Category Archives: Integrative Medicine

Prince Charles, who is in India on his 10th official visit to celebrate British-Indian ties, will celebrate his 71st birthday at a wellness centre in Bengaluru.

The Prince of Wales will join his wife, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, who has already arrived in the City on November 11 for a week-long rejuvenation therapy at Soukya International Holistic Health Centre, Whitefield.

Ms. Camilla arrived here with five others, including members of the royal family. The royal couple will spend the birthday in a low-key fashion just by themselves followed by a private dinner.

Under the care of holistic health practitioner Issac Mathai, who has been a consultant to the royal family for several years now, Ms. Camilla is undergoing therapy at Soukya. While this is her sixth visit to the centre, Prince Charles is visiting Soukya for the first time. She is staying at the royal presidential suite at the centre and is on a South Indian diet comprising vegetarian organic food. The couple is said to be fond of idly, dosa and organic soups.

Sources said the royal couple has chosen Soukya to celebrate the Princes birthday because of his sustainability philosophy in organic farming and eco-friendly practices. His main interest is in integrative medicine and he is also patron of the Faculty of Homeopathy in UK. Last year, Prince Charles along with Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated an AYUSH centre in London. So spending his birthday in Soukya, a holistic healthcare centre, befits the occasion. The couple will stay in the city till November 16, sources said.

The Duchess had visited Bengaluru in 2010, 2012, 2013, 2015 and 2017 during September-November and had undergone various therapies. The Duchess, who was fighting a chest infection before she landed in Bengaluru, has recuperated and is doing fine now, said sources.

You have reached your limit for free articles this month.

Register to The Hindu for free and get unlimited access for 30 days.

Find mobile-friendly version of articles from the day's newspaper in one easy-to-read list.

Enjoy reading as many articles as you wish without any limitations.

A select list of articles that match your interests and tastes.

Move smoothly between articles as our pages load instantly.

A one-stop-shop for seeing the latest updates, and managing your preferences.

We brief you on the latest and most important developments, three times a day.

*Our Digital Subscription plans do not currently include the e-paper ,crossword, iPhone, iPad mobile applications and print. Our plans enhance your reading experience.

More:
Prince Charles to celebrate his 71st birthday in wellness centre in Bengaluru - The Hindu

"; images = images + ""; images = images + ""; images = images + ""; images = images + ""; images = images + ""; images = images + ""; images = images + ""; jQuery('.imgGallery').prepend(images); jQuery('.each_image:first').show()}function navigateSliderNext(){coutner_img = parseInt(jQuery('#thecnt0').html());counter_img++;if(counter_img>total_img){counter_img=1}jQuery('#thecnt0').html(counter_img);jQuery('.each_image').hide()jQuery('.each_image[id="is'+counter_img+'"]').show()}function navigateSliderPrev(){coutner_img = parseInt(jQuery('#thecnt0').html());counter_img--;if(counter_imgAbout Akesis Life

Based in Bangkok, Thailand, Akesis Life is a state-of-the-art integrative oncology centre offering a targeted, effective and kind approach to treating cancer based on enhancing the patients own ability to heal. Using an extensive variety of proven therapies designed to treat the root cause of the cancer and rebuild health, immunity and awareness, the Centres mission is that patients leave them not only cancer-free, but also with a better quality of life.

The goal of integrative oncology is to heal from cancer rather than conquer it. Unlike conventional treatments that kill cancer cells with collateral damage to the body and the immune system, Akesis Lifes non-toxic, non-invasive programme stops the spread of cancer, eliminates cancer cells without damaging healthy cells and increases the bodys immune system thereby providing an environment which prevents the cancer from returning.

Akesis Lifes integrative approach puts the whole person at the centre of the healing programme, rather than the disease itself. During a residential stay of 8-12 weeks, patients are guided and supported with expert medical care to understand the root causes of their cancer and the fundamentals of living a healthy life. In this way, patients are always active participants in their personalised healing journey.

The medical team at Akesis Life is made up of two leading practitioners in the field of integrative medicine, Dr Thomas Lodi and Dr Chatchai Sribundit.They are supported by a caring and experienced team, including a health chef and a renowned holistic innovator, who together ensure that a patients experience is as comfortable and rewarding as it can be.

The Akesis Life Medical Centre houses their renowned oncology medical team with access to the latest advanced technologies in non-toxic cancer treatment.To ensure the highest levels of personalised care, the Centre treats no more than 15 patients at a time who stay within the 5 star complex.

Facilities and amenities at the Akesis Life Medical Centre are more in keeping with a resort than a hospital and include a range of luxurious accommodation options, large outdoor pools, a modern gym, private dining area, yoga and meditation room, recreation room, lounge and library, and classroom for lectures and workshops.

Akesis Life offer treatment for all types of cancer including breast cancer, lung cancer, pancreatic cancer, colon and rectal cancer, lymphomas, leukaemia, liver cancer, brain cancer, ovarian cancer and skin cancers.

The Akesis treatment programme is based on three fundamentals: stop making cancer; target cancer without harming the body; activate and enhance the immune system.

