Posts for 'Acupuncture' Category

Crohn's disease is an autoimmune disease which involves chronic inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract. The main symptoms of Crohn's disease are abdominal pain, fever, fatigue and persistent, watery diarrhea. Symptoms range from mild to severe, and can come and go with periods of flare-ups.

In this German study, 51 patients with mild to moderately active Crohn's disease had a decrease in disease activity after receiving 10 sessions of acupuncture. Study members also showed an improvement in general well-being and reported an improvement in quality of life.

Health Secretary Andy Burnham said he was ''minded to legislate'' so all practitioners supplying unlicensed medicines had to register with the Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council (CNHC). Further talks would be held with the Council, professional bodies and devolved governments before a decision is made on changing the law.

Fears have been raised about the lack of regulation around herbal and Chinese medicine, which is often sold via high street shops, online and in private clinics.A consultation was held last year to gather opinions on the issue. Mr Burnham said: ''Emerging evidence clearly demonstrates that the public needs better protection, but in a way that is measured and does not place unreasonable extra burdens on practitioners.

Read the complete story

It has been discovered acupuncture helped to reduce the fear and anxiety among dental patients. Now they are able to easily undergo dental treatment.

A test was conducted on 20 patients’ who feared to visit the dentist. It was shown that acupuncture helped to conquer their fears and reduced their anxiety to half.

Although hypnosis also helps to reduce anxiety but this is a time consuming process. Acupuncture is believed to be “a simple and inexpensive method of treatment”.

This study has been published in a journal called Acupuncture in Medicine.

Acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicines do nothing to boost the chances of having a baby through IVF, fertility doctors will tell patients from today. A growing number of women are willing to pay hundreds of pounds for the ancient treatments in hope they will help them achieve their dream of motherhood.

Gordon Brown's wife Sarah is said to have used acupuncture to help her conceive, while other devotees of the 3,000-year-old technique include Cherie Blair and actress Gwyneth Paltrow. With conflicting conclusions about the value of the complementary medicines in aiding IVF, members of the British Fertility Society set out to obtain a definitive answer.

They combined the results of 14 acupuncture trials involving almost 2,700 women and found it did not affect the woman's odds of becoming pregnant, no matter when it was given, the journal Human Fertility reports. The researchers could not find any Chinese herbal medicine trials that fitted their stringent criteria, and so could not advocate its use.

Acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicines do not aid a woman's chances of getting pregnant, experts have said. The British Fertility Society (BFS) advised couples undergoing fertility treatments that it found no proof the complementary treatments can improve conception.

A leading expert on complementary treatments commenting on the findings said women with fertility problems had been "misled". The BFS carried out a systematic review of all reliable published trials looking at acupuncture administered at the same time as fertility treatment.

Read the complete story

Acupuncture appears to be an effective way to reduce depression symptoms during pregnancy, according to a first-of-its-kind study from Stanford University School of Medicine researchers.

The study authors, led by Rachel Manber, PhD, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, said they hope the results will raise awareness of the problem of depression during pregnancy and provide patients and physicians an alternative to antidepressants.

"This standardized acupuncture protocol could be a viable treatment option for depression during pregnancy," they wrote in a paper that will appear in the March issue of Obstetrics & Gynecology.

Read the complete story

Acupuncture may be helpful in alleviating menstrual cramps, which affects up to half of all young women, an extensive review of past studies has found.

In a review of 27 studies that involved nearly 3,000 women, researchers from the Oriental Hospital at Kyung Hee University Medical Center in South Korea found that acupuncture may be more effective than drugs or herbal medicines.

"There is convincing evidence on the effectiveness of using acupuncture to treat pain as it stimulates the production of endorphins and serotonin in the central nervous system," they wrote in a statement.

Read the complete story

The consultation, which is UK-wide, could result in the statutory regulation of all three professions, with practitioners required to obtained accredited qualifications and meet a set of standards. Under the proposals, all three professions would, if regulated, be regulated by the same regulatory body.

The consultation was sparked by the potential risks to patients of unregulated practitioners, according to health minister Ann Keen. She said: ‘Patient safety is paramount.’ ‘This UK-wide consultation will help us find the best and most appropriate ways of ensuring that those who choose to receive acupuncture, herbal medicine and traditional Chinese medicine can be reassured that those practitioners meet professional standards of care and safety,’ she said.

Read the complete story

It is the first time the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence has explicitly backed the use of complementary therapies. The rationing watchdog said evidence suggests they help and will be cost effective if doctors stop providing less proven back services like X-rays.

The move was welcomed by some charities and experts but criticised by others.  Low back pain is a very common problem affecting one in three adults in the UK each year, with an estimated 2.5 million people seeking help from their GP.  For many people the pain goes away in days or weeks. But for some, the pain can persist for a long time and become debilitating.

Read the complete story

An Acupuncture study conducted in Seattle, released this month by the Archives of Internal Medicine, that substituted Acupuncture needles with toothpicks to stimulate the meridian points, has Acupuncture physicians and other Natural Health practitioners scratching their heads.

The study used pointed toothpicks to stimulate the body's meridian or acupuncture points and the results in pain relief were nearly identical to the cases where acupuncture Needles were used. "This study missed the point, " said Acupuncture Physician Dr. Christy Giallourakis of the Center for Oriental Medicine in Tarpon Springs, Florida.

"The problem with Western studies of Traditional Chinese Medicine is that the person conducting the study has to use experts on the placement of the meridian stimulus so that any results will be accurate. There are 26meridians but there are many, many, Extraordinary points and these points can be inadvertently stimulated by someone who does not understand the system." What is used to stimulate the points has little effect on the outcome of the stimulation. "If you put any kind of stimulation to the point you will have a reaction."

Read the complete story