Study: Acupuncture is helpful for Back Pain

Fake acupuncture works nearly as well as the real thing for low back pain, and either kind performs much better than usual care, German researchers have found. Almost half the patients treated with acupuncture needles felt relief that lasted months. In contrast, only about a quarter of the patients receiving medications and other Western medical treatments felt better.

Even fake acupuncture worked better than conventional care, leading researchers to wonder whether pain relief came from the body's reactions to any thin needle pricks or, possibly, the placebo effect.

"Acupuncture represents a highly promising and effective treatment option for chronic back pain," study co-author Dr. Heinz Endres of Ruhr University Bochum in Bochum, Germany, said in an e-mail. "Patients experienced not only reduced pain intensity, but also reported improvements in the disability that often results from back pain and therefore in their quality of life."

Although the study was not designed to determine how acupuncture works, Endres said, its findings are in line with a theory that pain messages to the brain can be blocked by competing stimuli.

Positive expectations the patients held about acupuncture — or negative expectations about conventional medicine — also could have led to a placebo effect and explain the findings, he said.

In the largest experiment on acupuncture for back pain to date, more than 1,100 patients were randomly assigned to receive either acupuncture, sham acupuncture or conventional therapy. For the sham acupuncture, needles were inserted, but not as deeply as for the real thing. The sham acupuncture also did not insert needles in traditional acupuncture points on the body and the needles were not manually moved and rotated.

After six months, patients answered questions about pain and functional ability and their scores determined how well each of the therapies worked.

In the real acupuncture group, 47 percent of patients improved. In the sham acupuncture group, 44 percent did. In the usual care group, 27 percent got relief.

"We don't understand the mechanisms of these so-called alternative treatments, but that doesn't mean they don't work," said Dr. James Young of Chicago's Rush University Medical Center, who wasn't involved in the research. Young often treats low back pain with acupuncture, combined with exercises and stretches.

Chinese medicine holds that there are hundreds of points on the body that link to invisible pathways for the body's vital energy, or qi. The theory goes that stimulating the correct points with acupuncture needles can release blocked qi.

Dr. Brian Berman, the University of Maryland's director of complementary medicine, said the real and the sham acupuncture may have worked for reasons that can be explained in Western terms: by changing the way the brain processes pain signals or by releasing natural painkillers in the body.

In the study, the conventional treatment included many methods: painkillers, injections, physical therapy, massage, heat therapy or other treatments. Like the acupuncture patients, the patients getting usual care received about 10 sessions of 30 minutes each.

The study, appearing in Monday's Archives of Internal Medicine, used a broad definition for low back pain, but ruled out people with back pain caused by spinal fractures, tumors, scoliosis and pregnancy.

Funding came from German health insurance companies, and the findings already have led to more coverage in Germany of acupuncture.
Read More...

Wu Sing = 5 Senses = 5 Tastes = 5 Elements

Cravings are natural? Why do they occur? How can I reduce them? What benefits do I get from the foods I crave? Is sugar an addictive substance? How do cravings relate to addiction?

There are five tastes as recorded in The Yellow Emperor, a famous Taoist and medical text written over 5,000 years ago. The five tastes are sweet, pungent, salty, sour, and bitter. Each taste corresponds to a different organ system, pathology and element.

Sweet = stomach and digestive system = Earth
Bitter = heart and cardiovascular system = Fire
Sour = liver and nervous system = Wood
Salty = kidney and endocrine = Water
Pungent = lungs, lymph and immune system = Metal

For those of you who have a sweet tooth you may be wondering why it corresponds to the digestive system and the earth element. The digestive system is responsible for absorption and distribution of nutrients from food and is the source of much of our body's energy. When we lack energy, it is natural to crave sweet foods, but the foods our body is really craving are foods like sweet potato, pumpkin, apples and corn, not chocolate. We have created super sweet foods that appeal to one's desire for energy and instant satisfaction, but these food types do not meet the body's needs. Consuming very sweet foods delivers only temporary satisfaction because when sugar enters the blood stream rapidly, it is removed just as rapidly by a hormone called insulin. This sugar is then put into storage in two ways, one as glycogen in the liver and the other as fat (and we all know where that likes to sit!). This is the nature of sugar and the addictive behavior it encourages. The storage that takes place not only leads to weight gain, but to many other problems relating to sluggish digestion and what we call in Chinese medicine damp accumulation.

In Chinese Medical and Nutritional therapy, sweet foods in the form of complex carbohydrates are central food for most traditional diets. Complex carbohydrates energize the body while nourishing and relaxing the brain and nervous function. Sweet is a harmonizing flavor as it reduces the harshness of stronger flavors such as bitter. Sweet also generates fluids or Yin and strengthen weakness or deficiency. However, sweet foods consumed in excess without the balancing characteristics of bitter foods such as dark leafy green vegetables can cause a build up of fluids and what we refer to in Chinese Medicine as Dampness.

The accumulation of dampness in your body is detrimental to your health as it promotes the build up of fluids and mucus and promotes the growth of pathogenic bacteria and candida (yeasts) in your digestive tract. Excess sweets act as inhibitors of calcium, an important mineral for muscle strength and bone density. Calcium absorption is particularly important for women in the pre and postmenopausal ages so here is another reason to reduce dependence on sweet foods. It is important to note that refined carbohydrates including predominantly wheat in the form of white breads, pastries and pasta act like sweets in the accumulation of dampness. Excess consumption of sweets and refined carbohydrates has been directly linked to many disorders including hypoglycemia, diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and obesity.

So remember, when you get the craving for something sweet, what your body is really asking for is not sugar or refined wheat products but sweet vegetables and whole grains. So prepare ahead and give yourself a sweet potato.
Read More...