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Acupuncture is deemed a safe therapy for integration into a major New York City hospital according to research presented by medical doctors at the International Research Congress on Integrative Medicine and Health in Portland, Oregon. The goal of the research was to establish inpatient policies, procedures and standards for acupuncture care at Beth Israel Medical Center, New York City. This includes credentialing, supervision and safety standards for acupuncture therapy. Track Record Established Acupuncture CEUs OnlineAcupuncture TreatmentThe first outpatient integrative medicine clinic was established at Beth Israel Hospital in 2000. A teaching hospital, the doctors created a post-graduate fellowship training program for licensed acupuncturists. The fellows worked two four hour shifts per week for a period of one year. This established an acupuncture outpatient safety record for the hospital. Recent Safety Record The acupuncture fellows worked over 5,000 hours since September 2008. They worked in a variety of departments including surgery, family medicine, internal medicine, oncology, pulmonary rehabilitation and pediatrics. They administered acupuncture therapies including body-style acupuncture needling, auricular acupuncture, ear seeds, palpation, Tui na massage and Gua sha therapy. The safety record was perfect with only one exception. A patient fainted because he had taken his wife’s beta-blocker medication. Inpatient Care in NYC The doctors concluded, “It is feasible to develop a training model for graduate licensed acupuncturists as a safe and effective strategy for offering acupuncture in the inpatient setting.” They added, “A safe record of care and integration of inpatient acupuncture therapy has been established at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City.” About the Healthcare Medicine Institute: HealthCMi provides online acupuncture CEUs to licensed acupuncturists and publishes news related to acupuncture, Chinese medicine and important innovations in healthcare technology.
Hormone Use Decrease as Menopause Treatment
Years after a large study on hormone replacement therapy revealed health risks among older women using it to prevent chronic disease, the number of women who take hormones continues to decline, according to a new study. The researchers found that in 2009 and 2010, less than five percent of women over age 40, who had already gone through menopause, use either estrogen alone or estrogen and progestin. That compared to about 22 percent in 1999 and 2000.
Dr. JoAnn Manson, a leader of the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) research and a professor at Harvard Medical School, said it was appropriate that there was a decline in the number of women using hormones. The WHI reported in 2002 that taking estrogen plus progestin appeared to increase the risks of stroke, heart disease and breast cancer. "We now understand that women more distant from the onset menopause and at increased risk of cardiovascular disease have adverse outcomes on hormone therapy and that hormone therapy should not be used for prevention of heart disease or prevention of chronic disease because it is associated with some risks," Manson, chief of preventive medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital, told Reuters Health.
The latest report, which included survey responses from more than 10,000 women, shows a steady drop and supports the results from other studies assessing the short-term impacts of the WHI. Brian Sprague, the lead author of the current study and a professor at the University of Vermont, and his colleagues found that as the years progressed, fewer and fewer women reported taking hormones. "From this study we have no way of teasing out what's driving these changes," Sprague said, adding that it's likely due to concerns from both women and their physicians about the health risks of taking hormones. An overreaction?
The increased breast cancer risk from hormone therapy was a major driver in turning people away from hormone therapy, said Dr. Robert Langer, a research member of the WHI and currently the principal investigator at the Jackson Hole Center for Preventive Medicine in Jackson, Wyoming. "I think it's a really substantial overreaction" to the harms that were found in the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) study, Langer told Reuters Health. The WHI found that eight additional women out of every 10,000 would get breast cancer, an increased risk of 26 percent. But he said those results applied to older women taking hormones to prevent chronic disease, not necessarily to younger women seeking relief from menopausal symptoms.
"The pendulum may have swung too far in the direction away from hormone therapy use," Manson said. Hormones are considered the most effective treatment for moderate and severe symptoms of menopause, such as hot flashes and night sweats. For those women who use hormones, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recommends they be at the lowest dose and for the shortest amount of time. Manson said it's possible that concerns over the health risks of hormone therapy may be preventing women from getting relief from symptoms. "In a younger woman who has hot flashes, night sweats, and impaired quality of life, it is very likely that the benefits of short term hormone therapy will outweigh the risks," she said. She advises any woman seeking relief for menopause symptoms to discuss her individual risks and benefits of hormone therapy with a doctor.