Tools to kill or eliminate cancer such as surgery, chemotherapy and radiation have no effect on cancer stem cells, meaning that in all but a few rare situations the cancer returns. At Akesis, the focus is on changing the biochemical environment of the body so that it ceases to be a good host to cancer. This is achieved by incorporating the following into the treatment programme:

Akesis offer the latest metabolic therapies that safely and effectively eliminate cancer cells without damage to healthy cells, tissues and organs. Treatments available include:

Enhancing the immune system is vital to successful cancer treatment as the most important strategy that cancer cells employ in order to survive is to inactive and block the immune system. The biochemistry involved in immunosuppression by cancer cells is extremely complex. With this in mind, Akesis Life has developed an immune programme that reactivates the immune system in a specific sequence using the following treatments:

Akesis Life take care of all aspects of a trip to Thailand for cancer treatment, from initial phone call and video consultation through to help with travel arrangements and aftercare, ensuring a seamless and stress-free experience.

To learn more about their treatment programmes, call their friendly team on 66 (0) 655 896 964 or complete the online contact form.

Original post:
Akesis Life: Cancer clinic in Thailand - Treatment Abroad

The Veterans Administration has traditionally been an incubator for innovations that improve quality of life not only for veterans but also for civilian populations around the worldideas like bar-coding machines, or the discovery that daily aspirin cuts the rate of heart attacks for certain patient populations. For many years and in a range of capacities, Penns School of Nursing has been a close VA collaborator.

In 2011,for example, in addition to her role at Penn, palliative care professor Mary Ersek became director of the Veteran Experience Center, a national quality-improvement initiative housed at Philadelphias Corporal Michael J. Crescenz VA Medical Center. Rosemary Polomano, Penn Nursings associate dean for practice and a professor of pain practice, helped change the standard pain scale employed by the VA.

There are many examples of this partnership, with innovative solutions aimed at the largest integrated health system in the U.S. and the top employer of nurse practitioners, according to the Veterans Health Administration. Along the way, the VA has also built systems for tracking outcomes, leading to a treasure trove of data.

Its a great time for evidence-based research and training, saysCoy Smith, associate director of patient care services and nurse executive at the Philadelphia VA, as well as assistant dean for clinical practice at Penn Nursing. A lot of this work is transferrable to non-VA patients.

Here, a look at the work made possible because of the Veterans Health Administration-Penn Nursing collaboration.

Evidence-based health care practices are interventions based on the best, latest scientific findings. Penn sleep and health behavior researcher Amy Sawyer is currently leading 15 evidence-based quality improvement projects at the Philadelphia VA, on subjects like preventing injury in surgical patients and secondary traumatic stress in health care providers.

Change, no matter how you look at it, is hard, Sawyer says. Its hard to accept, and its hard to convey to others that change needs to happen. But implementing it can have real results, like with a recent occupational health project that involved switching the type of tuberculosis testing the VA used for incoming employees.

Unlike the standard test, called purified protein derivative or PPD, a newer test called T-SPOT.TB does not require a follow-up visit after 48 to 72 hours. During a PPD shortage two years ago, VA clinicians put in place the T-SPOT.TB procedure and followed it for a year. The program has since rolled out across the entire VA system, leading to a 29% increase in employee compliance, a 40% drop in costs, and a 50% reduction in time to clear new hires.

We used to think of quality improvement and research as separate, Ersek says. But over the years weve gotten more sophisticated. We use research methods. We sort of mimic, statistically, a randomized control trial.

To that end, Ersek and her team use the Bereaved Family Survey (BFS) in their VA work. The BFS, developed through a VA-funded research project and now used throughout the system, asks respondents to evaluate quality of care at the end of life. Its mailed to the next of kin of every veteran who dies at a VA facility or in one of several VA home-based primary care programs. Facility-level scores are calculated quarterly and sent to each facility. The Veteran Experience Center also works directly with care teams to help them interpret their scores and develop strategies to improve care and outcomes.

For example, we might identify chronically low scores on an overall item, as well as those related to communication for a specific facility, Ersek says. Training in family conferences might then follow. We continue to monitor their BFS scores during and following the training to see whether it had an impact on outcomes, she adds.

The survey is a unique way to keep a pulse on the quality of care at the VA for veterans and families, saysAnn Kutney-Lee, an adjunct associate professor of nursing who studies the effects of nursing care organizations on patient outcomes. We ask about communication with providers, whether their preferences were met for treatment, she says. We ask about emotional and spiritual support. Did they get the amount of support they wanted? Did they see a chaplain if they wanted one?

Veteran demographics are shifting from those who served in World War II and the Korean War to those who served in Vietnam. This has implications for end-of-life care, as veterans from the Vietnam era are more likely to have been exposed to dangerous combat situations, says Kutney-Lee. Many veterans were fighting in jungles and mountains; there were hidden explosives planted, all with a near-constant threat of being ambushed, she says. The nature of the direct combat situations was very different.

The way society welcomed them home was different, too. World War II vets were hailed as heroes, enjoying national support. Vietnam vets experienced the opposite, says Kutney-Lee. Things were thrown at them when they got off the planes. Today, they are less willing to talk about their experiences, something that can resurface, emotionally, at the end of life.

Its something Kutney-Lee and colleagues are trying to understand to better prepare health care providers to treat these vets. They are seeing higher rates of anxiety and post-traumatic stress, as well as more chronic illnesses that correlate with chemicals such as 2,4,5-T, an ingredient in the herbicide Agent Orange, to which many soldiers in Vietnam were exposed. In an effort to be proactive, the VAs Hospice and Palliative Care Program Office and the Veteran Experience Center are using the BFS and other data to create educational programs aimed at helping providers meet this groups unique end-of-life needs. We want the vets and their families experience to be as peaceful as possible, Kutney-Lee says.

