Rumination is the voluntary or involuntary regurgitation and rechewing of partially digested food that is either reswallowed or expelled.
Interestingly, in addition to diet, exercise, and possibly surgery, all treatments are complementary.
Continue reading Complementary treatments for rumination
A survey of university hospitals in Germany uncovered the typical findings in people who experience vertebral artery dissection (VAD) following chiropractic neck manipulation.
Continue reading The signs and symptoms of stroke following neck manipulation
A survey of more than a thousand people trying to quit smoking reveals those treatments most commonly used and most often perceived to be effective.
I listed them here with a brief comment on the scientific support.
There’s one hospital in Sweden where anthroposophic medicine is practiced. Here is a study of its effect in 60 women who received conventional breast cancer treatment with and without anthroposophic care.
Continue reading Quality of life in women with breast cancer receiving anthroposophic care
This review concludes that spinal manipulation and acupuncture are not cost-effective for low-back pain.
Here are the “money” quotes from this UK study.
Continue reading Cost-effectiveness of spinal manipulation and acupuncture for low-back pain
An article in a recent issue of AARP The Magazine (and online) makes trivial and misleading recommendations for treating impotence (aka: erectile dysfunction [ED]).
Continue reading Trivial complementary recommendations to manage erectile dysfunction
Fall-related injuries are the leading cause of injury, deaths, and disabilities among adults older than 65 years. Minimizing the fall risk is a practical approach to reducing these serious injuries.
One strategy is balance training.
Continue reading Balance training to prevent falls in the elderly
Spinal manipulation (SM) is a traditional treatment practiced by chiropractors, osteopaths, physiotherapists, and other healthcare providers mostly (but not exclusively) to treat musculoskeletal problems. SM can be described as the use of hands or force applied to the patient to achieve a therapeutic outcome.
The literature supports SM for treating back pain, but not much else.
Legislation has been submitted in Ontario, Canada to regulate acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine. This is the culmination of an ongoing process that started in Canada in 1994. The proposed legislation would create a self-governing regulatory college, and restrict the practice of acupuncture to members of the profession who would be able to use title, doctor.
In North America, it’s the latest event in the growth of acupuncture, which was virtually unknown here until 1972 when China opened its doors to the West.
Continue reading The growth of acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine in North America
“Many chiropractors and other manipulative therapists purport to treat autism and related disorders with good improvements,” according to a review in Clinical Chiropractic.
Aside from case reports, support for the role of chiropractic is limited to one study in 26 autistic children who were followed for 9 months.
Here are the results.
Continue reading Chiropractic and autism: What’s the evidence?
Here’s a series of quotes from the October (Volume 12, 2006) editorial in Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine that I think contrasts the points of view between alternative and mainstream medicine today. Is the alternative perspective too esoteric to be of practical value? Or is the mainstream approach (for chronic diabetes for example) destined to come up short? Or is the answer somewhere in the middle?
Continue reading A problem endemic to clinical medicine: treating the symptoms, not the cause
Feeling tired, overwhelmed, stress out? Maybe more physical contact with the baby is the answer.
A study of the effects of baby massage on mothers? mood status concluded ?- as we would have guessed — baby massage has a positive effect on the mood status of the mothers.
In an earlier post it was concluded that lavender oil treatments might be helpful for treating insomnia in adults. Children with autism often have sleep difficulties. But this latest study suggests it does not appear that their sleep patterns are altered by this treatment.
Here are the details of the study. Do you agree with the conclusions?
Continue reading Might aromatherapy massage improve sleep in children with autism?
The aims of balneotherapy (treatment of disease by bathing) are to soothe the pain, improve joint motion, and as a consequence, relieve people’s suffering and make them feel well.
Although most studies report positive outcomes, the trials are so poorly designed that “positive findings” should be viewed with caution, according to the Cochrane Collaboration, which included studies up to 2002.
What’s happened since?
I signed up for the Harvard Health Letter last night. This morning they sent a free report titled, Living to 100: What’s the Secret?
Here are the secrets based on their review of several studies.
There’s not one high tech recommendation in the bunch.
Continue reading Complementary secrets to living a hundred years
Dr. Patricia Grimm practices nursing as a psychiatric consultation liaison at the St. Joseph Medical Center in Towson, Maryland. A few years ago I interviewed her, and she provided useful insight into the value and contributions of massage in healthcare.
If you are skeptical of the contribution of massage to healthcare, or if you are just looking for a well-reasoned rationale for massage, go here to read the complete article.
9/20/06 20:35 JR
Two studies published in the British Medical Journal provide a little more support for using acupuncture to treat chronic low back pain.
Continue reading Acupuncture: Effectiveness and cost effectiveness for low back pain
The vagus nerve stimulator (VNS), “would have been unimaginable only a generation ago. After being implanted in a patient’s chest, … research suggests that repeated electronic stimulation of the vagus nerve can help treat severe depression”, says The New York Times.
It’s an interesting article, but here’s what you need know.
Three or four short, brisk walks during the day are more helpful to people watching their blood pressure than one continuous 40-minute work-out in a gym.
Continue reading Comparing the effects of walking on blood pressure
The risk of gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) is directly linked to a woman’s body mass index (BMI), according to the results of a study published in The New England Journal of Medicine. Continue reading Got GERD? Watch your weight.