Stop Period Pain With Accupuncture?
Febraury 22, 2010
BBC News
Researchers said there was “promising evidence” for acupuncture in treating cramps, but that more work was needed.
In the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, they noted two studies found little difference between real and sham acupuncture in treating pain.
Acupuncture is a less contentious form of complementary medicine than some, but its value is still disputed.
Period pain can be severe in some women and may be accompanied by nausea, diarrhoea, migraine and backache. Common treatments include pain killers, applying heat and exercise – although a recent study questioned the efficacy of the latter.
This latest review involved 27 studies – which included nearly 3,000 women. They addressed a variety of forms of acupuncture – from classical to acupoint injection.
Traditional acupuncturists insert needles in acupuncture points located along what they describe as “energy meridians” – a concept for which many scientists say there is no evidence. Sham acupuncture places needles away from these points.
It is not clear whether either form alleviates pain as a result of the placebo effect – the very ritual of undergoing acupuncture – or cause subtle changes in the nervous system and brain activity which can be beneficial.
Nice backs needles
The analysis by the team from Kyung Hee Medical Centre found that patients with severe period pain reported a greater reduction in their symptoms when using acupuncture compared with pharmacological treatments.
But they stressed there were methodological flaws in some studies, and that the findings did need to be interpreted with caution. Nevertheless, there was “promising evidence”, they wrote.
In the UK, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) has backed the use of acupuncture in the treatment of low back pain – a move welcomed by some but criticised by those who say there is little evidence for its efficacy.
The editor-in-chief of the BJOG, Professor Philip Steer, noted that some women had period pain, also known as primary dysmenorrhoea, so badly they were “unable to function normally”.
“Women with primary dysmenorrhoea should consult their GPs or gynaecologists on the best treatment available to them. Complementary therapies should not be used exclusively, at the expense of conventional treatment, unless significant improvements have been made and your doctor tells you otherwise.”
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Electro-Accupuncture Relieving Knee Pain
January 22, 2010
Reuters
The study, published in the journal Pain, looked at the effects of electro-acupuncture among 40 adults with knee osteoarthritis — the common “wear-and-tear” form of arthritis in which the cartilage cushioning the joints breaks down.
Electro-acupuncture is similar to traditional acupuncture, where fine needles are inserted into specific points in the skin. What’s different is that the practitioner fits the needles with clips that are attached to a small device that delivers a continuous electrical impulse to stimulate the acupuncture point.
Among the patients in the current study, those who had a daily electro-acupuncture session for 10 consecutive days reported greater improvement in their pain compared with patients who received a “sham” version of the therapy.
Patients in that latter group received acupuncture, but the needles were inserted at random points on the skin rather than traditional acupuncture sites. And while the needles were attached to the electrical device, it was not actually turned on.
The findings suggest that true electro-acupuncture may offer at least short-term pain relief to knee arthritis sufferers, according to the researchers, led by Dr. Sadia Ahsin of the Army Medical College Rawalpindi in Pakistan.
Acupuncture has been used for more than 2,000 years in Chinese medicine to treat a wide variety of ailments. According to traditional medicine, specific acupuncture points on the skin are connected to internal pathways that conduct energy, or qi (“chee”), and stimulating these points with a fine needle promotes the healthy flow of qi.
Modern research has suggested that acupuncture may help ease pain by altering signals among nerve cells or affecting the release of various chemicals of the central nervous system, such as pain-killing endorphins.
In their study, Ahsin and colleagues found that electro-acupuncture appeared to raise patients’ blood levels of endorphins and lower their levels of the hormone cortisol, which tends to rise during physical or mental stress. So it’s possible that these changes explain the greater pain relief, according to the researchers.
Larger, longer-term studies are still needed to see whether electro-acupuncture can have lasting benefits — and to find out how often patients would need treatment to gain those benefits.
For now, Ahsin’s team writes, the current findings suggest that, for people who are interested in trying it, electro-acupuncture can be added to conventional treatment for knee arthritis.
Acupuncture and electro-acupuncture are generally regarded as low-risk therapies. Among patients in this study, there were no major side effects apart from bruising at the needle site in three patients, the researchers note.
