Knowledge is best complement to alternative medicine

More people are going beyond the borders of scientific medicine, searching for a cure to their ailments or simply seeking to improve and rejuvenate their health.

One of my patients, suffering from chronic pain from arthritis despite conventional medicines, told me she is much better after acupuncture.

Some of the commonly asked questions by patients are: Can I take herbal medicines? They are natural, right? Does garlic actually reduce cholesterol? I just don't like these drugs; can I try Chinese remedies? Are they harmless?

A lot of people resort to alternative therapies. It has now grown into a $35 billion industry. These nostrums include naturopathy, homeopathy, acupuncture, Ayurvedic medicine, herbal therapy, yoga and meditation, tai chi, mega doses of vitamins and dietary supplements and many more.

All these are grouped under the term complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), defined as medical approaches traditionally not addressed in allopathic or western medicine.

The National Institute of Health established the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine in 1998 to research alternative medicine and disseminate authoritative information to the public and professionals alike.

Be well-informed about alternate therapies, especially herbal supplements, and make wise health decisions. And always let your treating physicians know if you are using alternatives. For information, see nccam.nih.gov on the web.

COMENT:

This news was posted on August 23, 2012, in a London newspaper.

  This is a collaborative column in which a doctor explains that alternative medicine can be good or bad. 

He explained through examples that there are people that can be helped with alternative medicine which allow them to recover quickly. But there are other people who are affected, causing a worsening of their disease. I have searched for information and found cases like: An older gentleman who had coronary bypass surgery twice and still experienced frequent angina decided to go for chelation therapy. He returned after a few weeks in a much worse situation. One woman on blood thinners had excessive bleeding that turned out to be from concomitant usage of a Chinese herb for improved memory.

Therefore, alternative medicine isn’t always good and this studied scientifically proven to be detrimental contrary. We must ask for studies on this type of medicine as it can have great benefits, but these should be studied to check for side effects that can worsen our disease. Such unscientific remedies are big business worth millions of dollars a year. In another article, Dr. Resden says that it is not that people are disenchanted with conventional medicine, but they feel some of these therapies would be complementary to their current regime and might enhance their health and well being

In my opinion, these techniques can be supplemented with chemical medicine but they must be tested, because their secondary effects can be terrible

Para combatir el cáncer, Eric del Castillo pone su fe en la medicina alternativa

Pese a que hace un mes al padre de Kate del Castillo le detectaron cáncer de próstata, este malestar sigue sin irrumpir la tranquilidad del actor quien como todo un hombre ha sabido enfrentar con el mejor ánimo su padecer.

Incluso, Eric del Castillo, cada día le demuestra al mundo que sus ganas de vivir son tantas que hará hasta lo imposible para conservar lo más preciado, la vida.

Fue su esposa, Kate Trigo quien reveló para Basta!, que el veterano de 82 años de edad no está llevando quimioterapia, sino un tratamiento que está relacionado con la medicina alternativa, pues confía en que librará la enfermedad de manera positiva.

"Sí, está llevando un tratamiento, como no, desde hace 3 meses más o menos. Está tomando de todo lo que le dicen, muchas cosas naturales, también lo que el doctor le dijo, la prescripción la está llevado al pie de la letra, son pastillas que toma durante 3 meses", refirió Trigo.

Finalmente, aseguró que su esposo se encuentra de buen ánimo tanto que no ha querido interrumpir su trabajo en una película que está grabando en Cancún.

COMENTARIO:

Esta noticia fue publicada en el periódico digital how.com el viernes 26 de octubre de 2012, poco después que la mujer de Eric del Castillo hiciese pública  la noticia de que su marido no estaba recibiendo quimio en la revista ¡Basta!

Tras diversos estudios, pruebas y comprobaciones se ha determinado la eficacia de los remedios naturales. Un claro ejemplo puede ser apreciado en esta noticia, donde se muestra que Eric del Castillo está ganando al cáncer mediante el uso de medicina alternativa, ya que no está siendo sometido a ningún tipo de quimioterapia. Estos tratamientos le están permitiendo no solo sobrellevar la enfermedad sino poder realizar una vida plena y normal, ya que no ha querido interrumpir su trabajo en una película que está grabando en Cancún.