She is involved in another project with Ersek andMargo Brooks Carthon, another Penn Nursing researcher, to study racial and ethnic disparities in quality end-of-life care for vets. Some of their work has found that the next of kin of African American vets were 50% less likely than other groups to report that their loved ones received excellent care at the end of life. The researchers want to know why.

One clue: Members of racial and ethnic minorities tend to be more sensitive to changes in nurse-staffing levels. The researchers hypothesize that in facilities where staffing is better, nurses are better positioned to meet the complex care needs of patients, which may also apply at the end of life. They have the resources they need and the time to spend with their patients, says Kutney-Lee.

Pain management entails a complex matrix of mind and body, which makes having a standard scale on which to measure pain crucial.

Penn Nursings Rosemary Polomano specializes in managing acute pain following combat-related injuries. After learning that clinicians in 28 facilities who used the standard numeric pain rating scale (0-10) found it inadequate to help patients and health care providers communicate about pain-intensity levels, Polomano collaborated with leaders from the Defense and Veterans Center for Integrative Pain Management and others to develop the Defense and Veterans Pain Rating Scale (DVPRS).

The scale integrates word anchors (from no pain to as bad as it could be, nothing else matters) with color-coding and facial expressions to help patients rate their pain.

According to Polomano, DVPRS is now the official military pain scale, with the goal of being used in all Department of Defense health care facilities. Other health systems are free to use it too, Polomano says. It is in the public domain.

Polomano also teachesPain Science and Practice, a class open to students from Penn Nursing, Penn Dental, and Penns Perelman School of Medicine. This year, in partnership with the Uniformed Services University Graduate School of Nursing in Bethesda, Maryland, 30 active-duty military personnel from their nurse anesthesia program attended the class.

Nurses work at the heart of the changes in veterans care and, therefore, help to shape the future of American health care. Much of the VAs innovative models of care delivery are due to the leadership and contributions of VA nurses, says David Shulkin, a Distinguished Health Policy Fellow at Penns Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics and a former secretary of veterans affairs. Its often their affiliation with leading academic centers like Penn that help to ensure the VA remains at the forefront of these innovations.

Ive often felt that the VA is the best place for advanced practice nurses, saysPatricia DAntonio, the Carol E. Ware Professor in Mental Health Nursing and director of the Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing. One of the best jobs she says she ever had was working with VA nurses to identify and help patients with compelling emotional or psychological needs. One patient, an outgoing, lovable former boxer, would sometimes lash out and punch someone when he got upset. The VA nurses developed a plan to appoint him an unofficial nursing assistant. He followed a nurse around, carried water, etc. He had a job to do, says DAntonio. With a new sense of purpose, he could control his anger. No more punching.

Ersek was similarly drawn to the VAs work. Being involved in the military, thats a big honor. Our mission as care providers is not about prestige, she says. We get to use rigorous research methods, but I like that we stop and say its not just an academic exercise; its about using these advanced analytic methods to improve care for veterans.

That sense of purpose goes a long way. I havent practiced clinically at the VA since 1992, says DAntonio, but I still describe myself as a VA nurse. Its part of my identity. Thats true for many among the ranks of Penn Nursing faculty, who work hand in hand with the nations largest integrated care system treating a unique patient population thats changing every day.

A longer version of this feature, by Louis Greenstein, originally ran in the Spring 2019 issue of the Penn Nursing Magazine.

More here:
Working hand in hand with the nation's largest integrated care system - Penn: Office of University Communications

Weight loss tips: Introspection is the first step on your weight loss journey. Read here to know how introspecting the duration and cause of weight gain and can help you lose weight in a healthy manner.

Tips for weight loss: Fat loss can be achieved by setting realistic goals for yourself

What is the first step towards weight loss and achieving good health? According to lifestyle coach Luke Coutinho, the first focus should be on fat loss achieved in a healthy way. Quick weight loss comes with several side effects like premature ageing of skin, weak immunity, thin, dry and dull hair to name a few. Thus, the first step towards fat loss and achieving good health is introspection-you should be aware of what you eat, the exercise you do and how it reflecting on your body and overall health.

When it comes to introspection, you need to ask yourself how long it took you to gain weight. Having figured out how long it took you to gain weight, ask yourself if you can lose that weight in a month, 6 months or 1 year?

For weight gain that happened over a period of 6 months or 1 year, losing that weight cannot happen in 1 or 2 months, says Luke in his live video session on Facebook.

Also read:Weight Management: 5 Practical Ways To Avoid Weight Gain

Setting a realistic target for yourself is the healthy way to lose weight, fat and gain good health. Setting unrealistic or too difficult to achieve targets for yourself can cause anxiety, frustration, disappointment and stress-which in turn can make you put on more weight.

After giving yourself realistic goals, you need to find out what made you put on that weight. It can be because of stress, overeating, partying too much, being sleep deprived, having high amounts of sugar or carbs, a new job that caused a change in lifestyle, being physically inactive or lack of exercise, etc. Doing this will make it easier for you to have an action plan for healthy and achievable weight loss.

A poor diet could be the reason behind your weight gainPhoto Credit: iStock

Work towards reducing or cutting down on the things that went wrong and caused you to gain weight.

The idea is to work on the causative factor of weight gain rather than only working on reducing weight.

Luke advises: Know your target and work only towards achieving that goal. There is no point in chasing a particular goal as it is only going to make you more anxious and gain weight instead.

