, said that while she expected to see some benefits from acupuncture, the results were surprising.
"I was surprised by the duration of the effect," Dr. Walker said in an interview. "I didn't realize it would last so long or result in an increase in sex drive and energy. That was a surprise."
Last year, a report in The Journal of Clinical Oncology suggested a benefit of acupuncture compared to a "sham" acupuncture treatment, but the results didn't reach statistical significance.
Because the most recent study lasted only three months, it's not clear how long the benefit of acupuncture lasts. The study authors said that more research is needed to find out if regular "booster" sessions after the initial treatment period will continue to relieve a woman's symptoms.
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/22/acupuncture-offers-relief-for-breast-cancer-patients/?pagemode=print
http://snipurl.com/8appi
Monday, December 15, 2008
Headaches Respond Better to Acupuncture than Medication
December 16, 2008
Vital Signs
Regimens: Acupuncture Provides Headache Relief
By NICHOLAS BAKALAR
For chronic headaches the best treatment may be one of the oldest: acupuncture.
In 1998, the National Institutes of Health accepted acupuncture as a useful alternative treatment for headaches, but warned that there were not enough clinical trials to draw firm conclusions about its efficacy. Now a systematic review of studies through 2007 concludes that acupuncture provides greater relief than either medication or a placebo.
The report, which appears in the December issue of Anesthesia and Analgesia, reviewed 25 randomized controlled trials in adults that lasted more than four weeks. In seven trials comparing acupuncture with medication, researchers found that 62 percent of 479 patients had significant response to acupuncture, and only 45 percent to medicine.
Fourteen of the studies, with a total of 961 patients, compared acupuncture with a placebo, a treatment in which patients were led to believe they were getting acupuncture. Of these, 53 percent found some pain relief with acupuncture, compared with 45 percent who felt better with the placebo. In four studies comparing acupuncture with massage, the massage worked better than acupuncture, but those studies were too small to draw statistically significant conclusions.
"People who get acupuncture prefer it to medication, because of the potential side effects of drugs," said Dr. Tong J. Gan, a co-author of the review and a professor of anesthesiology at Duke. "This is an alternative treatment that is starting to move into the mainstream."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/16/health/research/16regi.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print
http://snipurl.com/8aoj3
Vital Signs
Regimens: Acupuncture Provides Headache Relief
By NICHOLAS BAKALAR
For chronic headaches the best treatment may be one of the oldest: acupuncture.
In 1998, the National Institutes of Health accepted acupuncture as a useful alternative treatment for headaches, but warned that there were not enough clinical trials to draw firm conclusions about its efficacy. Now a systematic review of studies through 2007 concludes that acupuncture provides greater relief than either medication or a placebo.
The report, which appears in the December issue of Anesthesia and Analgesia, reviewed 25 randomized controlled trials in adults that lasted more than four weeks. In seven trials comparing acupuncture with medication, researchers found that 62 percent of 479 patients had significant response to acupuncture, and only 45 percent to medicine.
Fourteen of the studies, with a total of 961 patients, compared acupuncture with a placebo, a treatment in which patients were led to believe they were getting acupuncture. Of these, 53 percent found some pain relief with acupuncture, compared with 45 percent who felt better with the placebo. In four studies comparing acupuncture with massage, the massage worked better than acupuncture, but those studies were too small to draw statistically significant conclusions.
"People who get acupuncture prefer it to medication, because of the potential side effects of drugs," said Dr. Tong J. Gan, a co-author of the review and a professor of anesthesiology at Duke. "This is an alternative treatment that is starting to move into the mainstream."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/16/health/research/16regi.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print
http://snipurl.com/8aoj3
Sunday, December 14, 2008
An Introduction to Duncan, the Healer
An Introduction to Duncan, the Healer,
Anyone who has a garden knows that certain elements are absolutely necessary to grow healthy plants. A plant has to receive the amount of sunshine it is designed for: some plants need full sun, some need part shade, part sun and some need to be continually shaded. A plant needs to receive the amount of water it is designed for: some need a mostly wet environment, some just need water every once in a while, and some do best in an extremely dry environment. And then there is the question of how much compost and what kind of minerals and how much.