Personalmente, me he estado informando sobreel posible tratamiento del cáncer mediante este tipo de remedios naturales y he podido averiguar que el caso de Eric del Castillo no es aislado, sino que muchos pacientes anteriormente han llevado acabo este tratamiento con excelentes resultados.

Podemos observar el caso de Steve Jobs (comentado por mi compañera Elena) el cual consiguió frenar la enfermedad durante mas tiempo gracias a la medicina natural.

Alternative Medicine Cabinet: Thyme for Toenails

The Remedy: Thyme

The Claim: It cures toenail fungus.

The Science: It’s not exactly a life-threatening condition, but toenail fungus, known in the medical community as onychomycosis, can be cosmetically unattractive and painful. It is also somewhat prevalent, striking about 15 percent of Americans. And it can be a burden to treat. Conventional treatments are expensive, have a low success rate and can carry significant side-effects. The prescription drug Lamisil, for example, can cause liver damage. But those who want a natural alternative can try remedies that contain thymol, the primary oil found in thyme, a well-known herb and antiseptic. Thymol is commonly found in medicated chest rubs, including Vicks VapoRub.

In one study, scientists tested the antifungal effects of the ingredients in a generic medicated chest rub. Of the seven ingredients, thymol was among the most effective at inhibiting the growth of dermatophytes that cause nail fungus. Other studies in animals have also shown thymol oil to be effective against dermatophytes. And studies have also shown that thymol oil destroys another cause of nail fungus, Candida, by disrupting its cell membranes and metabolism. While the evidence is strong that thymol can attack the organisms that cause toenail fungus, no human studies have been conducted to test whether thymol is a lasting and effective treatment.

But for people vexed by the ugly fungus who don’t want to risk the side effects of a prescription drug, it’s worth a try. Adding the essential oil of thyme to regular foot baths is one option. Joe and Terry Graedon, authors of the popular People’s Pharmacy books on alternative remedies, suggested coating the affected toenail once or twice a day in Vicks VapoRub.

The Risks: Allergic reactions to thyme, when applied to the skin, are rare but can include itching and rash. Vicks VapoRub can also cause temporary reddening of the skin in some people.

Ancestral Remedies to the Rescue

Ethnobotanists are fond of the joke that pills don’t grow on trees. The punch line, of course, is that they actually do. Countless pharmaceutical products originate from trees or other plant species, many of which are probably still waiting to be discovered. This week around 1,300 natural products researchers and practitioners gathered in New York to discuss the latest findings in their field, including the ways in which nature, culture and conservation overlap to provide health benefits to millions and how those links can best be preserved.

“The goal is not only to identify plants but to guard and honor this traditional wisdom in order to keep bio-cultural diversity intact,” said Michael Balick, the vice president for botanical science and director of the Institute of Economic Botany at the New York Botanical Garden. The hope, he said, is to help underserved peoples deal with globalization and the loss of their cultures.

