Komodo Dragon Gets Acupuncture

Komodo Dragon at S.A. Zoo Gets Acupuncture

SAN ANTONIO — Bubba, a 20-year-old Komodo dragon at the San Antonio Zoo, has received acupuncture treatment for the past several weeks to treat degenerative bone disease in both knees.

Bubba, who has lived at the zoo for his entire life, recently has had difficulty moving, said Rob Coke, the zoo's senior veterinarian and vet advisor for the Komodo dragon Species Survival Plan.

To help treat Bubba, Coke said he and his team have employed acupuncture, in addition to traditional medicine, to help ease the dragon's movement.

"I can't fix his knees but I can help him live with his knees," Coke said.

Acupuncture is meant to "stimulate nerves, muscles and connective tissue" and "appears to boost the activity of your body's natural painkillers and increase blood flow," according to the Mayo Clinic.

According to the International Veterinary Acupuncture Society, veterinarians use acupuncture to treat a variety of conditions in animals: musculoskeletal, neurological, skin, respiratory, gastrointestinal and some reproductive conditions.

Bubba's treatment, doled out weekly, lasts about 15 to 20 minutes. On Thursday, it took a team of five zoo staff members, including Coke, to restrain and treat Bubba, using both traditional methods of acupuncture as well as electroacupuncture, which sends electric pulses to points on the body via needles.

It's unclear how long zoo doctors must continue these sessions, said Craig Pelke, curator of reptiles, amphibians and aquatics. But with the treatment, Pelke said, Bubba will last longer than he would on Komodo Island in Southeast Asia where Komodo dragons reside.

"It seems like you either eat or you become eaten," Pelke said.

Bubba is part of a changing Komodo family at the zoo. His female counterpart, Scatha, died of smoke inhalation Dec. 16, 2013, after a hot mat in the dragons' indoor enclosure shorted out and caught fire.

The offspring of Bubba and Scatha, Phoenix, hatched April 3.

Bubba, resistant at the start of treatment, slowly relaxed as the treatment continued. Coke said
"Tomorrow, you'll see a dramatic difference," Coke said after the treatment.

Source of the story is  here.

Ear Acupuncture Might Ease Constipation

Ear Acupuncture Might Ease Constipation

AsianScientist (Sep. 3, 2014) – A review article published in The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine shows that acupuncture could help ease chronic constipation.

Nearly one in six adults worldwide may suffer from chronic constipation and, over time, the disorder can cause serious complications such as diverticulosis of the colon, crissum diseases, and melanosis coli.

Dr. Yang Li-Hua and coauthors from the Hospital of Nanjing University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Jiangsu Province Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and Southeast University School of Public Health, Nanjing, China, analyzed the results of 17 published clinical studies, comparing the effectiveness of auriculotherapy in managing and relieving constipation and in alleviating symptoms associated with constipation between affected patients and a control group.

They concluded that evidence from numerous clinical studies published between 2007-2013 showed that auriculotherapy, a form of acupuncture that involves stimulating targeted points on the outer ear, was “probably beneficial” in managing the symptoms of constipation.

Although auriculotherapy is relatively safe, the authors cautioned that because all the studies were done in China, the results could not be extrapolated to other populations due to cultural and geographic differences.

The article can be found at: Yang et al. (2014) Efficacy of Auriculotherapy for Constipation in Adults: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials.

An Environmental Outcry

Extinction By Traditional Chinese Medicine – An Environmental Disaster

As China’s massive energy and economic development spawns the largest middle class in history, it’s also creating the largest upper and middle class population on the planet. And they are causing another type of environmental disaster – extinction of endangered species through poaching.

An epidemic of poaching is sweeping the world fueled by the rising rich of China and Asia. Endangered species are being killed at an increasing rate for the sole crime of being the core of bizarre cultural traditions. Caught in this frenzy of nasty rituals are animals like the rhinoceros, which as a species may not be long for this world.

Despite entreaties from the United Nations and many western governments, there is a dense silence from the governments on the receiving end of these body parts. We see this over and over in developing countries on every issue from worker rights to environmental destruction. “The West had its way on this, so why can’t we?”

