May National Links
From the Santa Cruz Sentinel:
The recent passage of California's budget resulted in the loss of Medi-Cal "optional benefits," a cut designed to reduce California's budget deficit. "Optional benefits" include adult dental benefits, optometry, opticians and optical labs, audiology, podiatry, speech therapy, psychology services, chiropractic care, acupuncture and incontinence creams and washes. A significant loss is dental coverage for adult Medi-Cal beneficiaries, effective July 1, 2009.
The elimination of these services is part of $948 million in budget cuts adopted by state leaders in March.
www.santacruzsentinel.com
www.redding.com
The Institute of Medicine (IOM) is considered America’s preeminent body of physicians, scientists, and academicians interested in health and medical issues. It is a part of the United States National Academies, which also includes the National Academy of Sciences.
On February 25-27, 2009, the IOM convened a "Summit on Integrative Medicine and the Health of the Public" at its headquarters in Washington, DC. Approximately 600 people participated in this historic meeting which included a wide variety of experts in integrative medicine as well as people in leading positions in government, industry, and academia.
The summit content and discussions provided vital information for transforming the U.S. health care system. Topics included: patient-centered care, the scientific basis of integrative medicine, health care financing reform and value-driven care, and mind-body relationships and health. Prior to the conference, the IOM commissioned several papers to provide background information on integrative medicine’s performance in prevention and wellness, patient-centered care, research, public education, professional education, and economics and policy.
Perhaps most impressive of all was the audience itself who consisted of many health and medical experts who often serve as keynoters at health conferences, including Jeffrey Bland, Jon Kabat-Zinn, Larry Dossey, Woodson Merrill, and Wayne Jonas, as well as dozens of professors of medicines who teach at leading medical schools, naturopathic, nursing, acupuncture, and chiropractic colleges.
www.naturalnews.com
PORTLAND, Ore. - When Molly Fitzpatrick graduated from the Oregon College of Oriental Medicine as an acupuncturist last fall she faced a difficult climate in which to start a business. So the 31-year-old tried a concept she’d stumbled upon years earlier: Time banking.
It’s a bank where people receive "time dollars" instead of greenbacks in exchange for providing services to other members. They then can spend those time dollars on the services they need.
By becoming a member of PDX Time Bank, Fitzpatrick was able to grow her clientele – even if some of those people could not afford to pay her. In return, she has used her time dollars to pay for everything from business photography and moving services to her rent.
"I can provide acupuncture for time dollars to people who wouldn't ordinarily have the means to receive it,” she said. “I'm excited that acupuncture is now more accessible to individuals with time dollars."
www.komonews.com
Some of the smallest of the small businesses in Oregon are starting up and taking root with a little help from eDev, a nonprofit micro¬enterprise development program based in Eugene. Rob Singer, who founded Acupuncture for the People in south Eugene three years ago, said he went from a struggling solo acupuncture practice to a thriving business that serves more than 2,000 people a year.
Instead of charging the typical $60 to $80 an hour, Singer charges on a sliding scale — as little as $15 a session. He typically works on four clients an hour in a group setting. Clients take a seat in a comfortable chair, and Singer inserts sterilized disposable needles to treat such ailments as headaches, PMS or insomnia. Clients then are free to relax for as long as they like, Singer said.
He credits adopting a “community acupuncture model,” which emphasizes low cost and high volume, for transforming his practice. Singer also credits eDev for providing the business counseling, accounting training and legal consultation that helped him make that transition.
www.registerguard.com
Portland's Historic Landmarks Commission later this month will review a proposal by Beam Development and Ankrom Moisan Associated Architects to renovate the historic Globe Hotel building in Old Town/Chinatown.
The building, once renovated, will be occupied by the Oregon College of Oriental Medicine. The proposed renovation would provide energy-related upgrades of non-historic storefronts, new awnings and doors, rehabilitation of existing historic wood windows, replacement of historic steel-framed windows, masonry repair and new rooftop mechanical equipment. A new green roof will be installed on the hotel, as well as a 4,200-square-foot rooftop addition.
www.djcoregon.com
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Acupuncture works as well as a drug commonly used to combat hot flashes and other menopausal symptoms that can accompany breast cancer treatment and its benefits last longer, without bad side effects, researchers said on Monday. They tested acupuncture, which began in China more than 2,000 years ago and involves inserting needles into the body, against the Wyeth antidepressant Effexor, for hot flashes in breast cancer patients.
Acupuncture was just as effective as Effexor, also called venlafaxine, in managing symptoms including hot flashes and night sweats, according to researchers led by Dr. Eleanor Walker of Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. After 12 weeks of treatment, symptoms were reduced for 15 additional weeks for women who had undergone acupuncture, compared with two weeks for those who had taken Effexor, Walker said.
