Articles posted on Dec 21, 2011

By Li Zheng, Ph.D., Lic. Acu.
 
 
In a 2011 Journal of Endocrinology Investigation, Dr. Jiang YL, et. al used a single abdominal injection of a chemical called streptozotocin (STZ) to induce high blood sugar in rats. Rats were randomly divided into six groups: control, diabetes, preventive acupuncture plus streptozotocin injection, STZ injection plus therapeutic acupuncture, streptozotocin injection plus preventive and therapeutic acupuncture, and preventive and therapeutic acupuncture control. