Menopause

“Many women are willing to try anything to get rid of the dreaded hot flashes and mood swings associated with menopause.

Watch: Menopause Myths

A new study out today offers an alternative to the herbal remedies and hormone replacement therapy so many turn to: traditional Chinese acupuncture.

The study, conducted by the Ankara Training and Research Hospital in Ankara, Turkey, concluded that acupuncture, which treats patients by inserting and manipulating needles in the body, curbs the severity of hot flashes and other menopausal symptoms, largely related to mood.”

Medical Research Finds Acupuncture Influences Brain Areas
Responsible for Pain

Schwartz Posted in Acupuncture, Chinese Medicine，Tags: Acupuncture, Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine, fMRI, Health, Medicine, pain

24 December 2010

Medical Research

“ScienceDaily (Nov. 30, 2010) — Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), researchers have captured pictures of the brain while patients experienced a pain stimulus with and without acupuncture to determine acupuncture’s effect on how the brain processes pain. Results of the study, which the researchers say suggest the effectiveness of acupuncture, were presented November 30 at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).

“Until now, the role of acupuncture in the perception and processing of pain has been controversial,” said lead researcher Nina Theysohn, M.D., from the Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology and Neuroradiology at University Hospital in Essen, Germany. “Functional MRI gives us the opportunity to directly observe areas of the brain that are activated during pain perception and see the variances that occur with acupuncture.” …

“Activation of brain areas involved in pain perception was significantly reduced or modulated under acupuncture,” Dr. Theysohn said.”

Sources: 1. Science Daily 2. Radiological Society of North America

Chinese medicine has reduced pain in patients for centuries. The advancements in medical science have allowed for research such as the research quoted above which clearly shows that pain is modulated through using acupuncture.

We can help with pain. Contact us today to schedule a personal consultation with one of our licensed therapists.

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Treating Holiday Stress and Depression with Acupuncture

Schwartz Posted in Acupuncture, Chinese Medicine, Stress，Tags: Acupuncture, Chinese Medicine, depression, Stress

17 December 2010

Holiday Stress

According to Oriental medicine, the cold months of winter are the perfect time to recharge your battery and generate vital energy, or Qi, in order to live, look, and feel your best.

The ancient Chinese believed that human beings should live in harmony with the natural cycles of their environment. The cold and darkness of winter urges us to slow down. This is the time of year to reflect on health, replenish energy and conserve strength.

Ruled by the water element, winter is associated with the kidneys, bladder and adrenal glands. The kidneys are considered the source of all energy or “Qi” within the body. They store all of the reserve Qi in the body so that it can be used in times of stress and change, or to heal, prevent illness and age gracefully.

Winter is the season where all living things slow down, conserve their energy and prepare for the outburst of new life and energy in the spring.

Eat warm hearty soups, whole grains, and roasted nuts to help warm the body’s core and to keep nourished. Sleep early, rest well, stay warm, and expend a minimum quantity of energy.

While optimal health and well-being in the winter season calls for rest, energy conservation and the revitalization of body and spirit, your holiday activities may have a different agenda.

The holidays can be filled with a dizzying array of demands, visitors, travel and frantic shopping trips. For many people, it is also a time filled with sadness, self-reflection, loneliness and anxiety. Compound the usual seasonal pressures with the constant barrage of bad economic news and you may find this to be one of the most emotionally trying times of the year.

Stress, anxiety and depression can cause a disruption in the flow of vital energy, or Qi, through the body. These energetic imbalances can throw off the immune system or cause symptoms of pain, sleep disturbances, abnormal digestion, headaches, and menstrual irregularities, and, over time, more serious illnesses can develop.

Acupuncture treatments can correct these imbalances and directly affect the way your body manages stress and your mental health.

Seasonal acupuncture treatments in winter serve to nurture and nourish kidney Qi which can greatly enhance the body’s ability to thrive in times of stress, aid in healing, prevent illness and increase vitality.

According to Oriental medicine, the cold months of winter are the perfect time to recharge your battery and generate vital energy, or Qi, in order to live, look, and feel your best.

Winter is the season where all living things slow down, conserve their energy and prepare for the outburst of new life and energy in the spring.

Eat warm hearty soups, whole grains, and roasted nuts to help warm the body’s core and to keep nourished. Sleep early, rest well, stay warm, and expend a minimum quantity of energy.

While optimal health and well-being in the winter season calls for rest, energy conservation and the revitalization of body and spirit, your holiday activities may have a different agenda.

Acupuncture treatments can correct these imbalances and directly affect the way your body manages stress and your mental health.