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Popular Drugs Recalled for Mold
January 18, 2010
Natural News
By S.L. Baker
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), prescription drugs kill about 40,000 Americans each year and over the counter drugs (OTC) — from pain relievers to cough medicines — cause thousands of additional deaths. Drugs can sicken, and sometimes kill, through side effects, allergic reactions, overdoses and interactions. And now there’s another reason to worry about pills you put in your body. A recent recall of the OTC pain reliever TYLENOL Arthritis Pain Caplets has revealed that drugs can be contaminated with mold and chemicals when they are transported and stored on “engineered wood” pallets.
In consultation with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), McNeil Consumer Healthcare (a division of Big Pharma’s Johnson & Johnson) recently expanded its voluntary recall to include all lots of TYLENOL Arthritis Pain pills with the distinctive red EZ-open caps. The reason? The FDA received numerous complaints that the pills smelled like mold or mildew. What’s more, after taking them, consumers said they suffered from nausea, vomiting, stomach pains and diarrhea.
The drug company press release about the recall discounted these physical complaints reported by people sickened by the musty smelling drugs, saying “to date all of the observed events reported to McNeil were temporary and non-serious”. Obviously, however, if someone was already suffering from a serious illness involving their gastrointestinal tract, they might not equate a worsening of symptoms to the Tylenol they took — or they might not even be well enough to file a report. So the actual number of people sickened by the contaminated pills, and the contribution of the bad meds to a person’s illness, may never be fully known.
The drug company identified the source of the musty odor of the drugs, but with reservations. The press release said the smell was due to trace amounts of a chemical called 2,4,6-tribromoanisole “which is believed to be the breakdown of a chemical used to treat wooden pallets that transport and store packaging materials”. By saying “believed to be”, they implied they don’t know for sure. They did acknowledge that “the health effects of this compound have not been well studied” — which is certainly not much reassurance to the folks who took the pain-relievers and then became ill.
Meanwhile, Bob Moore, Chairman and CEO of Intelligent Global Pooling Systems (iGPS), a company that manufactures hard plastic pallets for food and drug transportation, spoke out against the use of wooden pallets. Of course, certain types of plastic (especially the soft kinds) are known to sometimes leach chemicals and are not necessarily safe. But plastic pallet-executive Moore made a compelling case outlining the dangers of currently widely used wooden pallets.
In a statement to the media, he warned the pallets are frequently contaminated with dangerous chemicals and pesticides. Moreover, they have been shown by numerous lab studies to also harbor deadly food poisoning bacteria and pathogens.
Moore pointed out that while pallets made from wood sound natural but they are actually made from “engineered wood” components that contain urea formaldehyde. This well-known carcinogen can come in contact with food and drugs under a variety of scenarios when products are stored and shipped on wooden pallets. Formaldehyde is also released into the air when it off-gases from pallets in storage and transportation compartments, posing additional risks to workers and consumers.
In addition, to kill insects on the wooden pallets, fumigation is often performed with methyl bromide, a highly toxic, ozone-depleting chemical, according to Moore. And random testing of commonly used wooden pallets commissioned by iGPS showed the pallets are frequently loaded with disease causing germs such as Listeria. The pallets were also found to be downright nasty and dirty — and sometimes contaminated with rodent nests during storage.
“This (wood pallet storing and transportation) is an industry that openly ignores its own safety rules and transports our food supply on deplorably unsanitary platforms,” said Moore. “We call on Congress and the FDA to take a comprehensive look at the role wood pallets play in contaminating our food and drug supplies and to take action.”
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Pomegranates Said to Prevent Breast Cancer
January 15, 2010
Natural News
By Mike Adams
Many breast cancers are estrogen-dependent. So a class of drugs called aromatase inhibitors (AI) that block the synthesis of estrogen are used by mainstream medical doctors to attempt to slow the growth of estrogen sensitive breast tumors. Unfortunately, as the Mayo Clinic web site points out, AI drugs — which include anastrozole (Arimidex), letrozole (Femara) and exemestane (Aromasin) — come loaded with side effects including hot flashes, severe joint pain, muscle aches, headache, fatigue, bone fractures and a potential risk of heart disease.
But now comes good news: there appears to be a natural alternative to AIs. Researchers say they’ve found a substance that could prevent the development of hormone-dependent breast cancer and halt the growth of estrogen-driven tumors — pomegranate fruit.