Also read:Too Lazy To Workout During Winter? Do Not Compromise On Your Fitness Goals With These Weight Loss Tips

Sleep well to lose weight quickly and efficientlyPhoto Credit: iStock

The above steps, when followed with consistency, can together help you lose weight, fat and gain health. Let us know if this works for you.

Also read:7 Health Benefits Of Regular Exercise Other Than Weight Loss

(Luke Coutinho, Holistic Lifestyle Coach - Integrative Medicine)

Disclaimer: This content including advice provides generic information only. It is in no way a substitute for qualified medical opinion. Always consult a specialist or your own doctor for more information. NDTV does not claim responsibility for this information.

See the original post:
Weight Loss: This Is The First Step Towards Achieving Fat Loss And Good Health - Doctor NDTV

The Veterans Administration has traditionally been an incubator for innovations that improve quality of life not only for veterans but also for civilian populations around the worldideas like bar-coding machines, or the discovery that daily aspirin cuts the rate of heart attacks for certain patient populations. For many years and in a range of capacities, Penns School of Nursing has been a close VA collaborator.

In 2011,for example, in addition to her role at Penn, palliative care professor Mary Ersek became director of the Veteran Experience Center, a national quality-improvement initiative housed at Philadelphias Corporal Michael J. Crescenz VA Medical Center. Rosemary Polomano, Penn Nursings associate dean for practice and a professor of pain practice, helped change the standard pain scale employed by the VA.

There are many examples of this partnership, with innovative solutions aimed at the largest integrated health system in the U.S. and the top employer of nurse practitioners, according to the Veterans Health Administration. Along the way, the VA has also built systems for tracking outcomes, leading to a treasure trove of data.

Its a great time for evidence-based research and training, saysCoy Smith, associate director of patient care services and nurse executive at the Philadelphia VA, as well as assistant dean for clinical practice at Penn Nursing. A lot of this work is transferrable to non-VA patients.

Here, a look at the work made possible because of the Veterans Health Administration-Penn Nursing collaboration.

Evidence-based health care practices are interventions based on the best, latest scientific findings. Penn sleep and health behavior researcher Amy Sawyer is currently leading 15 evidence-based quality improvement projects at the Philadelphia VA, on subjects like preventing injury in surgical patients and secondary traumatic stress in health care providers.

Change, no matter how you look at it, is hard, Sawyer says. Its hard to accept, and its hard to convey to others that change needs to happen. But implementing it can have real results, like with a recent occupational health project that involved switching the type of tuberculosis testing the VA used for incoming employees.

Unlike the standard test, called purified protein derivative or PPD, a newer test called T-SPOT.TB does not require a follow-up visit after 48 to 72 hours. During a PPD shortage two years ago, VA clinicians put in place the T-SPOT.TB procedure and followed it for a year. The program has since rolled out across the entire VA system, leading to a 29% increase in employee compliance, a 40% drop in costs, and a 50% reduction in time to clear new hires.

We used to think of quality improvement and research as separate, Ersek says. But over the years weve gotten more sophisticated. We use research methods. We sort of mimic, statistically, a randomized control trial.

To that end, Ersek and her team use the Bereaved Family Survey (BFS) in their VA work. The BFS, developed through a VA-funded research project and now used throughout the system, asks respondents to evaluate quality of care at the end of life. Its mailed to the next of kin of every veteran who dies at a VA facility or in one of several VA home-based primary care programs. Facility-level scores are calculated quarterly and sent to each facility. The Veteran Experience Center also works directly with care teams to help them interpret their scores and develop strategies to improve care and outcomes.

For example, we might identify chronically low scores on an overall item, as well as those related to communication for a specific facility, Ersek says. Training in family conferences might then follow. We continue to monitor their BFS scores during and following the training to see whether it had an impact on outcomes, she adds.

The survey is a unique way to keep a pulse on the quality of care at the VA for veterans and families, saysAnn Kutney-Lee, an adjunct associate professor of nursing who studies the effects of nursing care organizations on patient outcomes. We ask about communication with providers, whether their preferences were met for treatment, she says. We ask about emotional and spiritual support. Did they get the amount of support they wanted? Did they see a chaplain if they wanted one?

Veteran demographics are shifting from those who served in World War II and the Korean War to those who served in Vietnam. This has implications for end-of-life care, as veterans from the Vietnam era are more likely to have been exposed to dangerous combat situations, says Kutney-Lee. Many veterans were fighting in jungles and mountains; there were hidden explosives planted, all with a near-constant threat of being ambushed, she says. The nature of the direct combat situations was very different.

The way society welcomed them home was different, too. World War II vets were hailed as heroes, enjoying national support. Vietnam vets experienced the opposite, says Kutney-Lee. Things were thrown at them when they got off the planes. Today, they are less willing to talk about their experiences, something that can resurface, emotionally, at the end of life.

Its something Kutney-Lee and colleagues are trying to understand to better prepare health care providers to treat these vets. They are seeing higher rates of anxiety and post-traumatic stress, as well as more chronic illnesses that correlate with chemicals such as 2,4,5-T, an ingredient in the herbicide Agent Orange, to which many soldiers in Vietnam were exposed. In an effort to be proactive, the VAs Hospice and Palliative Care Program Office and the Veteran Experience Center are using the BFS and other data to create educational programs aimed at helping providers meet this groups unique end-of-life needs. We want the vets and their families experience to be as peaceful as possible, Kutney-Lee says.

