Fertility Boot Camp, October 2010

Ladies, learn all you need to know about fertility at Tiffani Kim Institute's Fertility Boot Camp at 310 W. Superior in Chicago. Saturday October 2nd, 2010 from 9-6, our panel of experts inculde leaders in the fields of acupuncture, reproductive endocrinology, nutrition, psychology, physical fitness, & psychology. $195 includes fertility-friendly lunch and snacks. One-stop shopping for all you need to know.  Sign-up at 312-260-9020.  Read more about it at http://www.fertilitybootcampchicago.com/

Acupuncture proven to correct breech position

borrowed from  www.healthcmi.com

New research shows that acupuncture is an effective method for turning breech fetuses to the proper position for a healthy vaginal delivery. Five different randomized studies conducted by the Department of Fetal Medicine at Hautepierre Hospital in France demonstrate that needling acupuncture point UB67 (located on the 5th toe) is an effective means for turning a breech fetus. Another study published in Complementary Therapies in Medicine (which includes a lead researcher from the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts) concludes that needling acupuncture point UB67 “reduces the number of breech presentations at term, thus, reducing the number of caesarean sections, and is cost effective compared to expectant management, including external cephalic version.” The latter study included stimulation with both acupuncture needles and moxibustion at acupoint UB67. Moxibustion is a technique used by acupuncturists to stimulate an acupoint with heat by burning a specially prepared mixture of the herb Ai Ye (mugwort) near the acupoint. The French study concludes that “acupuncture should be attempted in cases of breech presentation.”

The acupuncture treatment protocol for turning breech fetuses is over 1,000 years old. According to Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), acupuncture and moxibustion at point UB67 (also known as Zhiyin, “Reaching Yin”) is used to treat breech fetuses, occipital & vertex headaches and prolonged or difficult labor. Acupuncture point UB67 is most renown for its importance in turning breech fetuses. In China, pregnant women with a breech position fetus are often instructed how to warm acupuncture point UB67 with a moxibustion stick as a home measure. Often, using acupuncture is not necessitated since the moxibustion may achieve the proper clinical results of a well positioned fetus.

Next radio interview

This Thursday, August 5th, I will be interviewed by Nicola Phoenix for her radio show on Spirit Quest Radio about my book "The Asian Diet".  You can see the promo here.
There is also a link to listen to the show, which will broadcast at 4pm Central time at http://www.spiritquestradio.comhttp://www.spiritquestradio.com/

Here is the write-up
Nicola Phoenix, The Spiritual Psychologist is joined by inspiring guest author and speaker Jason Bussell author of The Asian diet talking about the Eastern perspective of healthy eating, lifestyle and living stress free. Why do we have so much to learn from understanding Eastern perspectives and making small changes from these teachings can have a powerful effect on our lives. Join in with your questions and calls relating to diet, maintaining a healthy body and the best way to kick start a new way forward for the greatest health of your system.

Please tune in and listen if you can.


Jason

Cancer cells feed on fructose

Yet another reason to avoid the High Fructose Corn Syrup.  This article borrowed from http://www.reuters.com/article/idAFN0210830520100802