After the initial findings in 2002, subsequent studies – both from WHI data and other trials – have tried to clarify the health risks of hormone therapy for different age groups. For younger women closer to menopause, for instance, some studies have found an increased risk of breast cancer while others have found a lower risk of heart disease and death compared to women not taking hormones. Manson is part of an ongoing trial looking at the effects of hormone therapy on heart disease risk for women ages 42 to 58 – a younger age group on average than the WHI. Another ongoing study is comparing the heart disease risks among women who begin taking hormone therapy soon after menopause or more than a decade later.
Why You Should Not Be Reaching For Sleeping Pills
We all know sleep is something we all need within every day. When you can't get to sleep, a natural sleep aid can make insomnia a thing of the past, yet some 60 million Americans choose a prescription sleeping pill. Whether the lack of sleep is due to stress, poor diet, lifestyle choices or a laundry list of other porr habits, sleeping pills have become a drug of choice.
If you are a sleeping pill user do you know a new study shows prescription sleep aids bring an increased risk of dying early? On the contrary, Chinese herbal sleep aids have been used safely and without side effects for centuries.
The study published in the British Medical Journal says that people taking a prescription sleeping pill even when taking fewer than eighteen pills per year have nearly four times the mortality rate of those who don’t take the drugs. Patients who take higher doses of sleeping pills have a 35% increased cancer risk.
What was significant about this study is that it was long-term, keeping track of 10,529 people who had at least one prescription for a sleeping pill between 2002 and 2007, compared with a control group. While the study doesn’t demonstrate causation, it did adjust for confounding factors such as age, smoking, weight, and other health conditions.
Try a natural sleep aid, Chinese herbs for sleep have been used for centuries and has no side effects.
Why Staying Current On Menopause News Matters
On the same day that I received a wonderful testimonial from a woman taking Menopause Relief Herb Pack, I read the news announcement from the Annals of Internal Medicine, that HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy) creates significant health risks, including stroke and breast cancer.
Wow, what a day!
This news is not really a shocker to alternative medicine practitioners like myself. The Complementary and Alternative Medicine community understands the risks of artificial hormones because we are taught to look at the body from a different point of view than Western medicine doctors. We don't try to cover up menopause symptoms with a drug rather we look for the root cause of the disease and treat the whole body.
Holistic minded doctors have always known that HRT is not the miracle drug it was once made out to be. Yesterdays announcement that risks outweigh the benefits is something we've known all along.
"In this case, the harms – the risk of blood clots, gallbladder disease, those types of things – led us to conclude that, on balance, the harms outweigh any potential benefit" said Dr. Bibbins-Domingo.
She added that for conditions such like heart disease and dementia, there was no evidence of any benefit.
Dr. JoAnn Manson, chief of preventive medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital and a professor at Harvard Medical School who worked on the WHI study, said the latest recommendations track with current medical practice.
Manson said it is important to distinguish between hormone therapy used for prevention of chronic disease and short-term use of hormone therapy to treat menopause symptoms, which the guidelines do not address.
She said many of the same professional societies that caution against use of hormone therapy for prevention endorse its use in healthy women whose lives are being disrupted by symptoms of menopause.
"That is the really key point here," she said.
Because of the potential risks, doctors prescribe hormone therapy for menopause symptoms at the lowest possible dose for the shortest period of time. "We understand that there is a different balance of benefits and risks when hormone therapy is used for short-term symptom management versus long-term disease prevention," Manson said.
The task force said more study is needed on the effects of hormone therapy in younger women.
Scott’s Death Questions Sleep Aids Side-effects
Every year another sad story of a famous Hollywood somebody dies with drugs found in their body. This time again, like so many others, the drugs included prescription sleep aids and anti-depressants.
It is truly the saddest story of all.
Fact is, sleep loss can cause depression. Depression worsens with insomnia. Anti-depressant drugs have side-effects including sleeplessness and the once a person begins medication for these it's hard to tell which is came first, the chicken or the egg?
Filmmaker Tony Scott is now another statistic of sleeplessness and drugs. Coroner's found both sleep aids and anti-depressants in his body. Why a successful filmmaker can't find an answer to insomnia and depression baffles my mind? Today we have so many answers and so many possible approaches to sleeplessness yet people suffer.
Condolences to his family and friends, business associates and all who will miss his talent. May we learn something from this loss and his struggle with sleep aids.
World Menopause Day Healthy Summit Online October 18th
World Menopause Day is October 18th. If you suffer with hot flashes or night sweats or other symptoms of menopause please join me at an online event called:
World Menopause Day Health Summit
Come and join the on-line conversation. Ask the panelist your most pressing menopause questions.
The list of expert panelists will be breaking taboo and talking everything menopause.