She is involved in another project with Ersek andMargo Brooks Carthon, another Penn Nursing researcher, to study racial and ethnic disparities in quality end-of-life care for vets. Some of their work has found that the next of kin of African American vets were 50% less likely than other groups to report that their loved ones received excellent care at the end of life. The researchers want to know why.

One clue: Members of racial and ethnic minorities tend to be more sensitive to changes in nurse-staffing levels. The researchers hypothesize that in facilities where staffing is better, nurses are better positioned to meet the complex care needs of patients, which may also apply at the end of life. They have the resources they need and the time to spend with their patients, says Kutney-Lee.

Pain management entails a complex matrix of mind and body, which makes having a standard scale on which to measure pain crucial.

Penn Nursings Rosemary Polomano specializes in managing acute pain following combat-related injuries. After learning that clinicians in 28 facilities who used the standard numeric pain rating scale (0-10) found it inadequate to help patients and health care providers communicate about pain-intensity levels, Polomano collaborated with leaders from the Defense and Veterans Center for Integrative Pain Management and others to develop the Defense and Veterans Pain Rating Scale (DVPRS).

The scale integrates word anchors (from no pain to as bad as it could be, nothing else matters) with color-coding and facial expressions to help patients rate their pain.

According to Polomano, DVPRS is now the official military pain scale, with the goal of being used in all Department of Defense health care facilities. Other health systems are free to use it too, Polomano says. It is in the public domain.

Polomano also teachesPain Science and Practice, a class open to students from Penn Nursing, Penn Dental, and Penns Perelman School of Medicine. This year, in partnership with the Uniformed Services University Graduate School of Nursing in Bethesda, Maryland, 30 active-duty military personnel from their nurse anesthesia program attended the class.

Nurses work at the heart of the changes in veterans care and, therefore, help to shape the future of American health care. Much of the VAs innovative models of care delivery are due to the leadership and contributions of VA nurses, says David Shulkin, a Distinguished Health Policy Fellow at Penns Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics and a former secretary of veterans affairs. Its often their affiliation with leading academic centers like Penn that help to ensure the VA remains at the forefront of these innovations.

Ive often felt that the VA is the best place for advanced practice nurses, saysPatricia DAntonio, the Carol E. Ware Professor in Mental Health Nursing and director of the Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing. One of the best jobs she says she ever had was working with VA nurses to identify and help patients with compelling emotional or psychological needs. One patient, an outgoing, lovable former boxer, would sometimes lash out and punch someone when he got upset. The VA nurses developed a plan to appoint him an unofficial nursing assistant. He followed a nurse around, carried water, etc. He had a job to do, says DAntonio. With a new sense of purpose, he could control his anger. No more punching.

Ersek was similarly drawn to the VAs work. Being involved in the military, thats a big honor. Our mission as care providers is not about prestige, she says. We get to use rigorous research methods, but I like that we stop and say its not just an academic exercise; its about using these advanced analytic methods to improve care for veterans.

That sense of purpose goes a long way. I havent practiced clinically at the VA since 1992, says DAntonio, but I still describe myself as a VA nurse. Its part of my identity. Thats true for many among the ranks of Penn Nursing faculty, who work hand in hand with the nations largest integrated care system treating a unique patient population thats changing every day.

A longer version of this feature, by Louis Greenstein, originally ran in the Spring 2019 issue of the Penn Nursing Magazine.

Read this article:
Working hand in hand with the nation's largest integrated care system | Penn Today - Penn: Office of University Communications

Recently, World Health Organisation (WHO) pledged support to the federal government to integrate traditional medicine into national healthcare, what is your take on this?That is hugely awesome and no doubt it is an encouragement for practitioners of traditional medicine that the days of more honour and recognition for our practice is here. As it is said, the future is here. With this kind of support from the global apex health body, it further goes to show that the world knows and confirms that indeed nature cures. Of course, this is not the first time we would be telling the masses that nature has cure for all that affects our body, but this kind of recognition speaks volume to the wide acceptability of our call. In no time, we would begin to see even medical doctors rallying around traditional medicine for integrative treatment for ailments just as we have seen in other climes where the practice of natural medicine has been more established and controlled. Even as natural therapies continues to bask in the glory of its richness and wellness as an efficient cure system, this kind of support at this time in our country is needed to harness all the potentials. We look forward to seeing in practice and learning of this healthcare system, which we believe will fight against incompetence and lack of best practice that ravages the traditional medicine.

What is the likely outcome of this synergy?If by this you mean the synergy the integration of traditional medicine into the healthcare system will birth, then one thing I would say is, let us look at the Chinese and the Indians. What did the synergy foster for them? A sustainable healthcare system, assured healthy living and a population living more hale and hearty. This is because with traditional medicine and implementation of best practice which is a function of structured learning, just as we have for the orthodox medicine, will not just treat the surface of ailments or treat the effects of diseases, rather traditional medicine will imbibe the very message of natural treatment therapies which is to treat the root cause of every diseases and create true cure for the body. As abundantly blessed as the Nigeria has been blessed with almost all kinds of herbal and other traditional medicine therapies, we are yet to harness this into both health wellness and economic growth. The reason for this being that there are a lot of quacks in the practice of traditional medicines.

But with a synergy like this, it will bring forth more standard which will enable us to sieve the shaft away from the substance, making the business of health primarily based not on making money but that of saving lives and empathising with those with ailments of different kinds. Lastly, with a synergy like this, we would find standards in our traditional healthcare management system just as I saw in my recent travel to Malaysia for an International Course on Neuroacupuncture and Non Invasive Pain and Paralysis Management.