Call now and schedule your seasonal tune-up today!

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Plant derivative could help refine cancer treatment

Schwartz Posted in Chinese Medicine, Herbs, Oncology，Tags: American Heart Association, cancer, Celastracaea, Clinical trial, Hsp90, Journal of Biological Chemistry, Lung cancer, Mayo Clinic, Synta Pharmaceuticals

13 November 2010

Plant Derivative

AUGUSTA, Ga. – Medical College of Georgia researchers are seeking to refine cancer treatment with an anti-inflammatory plant derivative long used in Chinese medicine.

Celastrol, derived from trees and shrubs called celastracaea, has been used for centuries in China to treat symptoms such as fever, chills, joint pain and inflammation. The MCG researchers think it may also play a role in cancer treatment by inactivating a protein required for cancer growth.

That protein, P23, is one of many proteins helping the heat shock protein 90. Scientists are just beginning to realize the potential of controlling inflammation-related diseases, including cancer, by inhibiting HSP90.

“Cancer cells need HSP90 more than normal cells because cancer cells have thousands of mutations,” said Dr. Ahmed Chadli, biochemist in the MCG Center for Molecular Chaperones/Radiobiology and Cancer Virology. “They need chaperones all the time to keep their mutated proteins active. By taking heat shock proteins away from cells, the stabilization is taken away and cell death occurs.”

But most HSP90 inhibitors lack selectivity, disabling the functions of all proteins activated by HSP90 rather than only the ones implicated in a specific tumor. Those proteins vary from one tumor to another.

Dr. Chadli and colleagues at the Mayo Clinic believe celastrol holds the key to specificity, targeting the HSP90-activated protein required for folding steroid receptors.

“The celastrol induces the protein to form fibrils and clusters it together, which inactivates it,” said Dr. Chadli, whose research was published in the January edition of The Journal of Biological Chemistry. “When they are clustered, they’re not available for other functions that help cancer grow.”

The research was funded by a seed grant from the MCG Cardiovascular Discovery Institute and a Scientist Development Grant from The American Heart Association.

Dr. Chadli envisions future studies on cancer patients using even more potent derivatives of celastrol.

“They can hopefully be used in combination with other therapeutic agents to reduce the probability of cancer resistance,” he said.

Source: Eurekalert

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Searching herbs for cancer cures

Schwartz Posted in Chinese Medicine, Herbs，Tags: Biology, cancer, Chemotherapy, Health, Herbalism, Medicine, Natural product, Tumor

07 November 2010

Curing cancer with natural products – a case for shamans and herb women? Not at all, for many chemotherapies to fight cancer applied in modern medicine are natural products or were developed on the basis of natural substances. Thus, taxanes used in prostate and breast cancer treatment are made from yew trees. The popular periwinkle plant, which grows along the ground of many front yards, is the source of vinca alkaloids that are effective, for example, against malignant lymphomas. The modern anti-cancer drugs topotecan and irinotecan are derived from a constituent of the Chinese Happy Tree.

Looking for new compounds, doctors and scientists are increasingly focusing on substances from plants used in traditional medicine. About three quarters of the natural pharmaceutical compounds commonly used today are derived from plants of the traditional medicine of the people in various parts of the world. The chances of finding new substances with interesting working profiles in traditional medicinal plants are better than in common-or-garden botany.

In his search for active ingredients, Professor Dr. Thomas Efferth of the DKFZ has been concentrating on herbal remedies from traditional Chinese medicine with particularly well documented application range. Working together with colleagues in Mainz and Düsseldorf, Germany, Graz, Austria and Kunming in China, he launched a systematic compound search in 76 Chinese medicinal plants that are believed to be effective against malignant tumors and other growths. First results of this study have now been published.

Extracts from 18 of the plants under investigation were found to substantially suppress the growth of a cancer cell line in the culture dish. “With this success rate of about 24 percent, we are way above the results that could be expected from searching through large chemical substance libraries,” Thomas Efferth explains.

The scientists proceeded to chemically separate, step by step, all active extracts, tracing the active component after each separation step by cell tests. The chemical structure of the compounds is analyzed using nuclear magnetic resonance and mass spectroscopy. “We are combining natural substance research with advanced analytical and molecular-biological methods”, Efferth explains. “Plant constituents that seem particularly promising are immediately subjected to further tests.” Such constituents include, for example, substances derived from the Rangoon Creeper, an ornamental plant with red flowers, or from Red-Root Sage. The latter contains three ingredients with powerful anti-tumor activity. The substances were found to suppress the growth of a specific tumor cell line that is particularly resistant to many commonly used cytotoxins due to overproduction of a transport protein in the cell wall. In contrast, a whole range of standard anti-cancer drugs fail to be effective against this cell.

„We can expect to find many interesting, yet unknown working mechanisms among the chemically highly diverse natural substances. Currently, we are aligning the effectiveness of the substances on 60 different cancer cell lines with the gene activity profiles of these cells. Thus, we can determine the exact gene products that are the cellular targets of our compounds. Thereby, it may be possible to discover whole new Achilles’ heels of the cancer cell,” said Efferth describing the next steps.

Source: Eurekalert

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Gardenia fruit compound starting point for diabetes therapy

Schwartz Posted in Chinese Medicine, Herbs，Tags: Beta cell, Conditions and Diseases, Diabetes mellitus type 2, Endocrine Disorders, Gardenia, Harvard Medical School, Health, Metabolism, Pancreas

04 November 2010

A Gardenia fruit extract traditionally used in Chinese medicine to treat the symptoms of type 2 diabetes does indeed contain a chemical that reverses some of the pancreatic dysfunctions that underlie the disease, researchers report in the June 7, 2006, Cell Metabolism. The chemical therefore represents a useful starting point for new diabetes therapies, they said.

Such a drug could offer a big advance, the group added, as no currently available therapy for diabetes actually targets the underlying causes of disease in insulin-producing pancreatic beta cells. Insulin controls blood levels of glucose, the body’s main energy source. In those with diabetes, insulin deficiency or insulin resistance causes blood sugar concentrations to rise.

The team discovered that Gardenia extract contains the chemical “genipin.” Previously known for its ability to cross-link proteins, they now find that the chemical also blocks the function of the enzyme called uncoupling protein 2 (UCP2) through another mechanism. In both animals and humans, high concentrations of UCP2 appear to inhibit insulin secretion from the pancreas and increase the risk of type 2 diabetes.

“We think the increase in UCP2 activity is an important component of the pathogenesis of diabetes,” said Bradford Lowell of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School. “Our goal therefore was to discover a UCP2 inhibitor capable of working in intact cells, as such an inhibitor could theoretically represent a lead compound for agents aimed at improving beta cell function in type 2 diabetes.”

Study coauthor Chen-Yu Zhang’s familiarity with traditional Chinese medicine led the team to consider the extract of Gardenia jasminoides Ellis fruits. Pancreas cells taken from normal mice secreted insulin when treated with the extract, they found, whereas the cells of mice lacking UCP2 did not. The results suggested that the extract worked through its effects on the UCP2 enzyme.

“When I first saw the results, I was in disbelief,” Lowell said. “I didn’t think we could ever be that lucky.” However, blinded repetition of the initial experiments confirmed the results every time, he said.

Through a series of chemical analyses, the researchers then zeroed in on genipin as the active compound. Genipin, like the extract, stimulated insulin secretion in control but not UCP2-deficient pancreas cells.

They further found that acute addition of genipin to isolated pancreatic tissue reversed high glucose- and obesity-induced dysfunction of insulin-producing beta cells. A derivative of genipin that lacked the chemical’s cross-linking activity continued to inhibit UCP2, they reported.

That’s a good sign for the therapeutic potential of genipin-related compounds, according to Lowell, as such indiscriminate cross-linking would likely have adverse effects. However, further work will need to examine whether inhibition of UCP2 itself might also have some negative consequences.

In addition to the possibility of new drugs, the findings might also prove a boon to the use of Gardenia extract itself for the treatment of disease, particularly in eastern Asia, Zhang said.

Irrespective of genipin’s potential for clinical applications, its benefits within the scientific community are already clear, Lowell added.

“Genipin represents an extremely useful investigational tool for studying a number of aspects of UCP2 biology,” Lowell added. UCP2 plays a role in the process by which food is converted into energy storage molecules by cellular powerhouses called mitochondria in cells throughout the body.

Source: Eurekalert

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Ancient Chinese remedy for ulcers and heartburn

Schwartz Posted in Chinese Medicine, Herbs，Tags: Conditions and Diseases, ecabet sodium, Esophagus, Far East, Gastroesophageal reflux disease, Health, Medicine, Peptic ulcer, pine tree, Stomach

26 October 2010

An ancient Chinese medicine extracted from pine trees may be effective against ulcers, heartburn, reflux oesophagitis and other digestive disorders common in the Western world, say scientists.

Dr Jeff Pearson and colleagues at the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne, England, have found that ecabet sodium, a white powder derived from the resin of pine trees, has a range of protective effects on the digestive system.