Don’t feel alone any longer. That foggy brain feeling you’re not quite sure about…. we’ll be talking about solutions.
Weight gain around the middle that you simply can’t get rid of…. well we’ll be talking about solutions that have worked for that too.
Most women feel their doctor should give them the answers to all their health questions as they age, unfortunately, doctors today often don’t have natural solutions. What they have is a prescription pad.
If you’re like me, you just don’t trust the pills anymore. If you feel confused by all the conflicting information about HRT, (hormone replacement therapy), YOU are not alone.
We’re going to talk about all the other options that work. Diet and life style solutions such as herbal alternatives that really work and have been used for centuries. I guarantee you will walk away with useful information you won’t hear anywhere else.
End the confusion and the mysteries
behind the big “M”,
End Your PMS & Menstrual Cramps Video Interview
This interview will give you some insight into the book "Stop Your Bitching…naturally" The Step By Step Guide to Balancing Your Hormones and Ending PMS & Menstrual Cramps. Evita at Healthytarian.com did a super informative interview with Cathy which covers a great overview of the book. Hope you enjoy it.
Fascinating Lecture On Chinese Herb Discoveries
A lecture I attended today was revisiting history, the history of Chinese herbs. What I found most interesting is the fact that hospitals in the U.S. are doing clinical trials using Chinese herbs.
This is truly re-inventing Western medicine.
The drugs of the future are herbs that are proving (once again) their effectiveness. These herbal drugs are made from Traditional Chinese herb formulas written down over one thousand years ago, so we can say this medicine is truly based on historical information.
Chinese herbal medicine is being studied at places like Yale University where Yung Chi (Tommy) Cheng, PhD. is the chairman of the Consortium for Globalization of Chinese Medicine. He is an innovative pioneer in herbal drug research and internationally renowned for his significant role in the advancement of pharmacology.
Using a Traditional Chinese Herb four herb formula, Dr. Cheng is working on FDA approval for a patented drug to alleviate side effects of chemotherapy induced nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. The unfortunate side effects of chemotherapy make it difficult for patients to tolerate and chemotherapy damages the immune system. This Chinese herb formula is proving it can eliminate the side effects by healing the gut and improving the immune system without reducing the effects of the chemo.
This is exciting work and we hope the FDA will give swift approval as so many patients are in need of this holistic, herbal medicine.
Why Melatonin Is Not A Good Sleep Aid
Melatonin is a powerful hormone produced naturally in our bodies. We know it helps with circadium rhythms or our natural body clock.
For years people have been taking melatonin to help them sleep.
Yesterday Dr. Oz's guest, Dr. Breus said melatonin is dangerous and should not be used as a sleep aid and should not be used in the high doses sold over-the-counter.
Since our bodies only make about 0.3 to 0.8 milligrams of melatonin per day, taking a supplement sold in 3, 5, 10 or more mg is 10x more than our body would normally make.
Even though melatonin has become known as a safe natural sleep aid too much of anything can be dangerous. Melatonin can actually destroy your sleep cycle said the good doctor. Melatonin supplements can also cause headaches, nausea, dizziness or irritability.
The natural sleep aid that has been safely used around the world for centuries are Chinese herbs. One formual in particular has been the most popular for getting to sleep naturally. The Chinese name is Suan Zao Ren Tang, we sell it under our brand, iSleep Herb Pack. It's easier to understand and easier to pronounce.
Learn more about this natural and completly safe and non-addicting sleep aid here! Billions of people use everynight without side-effects. Please also see our 3 minute factory tour video and learn why our herbal processing is the GOLD standard around the world.
Chinese Herbs Now In Skin Moisturizers
I saw this in the store the other day. It is one of the just a handful of main stream products I’ve seen in the U.S. that is advertising “Chinese Botanicals”!
Very Cool!! Kiss My Face is not just a trend setter they see the writing on the wall. Chinese herbs can and do make your products better. They are used all over Asia in various drinks, hand creams, shampoo’s and cosmetics, it’s about time we start seeing them on American store shelves.
American’s are getting exposed to Chinese herbs slowly but surely. Whether it’s ginseng in energy drinks or goji berries packages we are starting to see greater use of Chinese herbs in everyday products. Kiss Your Face uses both Chinese botanicals, and Chinese herbs on their packaging label.
Here are the three main reasons why Chinese herbs are different than Western herbs and why you're going to start seeing much more of these Chinese botanicals in everyday products.