Also, a gardener knows that a plant has to grow at its’ pace and in its’ season. You cannot physically stretch a plant to make it grow faster. There are spring plants and autumnal plants; some plants like peppers, tomatoes and okra thrive during the summer.
A successful gardener understands and meets the needs of the specific plant. A successful healer understands and meets the needs of each specific person.
I think we can agree that health for a plant is determined by how well it meets its’ needs. Now you and I are the same: we are healthy to the degree that we meet our biological, and social needs. When we suffer from some physical or emotional discomfort, it makes sense to investigate whether we have been adequately meeting our needs.
Now as beings, we have a certain flexibility built in and the healthier we are the more flexible we can be. For example, if I have been regularly meeting my sleep needs, I can probably put in a number of late nights with less sleep without doing any permanent damage. If I have been eating clean nutritious food regularly, I am able to miss meals maybe even for three or four days without doing any permanent damage. This is because we have a capacity to store important vitamins, minerals, and calories to draw upon in an emergency.
As human beings, we know, if we stop to reflect, that our bodies need regular activities, we are not made to be fulltime couch potatoes. If we are active, we are capable of concentrated mental work for extended periods of time without causing damage and/or becoming depressed.
The need for sleep, nutrition, and movement are biological facts, no one is exempt from these, although each of us has our unique needs for each based on our constitutions and daily habits. I work on the premise that when human beings experience discomfort and sickness, the first thing to do is examine these fundamental factors to determine what needs are not being met.
I do not treat diseases, I treat people who are experiencing dis-ease and determine how to support their basic life needs so healing can take place.
This is the positive aspect of my work: finding deficiencies and supplying the resources you presently lack so your system can rebuild itself.
Another important aspect is to look for habits and environmental factors that actually place a burden on you; for example, if you have an allergy which you are unaware of and the allergic element is common in your daily life, this places extra burdens on you. In many cases, people have been consuming a food for many years. which has been increasing the toxic burdens of their body. For a simple example, some community water supplies have a very high mineral content that if consumed daily can lead to such conditions as kidney stones. If a person is treated for kidney stones by ultrasound but continues to drink the same water and the same diet, they will suffer from more episodes of kidney stones.
My mission is to help you to discover the missing or inadequate nutritional factors, and supply those. I also help you discover and eliminate the negative factors, which are burdening you and keeping you from the health you deserve. Your program will be tailored to your specific needs and revised based on the actual results of each appointment.
In most instances, I can develop programs that cause a very significant improvement in health. However, there are advanced cases where the reasonable target is to slow down deterioration of health or prevent further deterioration or promote the most comfort possible under the circumstance. While the human body is incredibly resilient and capable of making seemingly “miraculous” recovery, there is a limit. Whenever possible, join my program before the damage has reached a deep physical level i.e. before the quadruple bypass or stage 3 or 4 cancer or diabetic kidney damage, etc. to obtain the best health benefits.
Timing is everything. And the timing of my custom designed step by step whole health program will be coordinated with your schedule and present lifestyle. As you become healthier, you may find that you want to change your lifestyle but the “if, what, and when” are completely your decision. I find that many times as people become healthier they begin to develop new visions of who they are and what they want to do. (Sometimes these new visions are actually revivals of the visions from childhood.)
Typically, my basic healing program takes from six to nine months. You will come for a one-hour appointment per month for reporting, analysis, treatment and leave with a revised supply of supplements, herbs and suggested self-treatment suggestions to use till the next appointment.
At the end of your basic foundation program, you will then switch to a maintenance program which usually means coming in once every two months for six months and then changing to once every three or four months.
The monthly appointments cost $45 and usually the supplements/herbs during the foundation program run from $150 to 225 per month. If you have any concerns about the costs, we had best discuss them during the initial appointment.
When you are ready to commit to my program for your health, I will find a way to assist you, no matter what your money situation. My core mission is to help create a healthier world by helping create healthier people and I refuse to allow money to become an obstacle in a persons’ search for health.
Anyone who has a garden knows that certain elements are absolutely necessary to grow healthy plants. A plant has to receive the amount of sunshine it is designed for: some plants need full sun, some need part shade, part sun and some need to be continually shaded. A plant needs to receive the amount of water it is designed for: some need a mostly wet environment, some just need water every once in a while, and some do best in an extremely dry environment. And then there is the question of how much compost and what kind of minerals and how much.