Pomegranates contain phytochemicals known as ellagitannins that work much like aromatase inhibitors, according to results of a study just published in the January issue of Cancer Prevention Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research. And there’s little reason to think any cancer treatment derived from pomegranates would have harmful side effects because the fruit has long been safely consumed as a food.
Shiuan Chen, Ph.D., director of the Division of Tumor Cell Biology and co-leader of the Breast Cancer Research Program at City of Hope in Duarte, California, worked with Lynn Adams, Ph.D., a research fellow at Beckman Research Institute of City of Hope, and other scientists to investigate whether phytochemicals in pomegranates can suppress aromatase and thereby inhibit cancer growth. They screened and analyzed 10 ellagitannin-derived compounds in pomegranates. The results? The research team discovered these natural phytochemicals have the potential to prevent estrogen-dependent breast cancers. One particular substance found in pomegranates dubbed Urolithin B significantly inhibited the growth of cultured breast cancer cells in the lab.
“Phytochemicals suppress estrogen production and that prevents the proliferation of breast cancer cells and the growth of estrogen-responsive tumors,” said Dr. Chen, the principal investigator, in a statement to the media.
Gary Stoner, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Internal Medicine at Ohio State University, commented in a statement to the media that additional studies are needed in animals and humans to confirm the ability of Urolithin B to stop hormone-dependent breast cancer. Dr. Stoner, who was not part of the study research team, also recommended additional studies to test pomegranate juice for its effect on estrogen levels, menopausal symptoms and breast density (dense breast tissue is a risk for breast cancer) and to see if it is a cancer preventive agent.
Until then, Stoner said people “might consider consuming more pomegranates to protect against cancer development in the breast and perhaps in other tissues and organs.”
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Herbal Mint as a Natural Pain Reliever
December 16, 2009
Natural News
By Sherry Baker
Brazilian mint, known to botanists by its Latin name Hyptis crenata, has long been used by traditional healers in Brazil to treat pain and discomfort from a variety of ailments, including stomach aches, fevers, flu and headaches. In fact, researchers at Newcastle University in the United Kingdom say that the mint has been handed down as a prescription for pain relief for thousands of years. And a new study just presented at the 2nd International Symposium on Medicinal and Nutraceutical Plants held in New Delhi, India, concludes the ancient herbal therapy is, in fact, an effective, natural treatment for pain. The research is slated for publication in an upcoming issue of the journal Acta Horticulturae.
A team of Newcastle University scientists, led by Graciela Rocha, carried out a survey in Brazil to find out specifically how the herbal medicine is typically prepared and how much should be consumed as a treatment. They learned that traditional healers use the mint in a decoction, meaning the dried leaves are boiled in water for 30 minutes and then allowed to cool before being consumed as a tea.
Rocha, who is originally from Brazil, noted in a statement to the press that she remembers being given the tea as a treatment for various childhood illnesses. “The taste isn’t what most people here in the UK would recognize as a mint,” she stated. “In fact it tastes more like sage which is another member of the mint family.”
When the researchers tested the herbal tea in laboratory experiments with mice, they found it was just as effective at relieving pain as the pain reliever drug known as as indomethacin in the US and indometacin in the UK. Marketed under many brand names including Indocin, Indocid and Indochron E-R, indomethacin is a highly potent non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medication used to reduce fever, pain, stiffness, and swelling. Unlike the natural herbal mint pain reliever, indomethacin is associated with a host of serious side effects including stomach upset, gastric irritation and the risk of heart attack.
New Human Sensory System Found Under Skin
December 11, 2009
Examiner
By Meg Marquardt
Researchers have found an entirely new system related to touch hidden beneath our skin. The study, published in the journal Pain, suggests that this network may play a pivotal role in diseases that cause chronic pain, such as intense migraines and fibromyalgia.
The sensory network is completely separate from the long nerves nestled beneath our skin that send back signals of textures, temperature, and pain to our brains. That traditional system is a workhorse, gathering in all the data in such an effective manner that someone with a normally functioning touch system would never know that a second one was there.
But what about someone without a functioning touch system? When David Bowsher, MD, of University of Liverpool’s Pain Research Institute diagnosed two patients with a rare form of an already rare disease, it was clear that something odd was happening. The patients had congenital insensitivity to pain. Most who have the condition struggle to feel anything, have injured themselves severely, and have some form of a mental handicap. But besides a lack of pain, the only issue with these patients was excessive sweating.