In a presentation at the conference, Dr. Balick discussed his work helping the islands of Palau, Pohnpei and Kosrae identify and preserve their ethnobotanical heritage in the face of Western cultural intrusions.
Scholars coined the term ethnobotany about a century ago for the study of the many ways that indigenous peoples make use of plants. Today that field studies and analyzes traditional medical practices based on natural substances that were the basis for the development of novel pharmaceuticals.In many cases, it took hundreds of years of trial and error for cultures around the world to identify what local species could treat a stomach ache or defuse an infection.
 In some cases – in China’s ancient pharmacopeias, for example, or Europe’s 16th-century texts on medicinal herbs — that knowledge was preserved in writing for future generations. In other cases, however, the traditions were never codified, but rather passed down orally.In many communities today, that traditional knowledge threatens to be snuffed out in a generation or two. In many cases, “young people would rather watch television, get on the Internet or migrate to more Western locations,” Dr. Balick said. “So a lot of the elders are concerned about loss of information.”
In Micronesia, for example, no one he interviewed over a 10-year period could recall how to make clothing from fibers from local breadfruit trees, a tradition that used to be common amongst the islanders.
Local knowledge can also help save lives. When a cholera epidemic hit Pohnpei, the local medical dispensary quickly ran out of pharmaceuticals to treat patients’ severe diarrhea. The pharmacist’s great-grandmother then offered a remedy that involved what seemed like common weeds growing around the clinic. Her homegrown treatment helped alleviate some of the epidemics’ symptoms and also inspired the idea of creating local health-care manuals.
Dr. Balick helped enlist around 60 experts — including traditional healers, physicians, botanists, toxicologists, linguists and social scientists, many of them native to the islands — to assemble the manuals. His team began by interviewing elders about which resources, both above ground and in the reefs and waters surrounding the islands, they relied on for medicinal benefits. “People were invited to share information that they would like not to be gone when they pass,” he said.
They compiled island-specific manuals for Palau and Pohnpei that addressed primary health care for ills like bites, stings, colds, flus and infectious diseases. In some cases, including “mangrove sickness,” which is characterized by achy muscles, stomach ache, dizziness and fatigue, people identified nine separate plants as useful treatments. Those who shared their knowledge are fully credited in the books.
Dr. Balick said he hoped the manuals would help the islanders become self-sustaining and self-reliant, as they were in the past, in treating ailments that deplete life and financial resources in the communities. In conducting surveys, he found that the more traditional knowledge people have, the more they report being healthy and happy as they age. The manuals are not meant to replace allopathic medicine but rather complement and support it.
He points out that nearly three billion people on the planet have limited access to Western medicine and thus depend on some level on traditional medicines derived from plants. “My goal is to try to help people help themselves in a way that is sustainable and respectful to the environment,” he said.
Sustainability initiatives often originate within the communities and nations themselves. The Micronesia Challenge, for example, was organized by Micronesian nations with the goal of conserving 30 percent of their marine resources and 20 percent of their terrestrial resources by 2020 so they can preserve local flora and fauna for future generations’ use.
Dr. Balick’s colleagues help support the initiative by identifying and inventorying endemic flora, fungi and biodiversity hot spots on the islands. From there, they work with locals on designing protected areas to preserve rare species.
“What we find is more successful is not that outsiders designate and exclude people, but that local communities are directly involved in conservation and sustainable management of their resources,” he said. “We’re in a race against time to hopefully identify where those rare species are so we can help local people and organizations get them into protected regions.”
An earlier version of this post misidentified Pohnpei and Kosrae as island “nations.” The two islands are actually two of the four states of the so-called Federated States of Micronesia.

Can Acupuncture Work for You?

Alternative Medicine Heals Wounds of War for Veterans

The wages of war can take a toll on military veterans - both physically and emotionally. 

Some local vets are turning to alternative medicine to ease the pain.

In this solemn peace, the sacrifice of service is slowing healing for veterans like Susan Walker.

"This helps. This does more in a one hour clinic per week than all the pills that they can stuff down you."

Marie Arnberg, a licensed acupuncturist, says, "It's energy medicine. Or that's how I like to put it. Every practitioner may have their own spin on it but it's energy medicine that doesn't distinguish between mind and body."

Acupuncture has long been used to help the body heal by tapping into a person's energy. 

Recently licensed acupuncturists Tom Jamieson, Marie Arnberg and Ashleigh Hart started offering the treatment in Bangor to veterans and their families, for free. 

Jamieson says, "When veterans go through either physical trauma or emotional trauma, they manipulate their chi in order to do what they need to do and it gets stuck. What we do is help the body relax and that chi to flow again."

That's made a difference for Gene Nardi, who struggles with a sore knee. 

But it's the mental relief that's surprised him. 

"For me, it's more of a relaxation type. I feel that I'm not quite as uptight."

Veteran Edward Leonard says, "I don't get so upset, in a way, because I'm more relaxed. Because when you dwell on the pain, it's hard to be relaxed."

When it comes to helping these veterans, that feeling of ease flows both ways.

Hart says, "I know they have given so much, so much of their life and after serving. My life is just a little better to know that I gave someone a few minutes of tranquility and a little better health."

The free acupuncture treatments are every Thursday evening at Grace United Methodist Church in Bangor.

They're also available to active duty military and their immediate family. 

Comment

This piece of news published in the Wabi Tv5’s web page on 12th  November 2012 is about how the acupuncture and other alternative therapies can improve the health and the psychological conditions of a person.

It’s true that military veterans have seen a lot of unpleasant situations and they support much more pressure and stress than other people, so they need something to try to abide certain terms. Its work is like that, they had decided how their lives would be, and now they can see the consequences. Maybe they are sorry or not, but something has changed… Before people couldn’t help these military veterans, but now thanks to the amount of challenges there are options to these people don’t feel so bad anymore.