"It was a more durable effect," Walker, whose findings were presented at an American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology meeting in Boston, said in a telephone interview.
www.canada.com
Bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are one of the potential tools for treatment of the spinal cord injury; however, the survival and differentiation of MSCs in an injured spinal cord still need to be improved. In the present study, we investigated whether Governor Vessel electro-acupuncture (EA) could efficiently promote bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) survival and differentiation, axonal regeneration and finally, functional recovery in the transected spinal cord.
Results: The spinal cords of adult Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats were completely transected at T10, five experimental groups were performed: 1. sham operated control (Sham-control); 2. operated control (Op-control); 3. electro-acupuncture treatment (EA); 4. MSCs transplantation (MSCs); and 5. MSCs transplantation combined with electro-acupuncture (MSCs+EA).
After 2~8 weeks of MSCs transplantation plus EA treatment, we found that the neurotrophin-3 (NT-3), cAMP level, the differentiation of MSCs, the 5-HT positive and CGRP positive nerve fibers in the lesion site and nearby tissue of injured spinal cord were significantly increased in the MSCs+EA group as compared to the group of the MSCs transplantation or the EA treated alone.
7thspace.com
Twice weekly acupuncture treatments relieve debilitating symptoms of xerostomia - severe dry mouth - among patients treated with radiation for head and neck cancer, researchers from The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center report in the current online issue of Head & Neck
The twice weekly acupuncture treatments produced highly statistically significant improvements in symptoms. Measurement tools included: the Xerostomia Inventory, asking patients to rate the dryness of their mouth and other related symptoms; and the Patient Benefit Questionnaire, inquiring about issues such as mouth and tongue discomfort; difficulties in speaking, eating and sleeping; and use of oral comfort aids. A quality-of-life assessment conducted at weeks five and eight showed significant improvements over quality-of-life scores recorded at the outset of the study.
www.sciencedaily.com
news.yahoo.com
A study by the University of Pennsylvania found the ancient Chinese treatment of acupuncture combined with physical therapy was effective in reducing shoulder pain. Thirty-one adults with chronic shoulder pain were recruited for the study and split into three groups. The participants in the first two groups were given acupuncture based on two separate techniques. The third group however, was a placebo group in which the acupuncturist did not penetrate skin. The study found that those who received acupuncture treatment, regardless of the technique, had less shoulder pain than the placebo group. It also found that there was no significant difference between the two real acupuncture groups.
www.marrtc.org
CHICAGO (Reuters) – Acupuncture brought more relief to people with back pain than standard treatments, whether it was done with a toothpick or a real needle, U.S. researchers said in a study that raises new questions about how acupuncture works. For many patients, that benefit lasted for a year, the team reported in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
news.yahoo.com
PAHOA, Hawaii — When Graham McCumber was able to speak again in early April, he thought he had been in the hospital for just three days. But the 24-year-old carpenter's apprentice and surfer had been hospitalized since just after Christmas — much of the time in a coma brought on by one of the most severe cases of rat lungworm disease ever seen in Hawai'i. In January, doctors reviewed the damage to his brain from the rare, parasite-born disease and told his family that even if he survived he might never eat or talk again.
A healer from Bali, Pak Mangku, was among many people doing nontraditional healing work on McCumber, his mother said. "The Western doctors did a fine job of fighting the infections and other problems that arose from being in the hospital," she said. But she said acupuncture, Chinese herbs and the long-distance energy work of Pak Mangku were crucial to her son's recovery.
www.honoluluadvertiser.com
For more than 3,000 years, people in China have used natural, plant-based medicines to successfully treat ailments from high blood pressure to headaches. Yet no one really understands how these herbal remedies heal the body. A scientist at the N.C. Research Campus plans to find out.
One of the world's leading experts in traditional Chinese medicine, Dr. Wei Jia (pronounced "way jaw") has launched an effort at the $1.5 billion biotechnology complex in Kannapolis to unlock the secrets of some herbal formulas and create new drugs. Jia will use cutting-edge genomic tools at the Research Campus to pinpoint the compounds in some herbal and traditional Chinese medicines that are responsible for changes in human health, especially metabolic diseases like diabetes.
"This is a perfect match," Jia said. "I couldn't have found anything better." Jia co-directs the University of North Carolina at Greensboro's program in Kannapolis, called the Center for Research Excellence in Bioactive Food Components. He also serves as the interim director of the metabolomics lab in the Core Laboratory.
www.salisburypost.com