Study shows fructose used differently from glucose
* Findings challenge common wisdom about sugars
WASHINGTON Aug 2 (Reuters) - Pancreatic tumor cells use fructose to divide and proliferate, U.S. researchers said on Monday in a study that challenges the common wisdom that all sugars are the same.
Tumor cells fed both glucose and fructose used the two sugars in two different ways, the team at the University of California Los Angeles found.
They said their finding, published in the journal Cancer Research, may help explain other studies that have linked fructose intake with pancreatic cancer, one of the deadliest cancer types.
"These findings show that cancer cells can readily metabolize fructose to increase proliferation," Dr. Anthony Heaney of UCLA's Jonsson Cancer Center and colleagues wrote.
"They have major significance for cancer patients given dietary refined fructose consumption, and indicate that efforts to reduce refined fructose intake or inhibit fructose-mediated actions may disrupt cancer growth."
Americans take in large amounts of fructose, mainly in high fructose corn syrup, a mix of fructose and glucose that is used in soft drinks, bread and a range of other foods.
Politicians, regulators, health experts and the industry have debated whether high fructose corn syrup and other ingredients have been helping make Americans fatter and less healthy.
Too much sugar of any kind not only adds pounds, but is also a key culprit in diabetes, heart disease and stroke, according to the American Heart Association.
Several states, including New York and California, have weighed a tax on sweetened soft drinks to defray the cost of treating obesity-related diseases such as heart disease, diabetes and cancer.
The American Beverage Association, whose members include Coca-Cola (KO.N) and Kraft Foods (KFT.N) have strongly, and successfully, opposed efforts to tax soda. [ID:nN12233126]
The industry has also argued that sugar is sugar.
Heaney said his team found otherwise. They grew pancreatic cancer cells in lab dishes and fed them both glucose and fructose.
Tumor cells thrive on sugar but they used the fructose to proliferate. "Importantly, fructose and glucose metabolism are quite different," Heaney's team wrote.
"I think this paper has a lot of public health implications. Hopefully, at the federal level there will be some effort to step back on the amount of high fructose corn syrup in our diets," Heaney said in a statement.
Now the team hopes to develop a drug that might stop tumor cells from making use of fructose.
U.S. consumption of high fructose corn syrup went up 1,000 percent between 1970 and 1990, researchers reported in 2004 in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
(Reporting by Maggie Fox; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

Acupuncture for before and after embryo transfer

Use of acupuncture before and after embryo transfer

02 August 2010
By Nick Dalton-Brewer
Acupuncture at The Bridge Centre
Appeared in BioNews 569

Sarah Guy's bold statement 'acupuncture does not increase the chance of IVF success' is based on the conclusions of a study which is arguably flawed in many ways.
Good trial design is particularly important for acupuncture due to the nature of the therapy. The gold standard for drugs trials is double blinding. However, acupuncture is a procedure, not a pill. The Institute of Medicine considers the problems of designing acupuncture trials to be very similar to those of designing surgery trials. Sham acupuncture is a particularly thorny issue. A sham control should be physiologically inert.
There are different types of 'sham' or 'placebo' acupuncture. Some styles involve pressing on acupuncture points, essentially acupressure. Others involve superficial needle insertion, either on the same acupuncture points used in the trial, or on points considered to be non-acupuncture points. Another 'sham' technique is to provide acupuncture stimulation to points considered irrelevant to the aims of the intervention. However, since acupuncture modulates physiological activity, how would the authors know that those points would not affect the patient?
The fact is that stimulation of the skin and modulation of acupuncture points, even superficially, also modulates physiological activity. Expectancy and belief modulate the neuronal substrates of pain treated by acupuncture. Thus, sham acupuncture may not be inert, as So and colleagues (1) believe.
Three out of the four meta analyses published in 2008 found patients benefit from acupuncture when acupuncture is performed around embryo transfer (2). At the London Bridge Fertility, Gynaecology and Genetics Centre we demonstrated that acupuncture does improve pregnancy rates, as previously demonstrated by the review by Manheimer and colleagues (2008) (3).
Acupuncture is among the most popular complementary therapies and its use is both supported and encouraged by WHO as a simple, inexpensive and effective therapeutic option for certain conditions. There are several different forms of acupuncture in use worldwide. The use of acupuncture is claimed to be effective in treating or ameliorating the symptoms in a wide range of medical conditions. Traditional Chinese Acupuncture (TCA) has long been used to modulate the autonomic nervous system to increase relaxation and, more recently, to influence uterine receptivity in IVF patients. Several studies describe the use of various forms of acupuncture as an adjunct therapy in IVF treatment with some promising results. As a result of patient requests, Bridge has made acupuncture available to patients undergoing embryo transfer since 2006.
We conducted a retrospective review of the effect of acupuncture intervention, both before and after embryo transfer, on IVF treatment outcome in terms of chemical and clinical pregnancy rates per embryo transfer for treatments performed between Nov 2006 and Aug 2008.
Patients received TCA over a 40-minute period before and after embryo transfer to several acupoints. Pre-embryo Transfer Acupuncture (ETA) was delivered not more than one hour before embryo transfer, and post-ETA delivered not more than 20 minutes after embryo transfer. In both pre- and post-ETA treatments, ear acupuncture was applied to points to calm the mind and nervous system. During the pre-ETA treatment, body TCA was applied to acupoints to stimulate the channels of the spleen, stomach, liver, pericardium and governing vessel. Post-ETA treatment, body acupuncture was applied to the spleen, stomach and large intestine channels. All body acupoints were stimulated five times at five-minute intervals.
65 patients underwent 70 cycles of IVF involving acupuncture before and after embryo transfer. Outcomes were compared with 70 cycles of IVF involving randomly selected age-matched controls. Overall, after ETA, positive pregnancy rates (PPR) and clinical pregnancy rates (CPR) per embryo transfer compared well with a randomly-selected age-matched control group.
Acupuncture is a safe, adjunct therapy in IVF and results suggest that it may increase positive pregnancy rates when used before and after embryo transfer in agreement with a number of recent studies.  Pregnancy rates for women aged between 35 and 39 yrs and those over 40 years were more than 10 per cent better than control groups of the same ages, indicating the treatment may have more benefits for older women undergoing IVF.  No side effects or complications were experienced by women who received acupuncture, suggesting its application in IVF is safe and may be beneficial, particularly in older patients.
These preliminary data are encouraging, although a placebo effect cannot yet be ruled out. However, further trials involving older women to include additional objective measurements of the effect of acupuncture (such as ultrasound assessment of increased blood flow and changes in hormone levels) may help to distinguish a real effect from placebo and identify those patient groups most likely to benefit from acupuncture treatment.