“For all intents and purposes, they had adequate sensation for daily living and could tell what is warm and cold, what is touching them, and what is rough and smooth,”said Bowsher. [EurekAlert]
He decided to send samples of the patient’s skin across the Atlantic to Frank Rice, PhD at Albany Medical College, who specializes in pain studies. Inside that skin, there was a mystery. There weren’t any of the normal nerves that tell us when something is frigid to the touch or that our cell phone is vibrating. But others were there, sensory nerves on the blood vessels and sweat glands.
“For many years, my colleagues and I have detected different types of nerve endings on tiny blood vessels and sweat glands, which we assumed were simply regulating blood flow and sweating. We didn’t think they could contribute to conscious sensation. However, while all the other sensory endings were missing in this unusual skin, the blood vessels and sweat glands still had the normal types of nerve endings. Apparently, these unique individuals are able to ‘feel things’ through these remaining nerve endings,” said Rice. “What we learned from these unusual individuals is that there’s another level of sensory feedback that can give us conscious tactile information.” [EurekAlert]
Though discovered in those who feel little pain, researchers wonder if the new system can help explain problems in those that feel too much pain. Diseases with chronic pain like fibromyalgia and migraines have unknown causes, which makes thier treatments fairly ineffective. More research into the sensory system is needed, though, for it is a truly unique phenomenon.
“It’s almost like hearing the subtle sound of a single instrument in the midst of a symphony,” said Rice. “It is only when we shift focus away from the nerve endings associated with normal skin sensation that we can appreciate the sensation hidden in the background.” [EurekAlert]
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Vaccinations Doing More Harm Than Good
November 20, 2009
Vactruth
By Andrew Moulden MD, PhD
This is a stern, yet humble, warning to all citizens of the globe. It is now proven that we are all being harmed by repeat vaccinations. This evidence must be circulated broadly in light of the imminent Fall, 2009 plan to turn North American schools into MASS vaccine centers to institute triple flu vaccine to us all. Children will be the first to be injected with experimental flu vaccines. The entire vaccine industry, as it turns out, has been experimental. We did not know that we were causing damages – for us all.
In case you are wondering what will happen, the answers are contained in this article. The same thing will happen as has been happening with all vaccines. Clinically silent ischemic brain and body damages will happen. The only difference is that you can now see these damages, with your own eyes, in the here and now, in real time, and in your family photos going back fifty or more years if you have to.
ALL vaccines are causing immediate and delayed, acute and chronic, waxing and waning, impairments to blood flow, throughout the brain and body. This IS causing us all to become chronically ill, sick, and causing brain damages along a continuum of clinically silent to death. This is causing ischemic “strokes”. In some respects, this is also “aging.” Since the damages are microscopic, we cannot see them as they occur. However, we can now see the neurological aftermath of these damages – within hours and days of vaccination – all vaccinations.
[View with PicLens]
In Revelations 18:4 by the epistle of Saint John we are told: “And I heard another voice from Heaven saying “Come out of her my people that ye be not partakers of her sins and that ye receive not of her plagues.” All vaccinations, as you can now clearly see, are causing chronic illness and mass disorders on mass scales. The global health consequences clearly amount to plaques.
As a medically trained Doctor, a PhD trained neuroscientist/neuropsychologist, with a Masters degree in Child/language neurodevelopment, I have been trained to follow clinical observations to empirical assessment couched within the scientific model we rely upon to answer questions of: What is normal and what is not? What is cause? What is coincidence? What is factual? What is fancy? What is reproducible? What is random? What is measurable? What is predictable? What is truth? What is consequence? What is “going on”?
Science is only a man made truth-seeking tool. It is fallible. It is a statistical, probabilistic mathematical model. It has limitations. Wielded for profit – truth can become lost.
Scientific methods, design, and analyses can just as soon hide the truth as they can discover truth, or create “truth” de-novo.
Science cannot replace God-given tools of common sense and observation we all have. You do not need statistical probabilistic mathematical models, wielded by experts, to deny what you can see with your very own eyes.
If you place your hand on a hot stove element, you will be burned. If you do not experience pain and you cannot see the burn, then you will not learn that touching hot stove elements is harmful.