True. Europe had the original spoiled-rotten rich folks who for centuries could buy whatever, and whomever, they wanted. Then came the United States and its nouveau riche and robber barons who wanted even more trophies of their wealth. Then the Japanese in the second half of the last century did their obnoxious newly-rich stuff. All of these people, and even the not-so-rich, want symbols or rewards for what they see as their achievement in rising to a level previously reserved only for the aristocracy.

And now the Chinese and other rising economies are producing an even bigger population with disposable incomes sufficient to feed their tastes for the traditions that are forbidden or just expensive, things like mixed bat blood and monkey’s milk, meat of a camel’s hump, or plain old hedgehog’s genitals.

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Learning From the Art and Science of Chinese Medicine

Learning From the Art and Science of Chinese Medicine

From herbs to acupuncture, many forms of Chinese medicine are becoming mainstream in the Western world, but many people don't understand the philosophy or complex practice of Chinese medicine. We asked some doctors to explain.

"Traditional Chinese medicine sees a human body as a whole system, like a network," says Dr. Xiu Min Li, director of integrative medicine at Mount Sinai Medical Center. "So each organ system is connected. So one organ system will affect another.”

Li says Chinese medicine takes the approach of overall well-being, mind and body. From prevention to treatment, it looks to create balance both inside and outside. As part of that big picture, the practice is made up of multiple elements, including herbal medicine and alternative therapies.

"The idea is that you have a bio-psycho-type, like, you're made up in a certain way," says Dr. Houman Danesh, director of integrative pain management at Mount Sinai Hospital. "So if you are having back pain, it may be related to a bunch of other factors and stress, so restoring balance with needles or with massage or with herbs brings you back into balance."

Danesh is a pain management specialist who uses alternative therapies like acupuncture, acupressure, cupping - which uses suction cups to promote blood flow and healing - and a treatment called gua sha, also known as scrapping.

"Gua sha is the idea of scrapping along areas to increase blood flow and to remove stuck chi in the area to bring about healing," Danesh says.

Other forms include yoga-like movements of tai chi and qigong.

Herbal therapy is a major part of Chinese medicine It's made up of thousands of herbs, minerals and animal parts used for a long list of ailments.

"Some of the Chinese herbal medicines promote health. Some can be used to prevent disease, while others can be used to treat conditions," Li says.

Some of those used for treatment are available by prescription only, but for the average person looking to live well, Chinese herbs can easily be found at any drug store. In our next report, Li will explain what some of them are and what they can do to promote well-being.

This article is from here.

Tai Chi for Parkinson's Disease

Tai Chi for Parkinson's Disease

Recently, several studies assessed the effectiveness of Tai Chi for Parkinson's disease (PD), but the role of Tai Chi in the management of PD remained controversial. Therefore, the purpose of this systematic review is to evaluate the evidence on the efficacy of Tai Chi for PD. Six English and Chinese electronic databases, up to April 2014, were searched to identify relevant studies. The risk of bias in eligible studies was assessed by Cochrane Collaboration's tools. The primary outcomes were motor function, balance and gait in individuals with PD. Standardized mean difference (SMD) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) of random-effect model were calculated. And heterogeneity was assessed based on the I2statistic. 7 randomized controlled trials and 1 non-randomized controlled trial were eligible. The aggregated results suggested that Tai Chi showed beneficial effects in improving motor function (SMD, -0.57; 95% CI -1.11 to -0.04; p = 0.03), balance (SMD, 1.22; 95% CI 0.80 to 1.65; p<0.00001) and functional mobility (SMD, 1.06; 95% CI 0.68 to 1.44; p<0.00001) in patients with PD, but not in improving gait velocity (SMD, -0.02; 95% CI -0.58 to 0.54; p = 0.94), step length (SMD, -0.00; 95% CI -0.57 to 0.56; p = 0.99), or gait endurance (SMD, 0.53; 95% CI -0.07 to 1.12; p = 0.08). Comparing with other active therapies, however, Tai Chi only showed better effects in improving balance (SMD, 0.74; 95% CI 0.38 to 1.10; p<0.0001). Tai Chi should be a valid complementary and alternative therapy for PD, especially in improving motor function and balance. However, more studies with long follow-up are warrant to confirm the current finding of Tai Chi for PD.

Source: Yang Y, Li XY, Gong L, Zhu YL, Hao YL. Tai chi for improvement of motor function, balance and gait in Parkinson's disease: a systematic review and meta-analysis. PLoS One. 2014 Jul 21;9(7):e102942.

Talk to Doctors about Acupuncture

A Guide for Talking to Doctors about Acupuncture and Brain Chemistry

By Christian Nix and Paul Raford, MD, MPH

Before I begin any discussion of how to talk about the effects of acupuncture on brain chemistry, nervous and endocrine function, it is essential to understand just what physicians most need help with. Who are the patients that most frustrate physicians and conventional medicine?

This is a key step that so many otherwise competent acupuncturists skip when presented with an opportunity to reach out to the mainstream. If you know what is important to physicians, what interests them, what matters to them, if you understand what they need help with as well as the problems to which they are seeking solutions, then you can craft a very targeted and well thought out presentation. Better still, if you learn to craft your communication in language they understand and respect, you become an unstoppable proposition.

Why? Simple: because the size of the problem and your opportunity to help out is so enormous. Because acupuncture is inherently suited to help modern medicine in treating and managing the exact patients that so confound the conventional system, the key to all of this is your ability to communicate effectively.

This article will both identify the key frustrations of conventional medical professionals within the 21st century patient population, and will also provide legitimate explanations in biomedical terms for the mechanisms by which acupuncture gets its effects – complete with some of the essential phraseology useful to achieve serious rapport with and respect from physicians. A review of the literature and even modest and low-level understanding of the 21st century patient population makes clear that certain conditions are especially confounding to modern, conventional medicine.

In the broadest terms, the most difficult to treat patients are generally suffering from four specific co-morbidities that far, far outweigh all other diseases both in terms of the numbers of patients who present, and in regard to how difficult they can be to treat successfully with conventional modern medicine.

The literature overwhelmingly reveals that pain, stress, anxiety and depression are by far the most costly complaints physicians are forced to treat in patients. Technically, stress is not a disease and thus not to be found in the DSM (although the ICD classifications DO categorize "stress" as a diagnosable condition). However – as you will soon learn – interruption of the stress response is one thing acupuncture does best.

Acupuncture is already understood as and believed by the public to be primarily a pain therapy so this is no hard-sell to physicians or patients or anyone else for that matter. To address the other top disease conditions, we must focus on what are perhaps the two most difficult co-morbidities in all of medicine: anxiety and depression.

To read the full article, click here.

Moxibustion and Acupuncture for Crohn’s Disease

Moxibustion and Acupuncture for Crohn’s Disease

A study was conducted to evaluate the clinical efficacy and safety of acupuncture and moxibustion for the treatment of active Crohn's disease (CD). Ninety-two patients were equally and randomly divided into the treatment group and received herb-partitioned moxibustion combined with acupuncture, and the control group received wheat bran-partitioned moxibustion combined with superficial acupuncture. The patients received three treatment sessions per week for 12 wk and were followed up for 24 wk. The main outcome was evaluated using the CD Activity Index (CDAI) score, and the secondary outcomes were evaluated using laboratory indicators such as hemoglobin (HGB), C-reactive protein (CRP), erythrocyte sedimentation rate, quality-of-life, endoscopic ratings, and intestinal histology scores. The CDAI scores of both the treatment and control groups were significantly reduced after treatment compared with those measured before treatment. However, the degree of improvement in the treatment group was significantly greater than that of the control group. The improvement in symptoms in patients of the treatment group was sustained at follow-up, whereas that of the control group was not. The overall efficacy of the treatment was significantly greater than that of the control. Both groups demonstrated significant improvements in quality-of-life ratings after treatment, but the improvement was significantly greater in the treatment group than in the control group. In addition, the patients in the treatment group showed significantly increased HGB and significantly decreased CRP levels and histopathological scores at the end of treatment, whereas the control group did not exhibit significant changes. Moxibustion with acupuncture provided significant therapeutic benefits in patients with active CD beyond the placebo effect and is therefore an effective and safe treatment for active CD.

Bao CH, Zhao JM, Liu HR, Lu Y, Zhu YF, Shi Y, Weng ZJ, Feng H, Guan X, Li J, Chen WF, Wu LY, Jin XM, Dou CZ, Wu HG.. Randomized controlled trial: Moxibustion and acupuncture for the treatment of Crohn's disease. World J Gastroenterol. 2014 Aug 21;20(31):11000-11.