Acupuncture is a new method of relax, whose effectiveness has already been proven by many people who corroborate it. It helps them to get the perfect situation of complicity between mind and body, suppressing the worries, bad thoughts and problems a person could have.

It plays with the people’s energy and the situations of relaxation that the sessions get it, manipulating all to get the goal, to avoid the decay or the lapse into the costs physically and emotionally again.

This type of treatments work better than any drug or spill, because it is directed to the brain, creating, also, a placebo effect, helping to the body is relaxed. It is, how the texts says, “the mental relief “what prevents the tension causing flow vitality and quiet.

                                                         As we can see in this video.

Personally, I think that that’s good not only because they are military and they have helped the country (because this is their job)  but rather if there is some product that it can solve a problem for someone, it is always welcome, regardless of the person’s job. But, also it is true that this kind of people can need more cares due to traumas, as firefighters or police officers and other security.

 I know and I can say first-person, as a military’s daughter that it is very very hard see as your father goes to countries in war to help people who are there. But I know too that it his responsibility, a huge responsibility, but work after all. So if that can help him or us in one of the worst moment of our lives I think that is very useful.

Maybe it is a little unfair, because I am aware that much more people suffered also, due to other causes, but it must be considerate as a investment in the army, which has been careless many times.

Risoterapia: la nueva ola en terapias alternativas

La medicina alternativa cada vez se impone más a la tradicional, y es que se ha comprobado que el mundo médico no sólo son pastillas e inyecciones. La risoterapia es una de las disciplinas alternativas para sanación con mayor éxito, que ha ido produciendo resultados sorprendentes a través de las décadas. Conoce más acerca de esta técnica.

Aunque puede tener muchas definiciones y cada persona lo conceptualiza de diferentes maneras, la risoterapia no es otra cosa que el fortalecimiento de la salud integral en el cuerpo humano por medio de la risa. Las fuentes de carcajadas son muy variadas, y todas completamente válidas: chistes, frases divertidas, anécdotas que te cuentan otras personas, entre muchas otras más.

El término "risoterapia" como tal, no era conocido en épocas antiguas, aunque sí se sabía que la risa provocaba bienestar y placer en el ser humano. Han existido diversas doctrinas (Budismo Zen, Hinduismo o Taoismo) que marcan a la risa como una forma de curación y de liberar la tensión acumulada. También, en épocas más contemporáneas, se le unen algunos estudiosos de la psicología como Sigmund Freud, quien decía que con ella se podía transformar la energía negativa del ser humano.

Doherty Hunter, mejor conocido como "Patch Adams", es un médico originario de los Estados Unidos. Desde la década de los 70 anualmente acude acompañado de un grupo de personas vestidas de payasos a llevarles algo de buen humor a pacientes con enfermedades graves, o incluso hasta niños huérfanos de distintas partes del mundo. A él se le atribuye la paternidad de la risoterapia moderna; es decir, cuando ya se le conoce como una de las disciplinas de la medicina alternativa. Todos pudimos conocer mucho más de su trabajo a través de la película protagonizada por Robin Williams del mismo nombre.

- ¿Cómo funciona? Es un hecho que una persona a la que gusta reír y tener una actitud positiva ante la vida tiene un sistema inmune en mejores condiciones que otra que piensa de manera pesimista. La gente que actúa de esta última forma, es más fácil que su cuerpo sea atacado por cualquier tipo de enfermedad. De ahí que la risa sea considerada una terapia con resultados muy favorables para toda la gente.

Después de una serie de estudios, la Universidad Estatal de Nueva York determinó que cuando la gente ríe eleva la producción de unas hormonas conocidas como citoquinas (también se le llaman "las hormonas felices"), las cuales tienen la función de fomentar la actividad dentro de los glóbulos blancos en la sangre. Éstas logran atacar de forma contundente a los organismos nocivos para nuestra salud, incluso hasta se logran destruir algunas células cancerígenas.

Después de hacer muchos estudios alrededor de la risa, se han determinado más de 30 beneficios que produce en el organismo. Entre ellos se destacan: producción de endorfinas (hormonas que en pocas palabras te ponen de buen humor), fortalece el músculo cardiaco, aumenta el pulso con el que se limpian las paredes sanguíneas rápidamente, facilita la reducción de procesos inflamatorios, alivia dolores en el cuerpo porque provoca la relajación muscular, ayuda a corregir el estreñimiento, facilita procesos más duraderos y profundos de sueño, etc. Así que, ¡a reír se ha dicho!