1. Firstly, most of them have been used for thousands of years so evidence of use is simply much, much longer than Western botanicals that have only been documented for only a few hundred years.
2. Chinese botanicals don’t necessarily grow exclusively in China today. Many grow around the world, including America. All are part of a system of medicine called Traditional Chinese medicine that is thousands of years old and today this system of medicine keeps billions of people alive and well.
3. The third most important difference in Chinese herbs vs Western herbs is their use in combinations or formulas. Western herbs are often used one at a time. For example the use of chamomile for trouble sleeping. But in Chinese Herbal medicine, one herb alone would never be used to help with sleep. A combination of herbs, or formula of herbs would be used because over the centuries people have found formulas or groups of herbs work much better than just using one herb along.
Of course there are many other differences between Western herbs and Chinese herbs, But that's a good start and it's great to see the system of herbal medicine being incorporated into more mainstream products in the United States and around the world.
Ginseng Now Included in Food Products
The China Ministry of Health just recently decided to change its policy regarding ginseng. Well known for hundreds of health benefits, ginseng will now be allowed to be included in food products in Asia. America has no such restrictions for ginseng and this longevity herb is often found in energy drinks today.
Since 2002, the Chinese MInistry of Health has regulated Chinese herbs and placed them into three categories. One category for Chinese herbs used as food, another categorized herbs as health food and a third that included herbs only as medicine.
Before this announcement, ginseng was permitted to be used only in registered health products and medicine categories. The new policy allows ginseng to be used in all three categories. This will most certainly increase demand and international competitiveness of ginseng. Prices of this ancient herb have been steadily rising the past few years as more Americans and other Western countries learn about the health benefits of ginseng.
Ginseng is commonly called the “king of all herbs.” Ginseng is considered to be nutritious and to have great medical value in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). It has been used as a tonic in TCM for over 3,000 years. Ginseng is grown in other East Asia countries as well as in the U.S. and Canada known as American ginseng, but the world’s largest production site is located on Changbai Moutain in Jilin Province, which accounts for 85 percent of China’s total production and 70 percent of the world’s output.
I recently toured a famous American Ginseng farm in Wisconsin. I was a bit surprised to learn that once American ginseng is grown on the land that it cannot ever be replanted there again. Other crops can be planted after the 6 years old ginseng is harvested. However, because ginseng depletes the soil of so many mineral and other nutrients it is impossible to harvest ginseng on the same land twice. Some farmers have waited 70 years and tried to grow another crop of American ginseng only to find after 3 years the crop stopped growing and was never old enough to harvest. This is just one of the reasons the cost of 100 grams of conenctrated ginseng granules is increasing world wide. Ginseng is the largest dollar crop exported out of the state of Wisconsin. Who knew?
Drinking This Is Not The Best Way To Get Energy
Generally speaking caffeine is the most popular drug in the United States. Depending on where you are in the world, the Chinese herb ginseng, or the herb sugar cane or green tea may be the drug of choice. Even though these stimulants all have botanical origins, they can work just as well as a modern pharmaceutical drug. However, our cells produce mitochondria energy as a result of many, many chemical interactions. Caffeine stimulate our adrenals but does not source real mitochondria energy
Why then, are the energy drinks that contain caffeine considered a food, and not a drug?
This is the questions the City of New York is about to answer? Senators are also asking the FDA to clarify this issue. New York City is considering regulating the caffeine in energy drinks and requiring accurate labeling so consumers know how much caffeine they are getting in each can or energy shot.
Another issue is what happens when you start mixing these herbal stimulants with other ingredients. Adding sugar to caffeine and a wide mix of amino acids and other substances becomes outright dangerous. In fact, investigations are beginning to look into these combination products, often labeled energy drinks because their stimulating qualities have caused alarm.
Kids, teens and young adults are the most drawn to these energy drinks for their quick uppers and stay up all night, side effects.
But, why is anybody looking to a canned drink for energy?
Consider the simple answer, energy begins with sleep. Everybody knows this! Everybody knows how you feel when you miss a night of sleep. Bottom line, you're tired, you have no energy. When you don't get enough quality sleep, the first drug of choice is caffeine.
I've argued before, drugs should not be masquerading as food. Energy drinks do this every day, they are not food. They should be labeled with all the same information required on a dietary supplement. We should understand not to substitute good food for a drink in a can. Caffeine is a drug. A useful drug like so many botanicals, including so many of the Chinese herb botanicals I talk about here.
The Benefits of Caffeine blog here