Acupuncture proven effective in treating side effects of breast cancer treatment

borrowed from healthcmi.com

New research reveals that acupuncture is more effective for treating hot flashes than venlafaxine (Effexor) for patients receiving conventional antiestrogen hormone treatment for the treatment of breast cancer. The Department of Radiation Oncology at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, Michigan published its finding in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. The study cites research proving the effectiveness of acupuncture for the treatment of hot flashes during menopause and therefore investigates the effects of acupuncture during breast cancer treatment. Results showed that acupuncture had successfully eliminated all cases of hot flashes and benefitted patients suffering from mental depression. The study also documents that there were no side effects due to the acupuncture treatments but that venlafaxine caused adverse effects including nausea, dry mouth, dizziness, and anxiety.  The study further documents that acupuncture increased sex drive, mental clarity, and the overall energy levels in the patients.

Out of a study group of 50 patients, 25 were randomly given 12 weeks of acupuncture and the other 25 were given 12 weeks of venlafaxine. After two weeks, the venlafaxine group continued to experience hot flashes but, like the acupuncture group, had less mental depression. The study concluded that acupuncture “appears to be equivalent to drug therapy” and is “a safe, effective, and durable treatment.”

Looks like I'm going to Israel

An International Conference on Integrative Medicine will be held in October 2010 in Jerusalem.
The Conference will deal with ways to unite the scientific principles of modern medicine with the holistic principles
of alternative medicine, hosting a dialogue between professionals and participants from around the world.
In order to give all those interested the possibility to participate we hereby announce that the registration has started.

The Scientific Committee of the convention is still open to accept additional abstracts and topics .
Details and registration forms are available in...
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So I sent them a proposal to talk about The Asian Diet.  Then I got their response.

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Dear Jason Bussell,

You have sent a proposal to the The Jerusalem International Conference on Integrative Medicine.

We are happy to inform you that the Scientific Committee has reached its decision and that your paper has been accepted and you will be able to present your lecture. . .

Avraham Fried
Director
The Jerusalem International Conference on Integrative Medicine
www.mediconvention.com

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So I'm going to fly half-way around the world to tell about 900 physicians why they should focus more and diet, lifestyle, and attitudes to help their patients prevent the diseases that have become so prevalent in our culture.  A lot of people still look to the US as role models.  In some ways, that is a good thing.  But NO ONE should be following our dietary habits (and other habits as well).  Balance and moderation are the keys to health.  The Chinese figured that out a long time ago.