Qigong – Breath Empowerment – Food-based Healing

February 23, 2010

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ATLANTA, March 27 – 30
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Cancer Survivors’ Spiritual Well-Being and Use of Complementary Methods: A Report from the American Cancer Society’s Studies of Cancer Survivors.

March 20, 2010

Related Articles

Cancer Survivors’ Spiritual Well-Being and Use of Complementary Methods: A Report from the American Cancer Society’s Studies of Cancer Survivors.

J Relig Health. 2010 Mar 19;

Authors: Crammer C, Kaw C, Gansler T, Stein KD

We examined associations between spiritual well-being and CAM use among 4,139 cancer survivors. We also explored the classification of religious/spiritual practices (R/S) as CAMs and alternative subscale structures of the Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy-Spiritual Well-being (FACIT-Sp). We evaluated three aspects of spirituality, Faith, Peace, and Meaning, and use of 19 CAMs in 5 domains. Mind-body methods were subdivided into R/S and non-R/S. All FACIT-Sp factors were associated with CAM use, but in different directions: Meaning and Faith were positively associated; Peace was negatively associated. Peace was negatively associated with R/S CAMs, but not non-R/S CAMs. The prevalence of CAM use dropped from 79.3 to 64.8% when R/S items were excluded. These findings confirm an association between spiritual well-being and CAM use, including some non-R/S CAMs, and provide evidence of the benefits of using the three-factor FACIT-Sp solution and treating R/S CAMs as a separate category.

PMID: 20300963 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

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Acupuncture for essential hypertension.

March 19, 2010

Acupuncture for essential hypertension.

Altern Ther Health Med. 2010 Mar-Apr;16(2):18-29

Authors: Kim LW, Zhu J

OBJECTIVE: To assess the efficacy of acupuncture for treatment of essential hypertension and the efficacy of acupuncture using prescription adhering to the principles of “syndrome differentiation.” DATA SOURCES: Medline, Embase, Cochrane Central Register, and China National Knowledge Infrastructure (September 2008). STUDY SELECTION: Randomized, controlled trials comparing acupuncture with sham acupuncture, antihypertensive drugs, Chinese herbal medicine, or exercise in essential hypertension. DATA EXTRACTION: Two reviewers independently assessed trials for inclusion, extracted data, assessed methodological quality, and extracted outcome data on blood pressure. DATA SYNTHESIS: Treatment effects were summarized as mean differences with 95% confidence intervals. Twenty trials were included: three trials were relatively rigorous while others were methodologically suboptimal. Acupuncture arms achieved significant effect modification on blood pressure compared with control arms (19 comparisons: systolic blood pressure [SBP]: mean difference -4.23 mmHg, 95% confidence intervals -6.47 to -1.99; diastolic blood pressure [DBP]: -2.53, -3.99 to -1.08), with significant heterogeneity. In high-quality trials, blood pressure was significantly lower in treatments of acupuncture plus antihypertensive drug arms than in sham-acupuncture plus hypertensive drug arms (two comparisons: SBP: -5.72 mmHg, -8.77 to -2.68; DBP: -2.80, -5.07 to -0.54), with no significant heterogeneity. As for trials using prescription adhering to the principles of syndrome differentiation, we found a significant blood pressure reduction with acupuncture arms in comparison with control arms (11 comparisons: SBP: -6.46 mmHg, -8.04 to -4.87; DBP: -3.07, -4.17 to -1.96) with no significant heterogeneity. In contrast, in trials not using prescription adhering to the principles of syndrome differentiation, we found no significant reduction in blood pressure with acupuncture arms in comparison with control arms (eight comparisons: SBP: -1.55 mmHg, -5.39 to 2.29; DBP: -2.12, -4.97 to 0.73) with significant heterogeneity. CONCLUSIONS: Because of the paucity of rigorous trials and the mixed results, these findings result in limited conclusions. More rigorously designed and powered studies are needed.

PMID: 20232615 [PubMed - in process]

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Series Mind/Body Medicine in Occupational HealthSession 3. Treatment and Management in Mind/Body Medicine.

March 18, 2010

Series Mind/Body Medicine in Occupational HealthSession 3. Treatment and Management in Mind/Body Medicine.

Sangyo Eiseigaku Zasshi. 2010 Mar 17;

Authors: Nakao M

PMID: 20234117 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

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“tai chi” OR taiji OR qigong OR “qi gong” OR “chi gung” OR “chi kung” OR acupuncture OR meditation OR “mind-body”; +18 new citations

March 17, 2010

18 new pubmed citations were retrieved for your search.
Click on the search hyperlink below to display the complete search results:

“tai chi” OR taiji OR qigong OR “qi gong” OR “chi gung” OR “chi kung” OR acupuncture OR meditation OR “mind-body”

These pubmed results were generated on 2010/03/17

PubMed, a service of the National Library of Medicine, includes over 15 million
citations for biomedical articles back to the 1950’s.
These citations are from MEDLINE and additional life science journals.
PubMed includes links to many sites providing full text articles and other related resources.

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Archived Post Randomly Chosen:
Common Mental Disorders May Be More Common Than We Think

September 12, 2009

The prevalence of anxiety, depression and substance dependency may be twice as high as the mental health community has been led to believe. It depends on how one goes about measuring.