How do you think traditional medicine can fit into healthcare?Traditional medicine, which is primarily about utilising nature in the process of administering cure, is synonymous to effective healthcare just as life is synonymous to living. Any healthcare system that is yet to embrace traditional medicine as a mode of treatment is not only lagging behind, it is almost nonexistent because the very basis upon which living is formed, that is nature, has been neglected. I remembered when I was learning at the Indian Board of Alternative Medicine where I first bagged my Doctor of Natural Medicine after having graduated from University of Ilorin as a first degree holder in Biochemistry, my learning made it clear that even the synthetic drugs used in curing humans has a greater element of natural cure in it. Why then would someone not want to go to natural cure through expert guidance and make-up to cure that which affects the body.

You have had success in treating patients with chronic and severe pain within few minutes, what can you say about this?We as doctors are only applying treatment protocols with best practice, we cannot totally lay claims to our knowledge and practice as the basis for the success. God Almighty cures and no doubt about that. But then as humanly possible, yes, it is true that I am having success in treating chronic pain related ailments such as sciatica, paralysis patients and so on and within minutes, my patient experience instant relief from pains they have suffered in years. In fact, my teacher that taught me this treatment system would treat over 200 patients in a day when I was learning with him. These are patients with different chronic pain and paralysis related health issues. So, the treatment methodology I employed is Non-Invasive Neuroacupuncture which I learnt during my last learning tour to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. One thing I am passionate about is to continue to research and learn the best and less troubling ways to bring smile to the faces of my patients. This is why aside from putting a lot of efforts into research; I have interest in continuous learning which has made me travel to Colombo, Sri-Lanka where I bagged my Doctor of Medicine in Acupuncture. Still, I am not stopping. My aim is also to bridge calibre in Traditional African and Chinese Medicine to give pristine admiration to natural healing.

How does neuro acupuncture work? Arent there side effects of this therapy?No. Neuroacupuncture is a very good treatment procedure with no known side effects. This treatment is based on knowledge of traditional acupuncture and neurology. It is done by inserting acupuncture needles into loose areolar tissue layer of the scalp to stimulate the brain neurons of the underlying area. Since the skull protects the brain and there are no organs in the scalp to injure it is a very safe treatment. Its a non-invasive procedure and works by stimulating the brain cells that are related to the impaired functions. The mechanism is three-fold: to wake-up the brain cells that are not dead but lacking in proper functioning, to encourage the recruitment of healthy brain cells to perform the lost function and to promote a healthy reintegration of the brain system. It does not only treats pains but also paralysis, Parkinsons Disease, multiple sclerosis, traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injury, motor neuron diseases, Alzheimers disease, restless leg syndrome and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and other neurological issues. Scalp acupuncture can help regain speech in all kinds of Aphasia: expressive, receptive, anomic or global. The speed and amount of recovery vary with the individual and the severity of damage but progress is usually readily seen within few minutes of treatment.

You treat people with cancer and other chronic diseases, is it only acupuncture that you are using or there is another treatment method you are adopting?First thing I will say here to clarify the misconceptions that there are some incurable diseases is that which I have said in past interviews. I as a person do not believe there are incurable diseases, but I know for sure that there may be incurable cases. So this has influenced my belief and interest in always researching on how we can improve on treatment because people are out there in pains and need healing. Why then would we not as practitioners continue to make research on how to improve the wellness of the people. So going back to the question, no, it is not Acupuncture alone that we use as the treatment protocol. We utilise a system called integrative system that allows us to use different therapies in treating our cancer patients. But then Acupuncture is an integral part of that protocol because it helps us manage pain for our cancer patients. We integrate different therapies in order to achieve success as early as possible. Our local herbs and spices play major role in treating these conditions, also, massage, diet and nutrition therapies. I combine as many therapies as possible. For cancer, up-to seven therapies will be combined depending on the type of cancer. I hold that not any therapy is self-sufficient. Every therapy has its own limitations. Combining them will bring meaningful results and may lead to cure in maturation of time.

Visit to your centre shows some children affected by Autism recovering fast, how do you manage to achieve this?Yes, we have really worked on autism and sincerely I would say that we can assist autistic children get better. We have been successful in about three cases and many more successes are approaching by Gods grace. The major treatment methods are herbalism and neuro acupuncture. Also, administration of Camels milk, black seed and natural honey have really been effective in alleviating the symptoms associated with autistic especially speech difficulty and walking. We appeal that the WHO and FG continue looking into traditional medicine. No doubt, there is a need for integrative medicine in order to achieve better results.

You have treated many HIV patients, but not many are too keen to face the media due to the stigma attached to it, what are you doing differently?Should I say its not curable so that I wont get held? Well, let me simply say the truth. There is no diseases that isnt curable if given integrative natural approach and enough treatment durations. HIV is one of the easiest diseases to treat but unfortunately many still believe its cure is just a claim. There are natural herbs and spices that get rid of this virus in the body within few months, no doubt. Some of what I use are garlic, Indian costus and black seed. They are very potent and give good result if taken for many months. How to prepare, required dose and dosages for different individuals is key and thats where I come in.

More:
Medical doctors will soon rally traditional medicine for integrative treatment of ailments - Guardian

By: Jill Fox

After desk jobs continuously left him with back and neck issues, Dr. Jonathan Fields, an acupuncture physician and doctor of oriental medicine in Coral Springs, changed careers 15 years ago.