In laboratory tests on gastric juices taken from patients, ecabet sodium reduced pepsin activity — a known cause of ulcers — by up to 78 per cent and caused the mucus lining the stomach to thicken, providing extra protection from the gastric juices.

The powder also proved to be a natural antiseptic, reducing the survival time of ulcer-causing bacteria in the stomach, said Dr Pearson, of the Department of Physiological Sciences in the university’s medical school.

Reflux oesophagitis occurs when gastric juices leave the stomach and travel up the oesophagus, attacking the sensitive lining. While most people suffer occasionally, there are many acute suffers who need drugs to control the disorder.

Reflux oesophagitis is common among people suffering from peptic ulcers or who have a high level of pepsin activity. It can also be caused by a malfunction of the valve between the stomach and the oesophagus.

Dr Pearson believes that ecabet sodium may be very useful for long-term treatment of reflux oesophagitis in patients whose condition has been stabilised by conventional drugs.

Doctors often prescribe drugs which stop acid production by the stomach to control reflux oesophagitis. However, some medical experts are worried there may be side-effects on patients who take the drug daily for many years.

Dr Pearson believes that many small children have reflux oesophagitis in their sleep, but their parents are unaware so it goes untreated. He suspects that the gastric juices can travel so far up the child’s ‘tubes’ that it is a common cause of asthma (by irritating the lining of the respiratory system), and possibly glue ear.

Dr Pearson has an interest in natural medicines from the Far East, many of which seem to be effective but have never been adopted by western medicine because of the language barrier.

Source: Eurekalert

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Ancient Chinese folk remedy packs anti-cancer punch

Schwartz Posted in Chinese Medicine, Herbs，Tags: Artemisinin, cancer, Conditions and Diseases, DNA, Health, Malaria, Traditional Chinese medicine, University of Washington

23 October 2010

A group of promising cancer-fighting compounds derived from a substance used in ancient Chinese medicine will be developed for potential use in humans, the University of Washington announced today.

The UW TechTransfer Office has signed a licensing agreement with Chongqing Holley Holdings, a Chinese company, and Holley Pharmaceuticals, its U.S. subsidiary.

The compounds, all developed through the research of UW scientists Henry Lai and Narendra Singh of the Department of Bioengineering and Tomikazu Sasaki of the Department of Chemistry, make use of a substance known as artemisinin, found in the wormwood plant and used throughout Asia since ancient times to treat malaria.

Although the compounds are promising, potential medical applications are still years away, officials say.

“We are very excited about the UW’s discovery and an opportunity to develop an artemisinin-based cancer drug,” Kevin Mak, chief scientist at Holley, said. “The technology is very promising, but it’s in its early stages. Further research and clinical trials are needed.”

The company, located in Chongqing, China, has been in the artemisinin business for more than 30 years, and is a world leader in farming, extracting and manufacturing artemisinin, its derivatives and artemisinin-based anti-malaria drugs, officials say.

Lai said he became interested in artemisinin about 10 years ago. The chemical helps control malaria because it reacts with the high iron concentrations found in the single-cell malaria parasite. When artemisinin comes into contact with iron, a chemical reaction ensues, spawning charged atoms that chemists call “free radicals.” The free radicals attack the cell membrane and other molecules, breaking it apart and killing the parasite.

Lai said he began to wonder if the process might work with cancer, too.

“Cancer cells need a lot of iron to replicate DNA when they divide,” Lai explained. “As a result, cancer cells have much higher iron concentrations than normal cells. When we began to understand how artemisinin worked, I started wondering if we could use that knowledge to target cancer cells.”

Perhaps the most promising of the methods licensed involves the use of transferrin, to which the researchers bind artemisinin at the molecular level. Transferrin is an iron-carrying protein found in blood, and is transported into cells via transferrin receptors on a cell’s surface.

Iron-hungry cancer cells typically have significantly more transferrin receptors on their surface than normal cells, which allows them to take in more of the iron-carrying protein. That, according to Lai, is what seems to make the compound so effective.

“We call it a Trojan horse because a cancer cell recognizes transferrin as a natural, harmless protein and picks up the tagged compound without knowing that a bomb – artemisinin – is hidden inside.”

Once inside the cancer cell, the iron is released and reacts with the artemisinin. That makes the compound both highly toxic and, because of cancer’s rapacious need for iron, highly selective. Surrounding, healthy cells are essentially undamaged.

“Our research in the lab indicated that the artemisinin-tagged transferrin was 34,000 times more effective in selecting and killing the cancer cells than normal cells,” Lai said. “Artemisinin alone is 100 times more effective, so we’ve greatly enhanced the selectivity.”