Also, a gardener knows that a plant has to grow at its’ pace and in its’ season. You cannot physically stretch a plant to make it grow faster. There are spring plants and autumnal plants; some plants like peppers, tomatoes and okra thrive during the summer.
A successful gardener understands and meets the needs of the specific plant. A successful healer understands and meets the needs of each specific person.
I think we can agree that health for a plant is determined by how well it meets its’ needs. Now you and I are the same: we are healthy to the degree that we meet our biological, and social needs. When we suffer from some physical or emotional discomfort, it makes sense to investigate whether we have been adequately meeting our needs.
Now as beings, we have a certain flexibility built in and the healthier we are the more flexible we can be. For example, if I have been regularly meeting my sleep needs, I can probably put in a number of late nights with less sleep without doing any permanent damage. If I have been eating clean nutritious food regularly, I am able to miss meals maybe even for three or four days without doing any permanent damage. This is because we have a capacity to store important vitamins, minerals, and calories to draw upon in an emergency.
As human beings, we know, if we stop to reflect, that our bodies need regular activities, we are not made to be fulltime couch potatoes. If we are active, we are capable of concentrated mental work for extended periods of time without causing damage and/or becoming depressed.
The need for sleep, nutrition, and movement are biological facts, no one is exempt from these, although each of us has our unique needs for each based on our constitutions and daily habits. I work on the premise that when human beings experience discomfort and sickness, the first thing to do is examine these fundamental factors to determine what needs are not being met.
I do not treat diseases, I treat people who are experiencing dis-ease and determine how to support their basic life needs so healing can take place.
This is the positive aspect of my work: finding deficiencies and supplying the resources you presently lack so your system can rebuild itself.
Another important aspect is to look for habits and environmental factors that actually place a burden on you; for example, if you have an allergy which you are unaware of and the allergic element is common in your daily life, this places extra burdens on you. In many cases, people have been consuming a food for many years. which has been increasing the toxic burdens of their body. For a simple example, some community water supplies have a very high mineral content that if consumed daily can lead to such conditions as kidney stones. If a person is treated for kidney stones by ultrasound but continues to drink the same water and the same diet, they will suffer from more episodes of kidney stones.
My mission is to help you to discover the missing or inadequate nutritional factors, and supply those. I also help you discover and eliminate the negative factors, which are burdening you and keeping you from the health you deserve. Your program will be tailored to your specific needs and revised based on the actual results of each appointment.
In most instances, I can develop programs that cause a very significant improvement in health. However, there are advanced cases where the reasonable target is to slow down deterioration of health or prevent further deterioration or promote the most comfort possible under the circumstance. While the human body is incredibly resilient and capable of making seemingly “miraculous” recovery, there is a limit. Whenever possible, join my program before the damage has reached a deep physical level i.e. before the quadruple bypass or stage 3 or 4 cancer or diabetic kidney damage, etc. to obtain the best health benefits.
Timing is everything. And the timing of my custom designed step by step whole health program will be coordinated with your schedule and present lifestyle. As you become healthier, you may find that you want to change your lifestyle but the “if, what, and when” are completely your decision. I find that many times as people become healthier they begin to develop new visions of who they are and what they want to do. (Sometimes these new visions are actually revivals of the visions from childhood.)
Typically, my basic healing program takes from six to nine months. You will come for a one-hour appointment per month for reporting, analysis, treatment and leave with a revised supply of supplements, herbs and suggested self-treatment suggestions to use till the next appointment.
At the end of your basic foundation program, you will then switch to a maintenance program which usually means coming in once every two months for six months and then changing to once every three or four months.
The monthly appointments cost $45 and usually the supplements/herbs during the foundation program run from $150 to 225 per month. If you have any concerns about the costs, we had best discuss them during the initial appointment.
When you are ready to commit to my program for your health, I will find a way to assist you, no matter what your money situation. My core mission is to help create a healthier world by helping create healthier people and I refuse to allow money to become an obstacle in a persons’ search for health.
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