All vaccines have been causing “burns” to body and brain. The brain has no pain receptors. You will not feel the pain. You can, however, see the footprints of these “burns” immediate and delayed, from each vaccination. The evidence was before our eyes all along. We simply did not appreciate what these “burns” meant let alone that they were emerging, after each vaccination. The “burns” are largely to internal organ systems. We can ALL now see the damaging effects of these “burns” with our own eyes.
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Overdoses of Radiation at Major Hospitals
November 20, 2009
Natural News
ByPaul Louis
For 18 months at Mt. Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles, patients receiving CT brain scans were unknowingly receiving radiation overdoses. The number of patients subjected to the excess radiation reached 206 before it came to the medical staff’s attention. And that was only because someone undergoing a CT scan lost patches of hair.
Some of those overexposed received twice as much radiation as what a cancer victim receives during a radiation treatment. Hospital officials attributed the excess radiation exposures to an error in the CT scan machine’s programming. But the Los Angeles incident has raised concerns about overexposure from CT and other radiation testing in the medical industry.
NYU Langone Medical Center associate professor of cardiology Dr. James Slater was shocked. “These patients received eight to ten times the normal dose for a head CT and probably reached their allowable radiation exposure for the year at a single test,” he said. “The fact this error occurred and went undetected for 18 months at a well regarded medical [institution] is rather unbelievable.”
Radiation exposure at hospitals isn’t regulated
How many more programming errors and excess radiation from too many tests can occur is anyone’s guess. The government has occupational limits for radiation exposure. But there are no government restrictions on the amount of radiation exposure for medical testing.
Dr. Gary Freedman, a radiation oncologist at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia explained the government’s position. “It’s assumed that medically, you do what you need to do and worry about the complications later.”
Over-testing has been a common medical practice. Diagnostic imaging has increased the average radiation dosage seven times since 1980. Too much radiation increases the risk of cancer significantly.
Diagnostic imaging tests have the potential for creating the very problem they’re looking for. This has been a concern of holistic health practitioners and aware MD’s against promoting mammogram breast cancer screening for years.
Similar false positive results were found with males undergoing prostate cancer screening. False positives lead to stress, expense, time wasted, and perhaps pain and illness until the mistake is determined.
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Cops Hold Down Boy for Flu Shot
November 13, 2009
The Intelligencer
By Shelley Hanson
It took the strength of two sheriff’s deputies to keep a middle schooler still enough to receive a shot of the swine flu, or H1N1, vaccine at a recent clinic.
During a regular Wheeling-Ohio County Health Board meeting Tuesday, health department Administrator Howard Gamble told board members about the student’s attempt to flee Wheeling Middle School during a vaccination clinic held there last Friday.
He noted the boy’s mother could not bear to watch the scene and left the gymnasium. Out of apparent fear of receiving the injection, the student ran out of the building. The school’s resource officer, Ohio County Sheriff’s Deputy John Haglock, coaxed the boy back inside. Once at the shot station, however, Haglock apparently needed some help keeping the boy still, and another deputy assisted.
“He tried to run. I looked over and saw two sheriff’s deputies holding a kid down,” Gamble said. “Mom took off, she couldn’t take it. You had one nurse with the needle, two deputies holding him, one nurse is grabbing hands – because that’s what they want to do, to go after the needle. And that’s the last thing you want.”
Gamble said as soon as the nurse gave the boy his injection and told him he was done, he hopped up like nothing had happened.
“For the most part they go very easy. As far as the shots, every once in awhile you have to hold down one or two – but that’s why mom is there or dad is there,” Gamble said.
He added after the meeting that Friday’s incident was the only time Ohio County deputies have held a student during a shot.
“They’re mostly there for parking and directions. They also know the kids. … They were our first line of contact when setting up the clinics,” Gamble said.
Neither Sheriff Pat Butler nor Haglock could be reached for comment. A sheriff’s department official said Haglock is on vacation for the next two weeks.
During a clinic Tuesday at Bridge Street Middle School, similar scenes took place – though not quite as dramatic and not involving officers of the law. A couple sets of parents could be seen keeping their children from wiggling away while a nurse quickly administered the vaccine.
Ten-year-old Austin Price, the son of Jennifer and Josh Price, decided to take the shot standing up and with no assistance from his mom or dad. He even smiled for a photograph.
And on a scale of 1-10, how painful was the shot?
