October National Links
from the Alternative Health Journal: In a randomized, double-blinded, sham-controlled study involving 80 patients with major depressive disorder, treatment with acupuncture (5 treatments per week for 6 weeks) in addition to a low-dose of the anti-depressant, fluoxetine (10 mg/d) was found to be as effective at improving symptoms of depression as subjects who received a higher dose (the recommended dose) of fluoxetine (20-30 mg/d). Moreover, subjects who received acupuncture reported less side effects of the anti-depressant and greater improvement in symptoms of anxiety. The authors conclude that acupuncture may be beneficial to "depressive patients with severe anxious symptoms and/or intolerable side-effects of antidepressants…."
www.alternativehealthjournal.com
from The New York Times: Mr. Reid, a veteran foreign correspondent for The Washington Post, knows from personal experience that there are indeed a dozen better alternatives. International postings from London to Japan familiarized him with many of the world’s health care systems. Then a chronic shoulder problem offered the opportunity for an unusually well-controlled experiment: Mr. Reid decided to present his stiff shoulder for treatment around the world.
One shoulder, 10 countries. Admittedly it’s a gimmick, but what saves the book from slumping into a sack of anecdotes like Michael Moore’s 2007 documentary "Sicko" is a steel backbone of health policy analysis that manages to trap immensely complicated concepts in crystalline prose.
"The Healing of America" blends subjective and objective into a seamless indictment of our own disastrous system, an eloquent rebuttal against the arguments used to defend it, and appealing alternatives for fixing it.
www.nytimes.com
New research shows that acupuncture can change how your brain works and lower fibromyalgia pain. The study, published in the journal NeuroImage, supports the theory that traditional Chinese acupuncture boosts the binding ability of certain opioid receptors in the brain's pain centers, a mechanism that helps alleviate pain.
Researchers compared the effects of traditional Chinese acupuncture to those of sham acupuncture and demonstrated that traditional acupuncture impacted the brain differently than sham, both in the short and long term.
chronicfatigue.about.com
from U.S.News & World Report: Until now, no large study has shown that acupuncture helps relieve menopause symptoms. But a randomized controlled trial of 267 women, published in the May/June 2009 issue of the journal Menopause, shows an overall reduction in hot flash frequency in women who received 10 treatments over 12 weeks. Massage may also help in relieving anxiety, insomnia, and headaches.
health.usnews.com
from U.S.News & World Report: Acupuncture and exercise may help women better handle the symptoms and risks that come with hormone imbalances caused by certain ovarian cysts, Swedish researchers report.
About one in 10 women of reproductive age have polycystic ovarian syndrome, a condition that can start in the teen years and cause irregular menstrual cycles and infertility. Small immature cysts on the ovaries disrupt hormone production, causing excessive secretion of testosterone, the male sex hormone. In addition to infertility, it can increase a woman's odds of becoming obese and developing type 2 diabetes or cardiovascular disease, the study authors explained.
In the study, women with polycystic ovarian syndrome were separated into three groups: one group received regular electro-acupuncture, in which weak electric current is sent through the needles; another group was given heart-rate monitors and told to exercise three or more times per week; the last group was given no additional treatment or instructions. After a four-month period, women in the acupuncture and exercise groups ended up with lower sympathetic nervous system activity, though the acupuncture group received additional benefits, the researchers found.
"Those who received acupuncture found that their menstruation became more normal. We could also see that their levels of testosterone became significantly lower, and this is an important observation, since elevated testosterone levels are closely connected with the increased activity in the sympathetic nervous system of women," study author Elisabet Stener-Victorin, an associate professor who has led the research at the Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, said in a news release issued by the institution.health.usnews.com
Researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston are exploring how ancient Chinese herbs benefit the heart. Ancient Chinese remedies used specifically for heart disease may have artery widening properties that improve blood flow to the heart muscle.
The Chinese herbs contain three to twenty-five herbs, and are generally considered safe. Scientists in the university's Brown Foundation Institute of Molecular Medicine for the Prevention of Human Diseases (IMM) find say the herbs deliver beneficial nitric oxide to the blood vessels that lower blood pressure and improve circulation to the heart. The herbs also reduce plaque and help prevent dangerous blood clots that lead to heart attack.
Nathan S. Bryan, PhD, the study's senior author and an IMM assistant professor says the study results show the Chinese herbal formulas for heart disease "have profound nitric oxide bioactivity primarily through the enhancement of nitric oxide in the inner walls of blood vessels, but also through their ability to convert nitrite and nitrate into nitric oxide."
www.emaxhealth.com
from The New York Times: Today The Times Health Guide takes a look at fibromyalgia, a mysterious ailment that afflicts both women and men with a range of symptoms that include pain, fatigue, poor sleep, tingling and memory problems. Diagnosis can take a long time (see Anne Underwood’s story, "The Long Search for Fibromyalgia Support"), and there is no cure. Though about a third of patients respond to F.D.A.-approved drugs for the condition, many more seek relief through lifestyle changes and alternative and complementary therapies.
This week Dr. Brent Bauer, director of the complementary and integrative medicine program at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., joins the Consults blogs to answer readers’ questions about fibromyalgia. Dr. Bauer writes:
consults.blogs.nytimes.com
Charlie Morlock of Cary, North Carolina, didn’t appreciate his company’s health-care coverage until his 5-year-old son was diagnosed with leukemia. "When I take my son in for treatment there’s no co-pay," said the 50-year-old program manager at SAS Institute Inc., the world’s largest closely held software company. "Everything is covered."
So-called Cadillac health plans such as Morlock’s generally have lower deductibles, fewer out-of-pocket expenses, a wider choice of doctors and may cover multiple visits to therapists, chiropractors, acupuncturists or massage therapists, said Amir Mostafaie, a consumer health-insurance expert with eHealth Inc., based in Mountain View, California. Employers such as SAS say the plans can be a recruiting tool and increase productivity.
The cost to U.S. companies of providing that level of coverage may soon soar. The Senate Finance Committee is debating a bill that would impose a 40 percent levy on high-cost plans. That may prompt employers to cut back on benefits, said Ana Gupte, an insurance analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. in New York.
"These plans will be phased out in response to any such legislation," Gupte wrote in a Sept. 16 research note.
www.bloomberg.com
Huachansu, a Chinese medicine that comes from the dried venom secreted by the skin glands of toads, has tolerable toxicity levels, even at doses eight times those normally administered, and may slow disease progression in some cancer patients, say researchers from The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center. The results from the Phase I clinical study, a collaborative research project between M. D. Anderson and Fudan University Cancer Hospital in Shanghai, are reported in the online Early View feature of the journal Cancer. The study marks the first time a formal clinical trial has examined the relationship between huachansu dose and toxicity, although the drug is common in China and approved by the Chinese Food and Drug Administration.
Huachansu is widely used to treat patients with liver, lung, colon and pancreatic cancer at oncology clinics in China. Chinese clinical trials conducted since the 1970s have demonstrated the anti-cancer properties of huachansu, citing total response rates of 10 percent and 16 percent observed in patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma and lung cancer, respectively1,2.
"Studying traditional Chinese medicine such as huachansu is new to American research institutions, which have been skeptical and slow to adopt these complementary treatments. However, it is important to understand its potential role in treating cancer," says Lorenzo Cohen, Ph.D., one of the paper's authors and director of the Integrative Medicine Program at M. D. Anderson. "We wanted to apply a Western medicine-based approach to explore the role of the toad venom compound in cancer patients and test if it is possible to deliver a more potent dose without raising toxicities or side effects.
www.sciencedaily.com