- ¿Cuál es la dosis que se debe de "tomar"? En este caso no hay un límite porque afortunadamente el reírse, no es un acto nocivo para la salud, sino todo lo contrario. Algunos expertos sobre el tema calculan que reírse diariamente a carcajadas durante 20 segundos de forma continua equivale a tres minutos de ejercicio aeróbico de remo. Si no te puedes reír sin que alguien lo provoque, también puedes sonreír varias veces al día de manera voluntaria --los resultados que produce en la salud son similares.

Un grupo de especialistas de la Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México hizo un estudio con 35 niños que padecían diversos tipos de cáncer internados en el Instituto Materno Infantil del Estado de México. Lo primero que realizaron fue medirles el nivel de dolor después de sus quimioterapias con la Escala Análoga Visual (una escala gráfica de 10 cms que mide el nivel de dolor según el paciente). Posteriormente, fueron sometidos a algunas de las técnicas de risoterapia, y al volverlos a evaluar, se dieron cuenta que su nivel de dolor había disminuido por 3 cm.

COMENTARIO:

Esta noticia se escribió el 13 de noviembre de 2012 por el periodista Blanco Williams, debido a una serie de preguntas que se realizaba la población ante la medicina alternativa, centrándonos en la risoterapia. Estas técnicas producen grandes avances en la cura de enfermedades, sin tener que recurrir a métodos químicos, con posibles efectos secundarios.

Cada vez son más usadas, especialmente tal y como refleja este articulo en hospitales americanos donde los médicos son también payasos para hacer más ameno la vivencia en el hospital y la curación de los enfermos. Una de las técnicas destacadas, es la risoterapia, destinada a mejorar el estado físico y psicológico a través de la risa; y es que cuando una persona ríe, además de mejorar su estado de ánimo y mejorar su estado psicológico o de estrés, con la risa también se genera una sustancia benéfica para su organismo de cara a diferentes patologías y/o enfermedades.

Esta terapia esta muy extendida no únicamente en Estados Unidos, sino en todo el mundo debido a la gran eficacia de la misma.

Se han realizado diversos estudios en los cuales se relaciona que el tipo de risa ayuda a distintas funciones biológicas:

·        Reír con la letra "A":

-Mejora la energía del riñón y de su víscera acoplada, la vejiga.

-Actúa sobre el tejido óseo, previene la osteoporosis

-Mejora el sentido del oído.

·        Reír con la letra "E":

-Libera la energía del hígado (órgano), y de la vesícula biliar (víscera).

-Actúa sobre el tejido muscular.

-Mejora el sentido de la vista.

·        Reír con la letra "I":

-Libera la energía del órgano corazón y del intestino delgado (que es dónde se fabrica la sangre (según la Medicina Tradicional China).

-Activa el sistema circulatorio, previene las varices.

-Activa sobre el sistema nervioso. Además estimula la glándula tiroides.

-Mejora el sentido del tacto.

·        Reír con la letra "O":

-Libera la energía del estómago, páncreas y bazo.

-Actúa sobre el tejido conjuntivo, previene la celulitis.

-Estimula la glándula pineal, la hipófisis, la pituitaria y el hipotálamo.

-Actúa sobre el endoplasma celular, el núcleo celular y por tanto el ácido ribonucleico (transmisor de la aptitud).

Mejora el sentido del gusto.

·        Reír con la letra "U":

-Produce una vibración en la zona de los pulmones por la espalda.

-Libera la energía del intestino grueso (órgano) y pulmón. Respirar tiene que ver con nuestra capacidad de proyección.

-Libera también o actúa sobre nuestros recuerdos.

Estas técnicas están demostradas científicamente, por lo tanto desde mi punto de vista  me parece una buena opción emplearlas para la curación de enfermos

Tantos beneficios han conseguido que esta disciplina sea usada en hospitales de diversas partes del mundo, destacando los de Nueva York, en los cuales los médicos hacen sus visitas semanales a los pacientes con juegos de malabares, magia o música, mejorando y alegrando la recuperación de sus pacientes.