Links

28-Oct-2016: Yahoo! Sports How Roberto Perez overcame Bell's palsy to become an unlikely World Series hero The story of baseball World Series player Roberto Perez using acupuncture to help overcome Bell's Palsy. 12-Oct-2016: Daily Mail: Mother of boy with flesh-eating eczema which left him 'looking like a burns victim' says he has been 'cured' by Chinese medicine Anecdotal but describes the way that Chinese medicine operates with constantly evolving formulas to address the current state of the patient's health and balance the entire system rather than using a single remedy to match an unchanging diagnosis. 29-Sep-2016: Daily Mail: Quick-thinking Chinese doctor saves life of plane passenger suffering a seizure at 30,000ft high using TOOTHPICKS - by stimulating acupuncture points Also reported by The Telegraph, The Sun, Fox News, Metro and Express to name a few although the Mail is the only one which mentions his training in traditional medicine. 22-Sep-2016: BBC One: The Doctor Who Gave Up Drugs, Ep. 2 Dr. Chris Van Tulleken tries to find drug free alternative to common medical problems. He sends woman to a martial arts class practising Tai Chi style exercises to assist with chronic pain. Noticeably absent were any sort of manual therapy, creative therapies, or herbal remedies. Maybe there should be a season 2 with a more complex message than "exercise is as good as drugs" but its a start. 15-Sep-2016: BBC News China: Chinese actress' death sparks cancer treatment debate Also a Guardian article on the same story: Chinese actor Xu Ting dies after choosing traditional medicine over chemotherapy Traditional medicine can never act as a replacement for chemotherapy, although some regimens do use drugs derived from traditional plants (e.g. tapotecan is a synthetic version of a chemical found in the bark of the Xi Shu/Camptotheca tree). The nature of chemotherapy, to use poisons at a dose that kills the tumour before killing the host, means that dosages must be calculated so precisely and their effects monitored so closely that the synthetic version is safer than the plant. Traditional medicine may be used as an adjuvant at many stages: for stress, pain and symptom management during the process, preventative advice and assistance with recovery, or using its philosophical origins to counsel people facing the big questions in life. The link to Cancer Research UK provides a balanced discussion. 6-Sep-2016: BBC News Magazine: What is the food that can really improve your eyesight? Does not mention Chinese medicine but concludes it is compounds found in green leafy vegetables along with fats to help absorb them. The main ingredients of a TCM diet for eye disorders such as blurring and floaters is leafy greens and red meats which are high in fat. 8-Aug-2016: The Olympic Games have sparked a flurry of articles about cupping as it becomes the 'taping' of 2016: BBC News: Why are so many Olympians covered in large red circles? Daily Mail: 'It has saved me from a lot of pain': Team USA go crazy for ancient healing technique called cupping Independent: Rio 2016: What is 'cupping' and why are Olympic athletes doing it? Indy100: Why Olympic athletes have those red marks on them New York Times: What Are the Purple Dots on Michael Phelps? Cupping Has an Olympic Moment The Guardian: Does 'cupping' do Olympic athletes any good and does it matter if it doesn't? USA Today: Cupping: Why Michael Phelps was covered in red dots My opinion is that it is an inverse massage, using suction to pull up instead of applying pressure down and most likely has some effects on local circulation. The visibility of the marks and the feeling of something being pulled out may give some psychological effects too. Evidence is sparse like most stimulation based therapies being both difficult and not profitable but there is similarly scant research on massage for the same reason. Try it and see. 7-Jul-2016: Daily Mail: Can extreme tiredness be treated with acupressure? Breast cancer survivors suffering chronic fatigue saw symptoms improve within weeks Based on an article appearing in JAMA Oncology, DOI: 10.1001/jamaoncol.2016.1867. 29-Jun-2016: Time: You Asked: Does Acupuncture Work? A review of some recent literature including a meta-analysis in Archives of Internal Medicine 2012;172(19):1444-1453. doi:10.1001/archinternmed.2012.3654 and several brain imaging studies by neuroscientist Vitaly Napadow. 24-Jun-2016: Forbes: The Role Of Acupuncture In The Midst Of The Opioid Crisis A fairly balanced article about the use of acupuncture as alternative to opioids and in the treatment of addiction reflecting what I have always believed: that addiction is a multi-factorial problem and needs more than just a point prescription to make any serious difference. 24-May-2016: Express: Do YOU trust herbal remedies? GPs try Chinese medicine to treat urinary tract infections A clinical trial where GPs will be prescribing Chinese herbal remedies for recurrent UTIs is underway in an attempt to counter the antibiotic resistance. 12-May-2016: Wall Street Journal: What the West Can Learn From Tibetan Pain Management 28-Apr-2016: The Independent: Mindfulness therapy works as well as anti-depressant drugs, major new study finds A large meta-analysis of research studies comparing mindfulness to usual care is published in JAMA Psychiatry, DOI: 10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2016.0076. 