Fields spent too much time sitting at the computer, working on digital media, web design, and social media marketing, leading him to the field.

Now, in practice at Integrative Medicine US, his goal is to help others suffering from health issues like he experienced, achieve a new way of life through Chinese medicine.

I knew I needed to make a lifestyle change, said Fields, who has made it a family affair. His wife, Lauren, is an acupuncturist, and they are expecting their first child in December.

At Integrative Medicine US, the staff considers everything about an individuals physical, mental, and emotional health when making a holistic plan. Now, they are holding a free community-wide event to educate the public on alternative ways to get active and be healthy.

The Second Annual Integrative Health Expo, open to all ages, and residents in Tamarac. It will take place at the Coral Springs Gymnasium on Saturday, November 16, and Sunday, November 17, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and it is FREE to the public.

The mission of the expo is to use an integrative health approach as a method of engaging the community and promoting a combination of preventative, holistic, and conventional medicine as a way to achieve optimal health.

People have their medications and their doctors, but when thats not working, we want to give them options to try different things, said Fields.

Once held in Coconut Creek, the event was changed to Coral Springs to make it entirely free for everyone.

At the expo, various fitness classes will be taking place for people to try and to get exposed to a variety of things that could be beneficial.

The Health Expo in Coral Springs will include free health screenings, blood pressure check-ups, and vendor booths with local health providers of all different specialties. Participants will be able to learn about and try acupuncture, massage, chiropractic reflexology, cupping, herbal teas, qi gong, tai chi, yoga classes, boot camp fitness, nutritional counseling, CBD, and healthy food and drinks.

The goal is to promote general health, wellness, and preventative medicine through lifestyle changes, including fitness, diet, nutrition, and social habits.

Not everybody wants to do yoga or CrossFit, but maybe taking a walk every day is good for them, said Fields.

Attendees can also observe the Legacy Kung Fu Tournament, an international kung fu exhibition featuring hundreds of competitors from all over the country.

Fields said a big part of Chinese medicine comes from kung fu. One of his kung fu teachers, also an acupuncturist, introduced him to Chinese medicine, which is thought to be holistic mind, body, and spirit, with the first part being diet and exercise.

There is no separation between the Chinese martial arts and Chinese medicine, said Fields. It was something he wanted to incorporate, and he wanted it to provide some entertainment for the people coming to the expo.

In addition to kung fu, attendees can learn about tai chi and qi gong, gentle movements that anyone at any age can do with benefits they wont get from other exercises. And, they can be done at home, with no need to join a gym or buy a special outfit.

Fields said this is what has kept some civilizations living long, healthy ages with a good quality of life, without medicines or being overweight.

By making the expo free and open to everyone, he hopes people will come out and look to see if there is something that possibly could benefit them.

There will also be onsite entertainment for children and families, like lion dance, drumming, calligraphy, art, games and stationary surfboards.

We see anxiety in younger kids, with some being put on medications. But if theyre taught how to breathe, meditate, and do some of these mindfulness practices from a young age, I think well have a little less of that, said Fields.

What hes most looking forward to is being able to educate people on what Integrative Medicine US does and why its is so beneficial.

The best part for me is to be able to help people who are having trouble and not getting the results they need with traditional, conventional medicine, he said.

The Coral Springs Gymnasium is located at 2501 Coral Springs Drive.

For more information and to view the schedule of events, go to integrativemedicine.us/health-expo. For more information about the kung fu tournament, visit lostlegacysystems.com/kung-fu-tournament.

Read this article:
Free Integrative Health Expo Focuses on Holistic Wellness - Tamarac Talk

STATEN ISLAND -- With as many as 5,000 problem gamblers around the Island, the Gamblers Treatment Program at Richmond University Medical Center officially expanded to a new headquarters Friday.

Local elected officials, doctors from RUMC and representatives from the state and city cut the ribbon at the programs new headquarters at RUMCs Center for Integrative Behavioral Medicine at 1130 South Ave. in Bloomfield.

One of our main purposes was to bring this program and this type of program closer to the community and take it out from behind the black wall, from behind closed doors and make sure that those folks who are suffering from this addiction and other addictions and other behavioral health disorders do not feel embarrassed, said Rosemarie Stazzone, RUMCs chief operating officer and chief nursing officer.

RUMCs problem gamblers program launched in 1982 as one of three outpatient gambling programs in the state and currently serves as one of the only programs of its kind in New York City.

As gambling becomes more accessible over the Internet and on cell phones, officials said gambling is targeting the Islands youth in particular.

The accessibility to all forms of gambling has increased with the Internet, with legislative changes, with casinos, and gambling and the close proximity to Atlantic City, its certainly a great temptation for problem gamblers to continue their addiction or regress from breaking away from their addiction," said Dr. Daniel Messina, RUMCs president and CEO.

Messina said of the 5,000 gamblers around the Island, many of them are not enrolled in any kind of treatment program.

Dr. Joel Idowu, who chairs RUMCs Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health, said gambling is an up and coming epidemic in the field of psychiatry and mental health and affects more men than women.

FOLLOW SYDNEY KASHIWAGI ON TWITTER.

Originally posted here:
RUMC expands its gambling treatment center to new Bloomfield headquarters - SILive.com

The Cottage Sexual Assault Center & Children's Advocacy Center is hosting today its sixth annual Unplugged for the Cottage fundraiser.