Source: Eurekalert

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Toad Venom for Cancer Treatment

Schwartz Posted in Chinese Medicine，Tags: cancer, China, Clinical trial, Food and Drug Administration, Gemcitabine, Gemzar, Medicine, Pancreatic cancer

20 October 2010

HOUSTON – Huachansu, a Chinese medicine that comes from the dried venom secreted by the skin glands of toads, has tolerable toxicity levels, even at doses eight times those normally administered, and may slow disease progression in some cancer patients, say researchers from The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.

The results from the Phase I clinical study, a collaborative research project between M. D. Anderson and Fudan University Cancer Hospital in Shanghai, are reported in the online Early View feature of the journal Cancer. The study marks the first time a formal clinical trial has examined the relationship between huachansu dose and toxicity, although the drug is common in China and approved by the Chinese Food and Drug Administration.

Huachansu is widely used to treat patients with liver, lung, colon and pancreatic cancer at oncology clinics in China. Chinese clinical trials conducted since the 1970s have demonstrated the anti-cancer properties of huachansu, citing total response rates of 10 percent and 16 percent observed in patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma and lung cancer, respectively1,2.

“Studying traditional Chinese medicine such as huachansu is new to American research institutions, which have been skeptical and slow to adopt these complementary treatments. However, it is important to understand its potential role in treating cancer,” says Lorenzo Cohen, Ph.D., one of the paper’s authors and director of the Integrative Medicine Program at M. D. Anderson. “We wanted to apply a Western medicine-based approach to explore the role of the toad venom compound in cancer patients and test if it is possible to deliver a more potent dose without raising toxicities or side effects.”

The clinical trial was conducted at the Fudan University Cancer Hospital while M. D. Anderson provided training and ongoing consultation. The institutions collaboratively designed the trial that was approved by both institutional review boards. M. D. Anderson and Fudan University Cancer Hospital signed a sister institution agreement in 2003, creating a framework for research, educational and clinical collaboration.

The typical dose of huachansu used in China is approximately 15 milliliters of drug per meter squared of body mass (mL/m2). In the study, 15 patients with stage III or IV hepatocellular (liver) carcinoma, nonsmall cell lung cancer or pancreatic cancer received one of five dose levels ranging from 10 mL/ m2 up to 90 mL/m2 from January 2005 through July 2006. The treatment was repeated daily for 14 days followed by seven days off (one cycle). After two cycles, most patients received other treatments. Quality control methods were put in place to ensure huachansu of a uniform and consistent lot.

While the dose was up to eight times higher than conventional doses used in China, researchers observed only low toxicities or side effects. Eleven (73 percent) patients had no toxicities greater than the lowest grade measured. Importantly, no significant cardiac toxicity was observed and no significant changes in cancer-related symptoms occurred. Of the 15 patients who completed the treatment, six hepatocellular carcinoma patients (40 percent) had stable disease for a median of six months. One patient had a 20 percent reduction in tumor mass that lasted for more than 11 months.

“Even though we saw no complete or partial response (reduction of disease by 30 percent or more) it is encouraging that the cancer did not progress in a large set of the hepatocellular carcinoma patients,” says Zhiqiang Meng, principal investigator on the trial and an associate professor and deputy chair of the Department of Integrative Oncology at Fudan University Cancer Hospital, “Previous observations from studies conducted in China have shown that huachansu can inhibit tumor cell growth and improve immunologic function3. These findings, coupled with that knowledge, demonstrate the need for further clinical trials of this promising agent.”

A Phase II clinical trial comparing the effects of huachansu combined with gemcitabine (Gemzar®) to gemcitabine and placebo for patients with advanced pancreatic cancer is under way at the Fudan University Cancer Hospital in collaboration with M. D. Anderson.

Source: Eurekalert

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Top 10 Questions: #3 How much is it? Acupuncture in Atlanta

Top 10 Questions #3 How much is it? Acupuncture in Atlanta

New Study: Acupuncture Curbs Menopausal Hot Flashes

Menopause

Medical Research Finds Acupuncture Influences Brain Areas
Responsible for Pain

Medical Research

Treating Holiday Stress and Depression with Acupuncture

Holiday Stress

Plant derivative could help refine cancer treatment

Plant Derivative

Searching herbs for cancer cures

Gardenia fruit compound starting point for diabetes therapy

Ancient Chinese remedy for ulcers and heartburn

Ancient Chinese folk remedy packs anti-cancer punch

Toad Venom for Cancer Treatment

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