26-Apr-2016: The Independent: British scientists dispel a myth about how we feel pain Pain becomes a mystery once again as the "pain matrix" is disproved in a study reported in JAMA Neurology, DOI: 10.1001/jamaneurol.2016.0653. Many studies using brain scans to research acupuncture's influence on pain will need to be reinterpreted too. 19-Apr-2016: The Guardian: Loneliness linked to 30% increase in heart disease and stroke risk Some more research backing up a Chinese medical idea, that the heart needs social connections to be healthy, in Heart, DOI: 10.1136/heartjnl-2015-308790. 14-Apr-2016: The Independent: Having a nice garden could save your life, study suggests A study in the Environmental Health Perspectives supports the traditional Chinese belief that our surroundings affect our health and being around nature is especially beneficial. Original article DOI: 10.1289/ehp.1510363. 9-Apr-2016: BBC News: Chinese medicine plant secrets probed Chinese Skullcap, Huang Qin, investigated for potential anti-tumour flavones in Science Advances 2(4), DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1501780. 9-Apr-2016: The Guardian: Forget mindfulness, stop trying to find yourself and start faking it Amusing introduction to a popular Harvard professor's take on classical philosophers and how they have been misrepresented in the west. 24-Mar-2016: The Guardian: Acupuncture for low back pain no longer recommended for NHS patients In a controversial review acupuncture and has been dropped from the NICE guidelines for lower back pain. There are a lot of issues with this decision summarised in this BMJ Blog Post by Mike Cummings, medical director of the BMAS and updated in this follow up post upon the decision being upheld. The short of it is that acupuncture is often held to unrealistic standards of evidence and rejected even when it out-performs drugs or usual care while other, more expensive and potentially harmful interventions, get the go ahead with far poorer quality evidence. The result for the patient is that it will be harder to get acupuncture on the NHS for lower back pain. 21-Mar-2016: The Telegraph: A child's birth month could increase their chances of suffering allergies A recent article in Allergies, 12 Mar 2016 has helped to shed light on the mechanisms behind the known association between autumn births and future risk of asthma or eczema. Chinese medicine has associated the lungs and skin with the autumn since its earliest writings. 19-Mar-2016: NY Times: The Hidden Price of Mindfulness Inc. A little opinion piece on the commercialisation of eastern spiritual practices like mindfulness and yoga. 11-Mar-2016: Huffington Post Sorry Mom: Getting Lots Of Tattoos Could Have A Surprising Health Benefit Not directly about acupuncture by my blog on Plum Blossom needling that compares it to traditional medical tattoos makes this seems relevant. The original paper in the American Journal of Human Biology, published online 4-Mar-2016, DOI: 10.1002/ajhb.22847, only establishes correlation, uses a small sample with only one measure of immune function and does not separate the ink from the process of needling but it may stimulate further research. 5-Mar-2016: Huffington Post: Why Silence Is So Good For Your Brain If the idea of formal meditation is not for you then simply taking a bit of quiet time can have many benefits for your brain. 1-Mar-2016: The Atlantic: The Ancient Romans That Healed Through Pleasure Article on my favourite classical Greek physician Ascepiades of Bythinia and the Methodist tradition he started, in stark contrast to the often brutal treatments we associate with ancient medicine. 26-Feb-2016: Sydney Morning Herald: Back pain? Try some placebo surgery It's great when people are critical of their own profession. An excerpt from a book by a former spinal surgeon on the rise and rise of unnecessary spinal fusions for chronic low back pain when physical and psychological therapies demonstrate equal effect with fewer complications. Original paper which demonstrated the result can be found in BMJ 2005; 330, DOI: 10.1136/bmj.38441.620417.8F with a 4 year follow up trial in the Annals of Rheumatic Diseases 2010;69:1643-1648, available at DOI: 10.1136/ard.2009.108902. The review paper which demonstrated that any intervention was as good as specialist care can be found in the European Spine Journal 2011 Jan; 20(1): 19â??39, DOI 10.1007/s00586-010-1518-3, which is why I use physical treatment to overcome the initial pain while trying to get people more active doing anything they enjoy over long lists of exercises to do every morning. 18-Feb-2016: NY Times: How Meditation Changes the Brain and Body Another study that shows how meditation can change the brain and body but with an interesting "sham mindfulness" placebo comparison group. Original article has to be paid for but can be found in Biological Psychiatry or at DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2016.01.008. 24-Jan-2016: BBC News: Could a Chinese herb stop you drinking too much? A report based on an original research paper (DOI: 10.1007/s00213-012-2884-9) that showed Kudzu (Ge Gen) extract can reduce the amount of alcohol we drink. A magic pill to cure a social problem so we don't have to address the reasons people drink so much: What could possibly go wrong? 23-Jan-2016: Guardian: Is Mindfulness Making Us Ill? An interesting discussion on the under-reported consequences of applying an ancient tool for spiritual development as a sticking plaster for the problems of modern life.