Filed under: MIND, News | Comments (0)

Could integrative cancer treatment be cost-saving and resuscitate a submerged medical system?

March 16, 2010

Could integrative cancer treatment be cost-saving and resuscitate a submerged medical system?

Integr Cancer Ther. 2009 Sep;8(3):205-7

Authors: Block KI

PMID: 19815590 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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Neural correlates of focused attention and cognitive monitoring in meditation.

March 15, 2010

Neural correlates of focused attention and cognitive monitoring in meditation.

Brain Res Bull. 2010 Mar 8;

Authors: Manna A, Raffone A, Perrucci MG, Nardo D, Ferretti A, Tartaro A, Londei A, Del Gratta C, Belardinelli MO, Romani GL

Meditation refers to a family of complex emotional and attentional regulatory practices, which can be classified into two main styles – focused attention (FA) and open monitoring (OM) – involving different attentional, cognitive monitoring and awareness processes. In a functional magnetic resonance study we originally characterized and contrasted FA and OM meditation forms within the same experiment, by an integrated FA-OM design. Theravada Buddhist monks, expert in both FA and OM meditation forms, and lay novices with 10 days of meditation practice, participated in the experiment. Our evidence suggests that expert meditators control cognitive engagement in conscious processing of sensory-related, thought and emotion contents, by massive self-regulation of fronto-parietal and insular areas in the left hemisphere, in a meditation state-dependent fashion. We also found that anterior cingulate and dorsolateral prefrontal cortices play antagonist roles in the executive control of the attention setting in meditation tasks. Our findings resolve the controversy between the hypothesis that meditative states are associated to transient hypofrontality or deactivation of executive brain areas, and evidence about the activation of executive brain areas in meditation. Finally, our study suggests that a functional reorganization of brain activity patterns for focused attention and cognitive monitoring takes place with mental practice, and that meditation-related neuroplasticity is crucially associated to a functional reorganization of activity patterns in prefrontal cortex and in the insula.

PMID: 20223285 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

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Stop Smoking with Acupuncture

March 14, 2010

Qi Mail™

The
Acupuncture Newsletter

March
2010
Among current U.S. adult smokers, 70% report
that they want to quit smoking and millions try to quit every year. If
you have attempted to quit smoking, you know how difficult it can be.
Nicotine is a powerful addiction. In fact, research suggests that
nicotine is as addictive as heroin, cocaine, or alcohol.

It is estimated that most smokers will attempt to quit two or three
times, or more, before finally kicking the habit. When conventional
methods to quit smoking have failed, smokers often look outside
mainstream approaches and turn to alternative medicine.

Acupuncture as an alternative approach to smoking cessation has a
growing number of converts. In fact, acupuncture is often a court
mandated treatment for drug addicts because of its ability to reduce
cravings and alleviate withdrawal symptoms such as irritability,
anxiety and difficulty concentrating.

In This Issue

Read more > >

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Development of postdural puncture headache following therapeutic acupuncture using a long acupuncture needle.

March 14, 2010

Development of postdural puncture headache following therapeutic acupuncture using a long acupuncture needle.

J Korean Neurosurg Soc. 2010 Feb;47(2):140-2

Authors: Jo DJ, Lee BJ, Sung JK, Yi JW

Acupuncture appears to be a clinically effective treatment for acute and chronic pain. A considerable amount of research has been conducted to evaluate the role that acupuncture plays in pain suppression; however, few studies have been conducted to evaluate the side effects of the acupuncture procedure. This case report describes a suspected postdural puncture headache following acupuncture for lower back pain. Considering the high opening pressure, cerebrospinal fluid leakage, and the patient’s history of acupuncture in the lower back area, our diagnosis was iatrogenic postdural puncture headache. Full relief of the headache was achieved after administration of an epidural blood patch.

PMID: 20224715 [PubMed - in process]

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The Use of Complementary and Alternative Medicine Among Refugees: A Systematic Review.

March 13, 2010

The Use of Complementary and Alternative Medicine Among Refugees: A Systematic Review.

J Immigr Minor Health. 2010 Mar 12;

Authors: Macduff S, Grodin MA, Gardiner P

Little is known about the use of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) among refugees, despite the common practice of CAM in many non-Western countries. We performed a systematic review of peer-reviewed literature using nine electronic databases. We included articles pertaining to refugees and CAM (whole medical systems, mind body medicine, herbal remedies, manipulative therapies, energy medicine). Qualitative and quantitative data were compiled and analyzed through descriptive statistics and chi square distribution tables. We reviewed 237 abstracts, and 47 publications met our inclusion criteria. Twenty-six papers documented whole medical systems; 11 mind-body medicine; 5 biologically based practices; 4 manipulative and body-based therapies; and 1 study documented the use of energy medicine. There were 3 clinical trials, 20 surveys, 12 case reports, 2 participant-observer qualitative papers, and 10 review papers. Most studies focused on Asian refugee populations (66%; n = 31). Mental problems related to trauma accounted for 36% of CAM use (17). Among included articles, methodological quality was extremely low. Our results show evidence that type of CAM used by refugees may vary based on ethnicity, yet this is most likely due to a bias in the medical literature. Efforts are needed to further explore these results and expand research within this field.

PMID: 20224938 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

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