The Cottage educates to prevent sexual violence and child sexual abuse and provides in-house therapy to those who have survived it. They help survivors pay for referrals to other therapeutic resources when it is necessary.

The Cottage Sexual Assault Center & Children's Advocacy Center hopes that Unplugged for the Cottage will raise awareness about their cause and $10,000 to provide therapy to children and adults who have survived sexual abuse and assault.

It began as a music event for local musicians to show their support for our mission, said Sally Kimel-Sheppard, the executive director of The Cottage Sexual Assault Center & Children's Advocacy Center. We had a board member who knows a good bit of the local musicians here and she thought it would be a great idea for us to have a gathering where musicians who support the cause could come together and play acoustically.

This year, Caroline Aiken, Athens Tiny Jazz Arkestra, Betsy Franck and Diet Dangfly will perform. Kimel-Shepard says that the music is her favorite part because it is uplifting.

Mama's Boy, Ike & Jane, Sweetie Pie by Savie and several others will provide food for the event. Lori Karr will be recognized for working with The Cottage for 10 years.

There will be a silent auction, a donate-to-win and a cork pull. Most of the prizes for all of the activities are from local businesses because The Cottage wanted to make this event about the community.

Its a local event celebrating our communitys support of child abuse and sexual assault intervention that is done by the cottage, said Kimel-Sheppard.

Guests can donate for a chance to win a handmade wine rack, a Sarah Cook Painting or a pet portrait by Rebecca Pearson. The cost is $10 for one chance to win or three chances for $25.

In the silent auction, guests can bid on Art by David Hale, rounds of golf at the University of Georgia Golf Course and Athens Country Club, a basket from Thrive Integrative Medicine, a basket from Jittery Joes and more. Those who are not interested in those prizes can participate in the cork pull and try to win wine and spirits.

Winners of the silent auction and donate-to-win will be chosen the night of the event.

Unplugged for the Cottage will take place at Little Kings Shuffle Club from 6-9 p.m. Tickets are $25 and can be bought at the door or at northgeorgiacottage.org.

Read the original:
Unplugged fundraiser benefits The Cottage - Bluffton Today

While most people in developed nations may not think much about dietary iron, almost a quarter of the global population lacks this essential nutrient.

Iron plays a critical role in providing oxygen to the bodys cells. Too little iron can lead to iron deficiency anemia and symptoms such as fatigue, heart palpitations and shortness of breath. Too much can lead to iron overload and a disease called hemochromatosis, which can cause heart failure.

Michigan Medicine researchers have unlocked a mechanism behind how the body decides whether or not to absorb iron from the food--one that involves the trillions of bacteria in our guts known as the gut microbiome.

If you have a low-iron diet, the body absorbs more of it in an adaptive mechanism to get enough, says Nupur Das, Ph.D., a research investigator in the Department of Molecular and Integrative Physiology. Our gut microbiomes are also dependent on iron. Different microbes have different iron needs to survive.

He along with Yatrik Shah, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Internal Medicine and Molecular and Integrative Physiology, and their research team have shown that the bacteria in the gut actively compete with the human body for iron from the diet. They describe their work in a new paper in Cell Metabolism.

MORE FROM THE LAB: Subscribe to our weekly newsletter

Using mice, they found that certain bacteria in the gut produce metabolites that inhibit the transcription factor HIF-2 in the intestine. By doing so, the gut bacteria block iron absorption by the body.

During a pilot experiment, we found that germ-free mice [mice specially bred to have no bacteria anywhere in their systems] were resistant to anemia, says Shah, senior author on the paper. The easiest explanation is that youve gotten rid of a trillion bacteria and they no longer need iron. But interestingly, we saw that the iron absorptive mechanisms were all highly upregulated in the absence of microbiota.

In other words, without the gut bacteria there to dial back iron absorption, the bodys systems for taking iron in were turned all the way up. To confirm this observation, the group administered antibiotics to normal mice. They found that mice treated with antibiotics also saw an increase in iron absorption. Further, germ-free mice that had gut bacteria transplanted into their systems had reduced iron levels.

What these intriguing findings suggest is an unconventional treatment for iron-related disorders. In an anemic patient, you could help by getting rid of the gut microbiota. Conversely, reintroducing the microbial metabolites that inhibited the absorptive system would reduce iron absorption in patients that have iron overload disorders, says Shah.

Das and Shah note that the antibiotics are inexpensive, readily available and could hold promise for the more than 1.5 billion people globally with iron-deficiency anemia. In the anemic scenario, some places of the world cant afford food with enough iron. These findings suggest we can still improve anemia even when faced with a low iron diet, says Das.

LISTEN UP: Add the newMichigan Medicine News Breakto your Alexa-enabled device, orsubscribe to our daily updates oniTunes,Google PlayandStitcher.

Furthermore, they note that there are gut specific antibiotics, reducing the risk of antibiotic resistance and can be administered to lower but not completely eliminate beneficial gut microbiota.

Says Shah, We feel that decreasing the microbialburden for a short time would outweigh some of the consequences as anemia, especially in developingnations, can be quite crippling for individuals.

Paper Cited: Yatrik M. Shah et al. "Microbial metabolite signaling is required for systemic iron homeostasis", Cell Metabolism. DOI:10.1016/j.cmet.2019.10.005

More here:
Gut Microbiome Puts the Brakes on Iron Absorption - Michigan Medicine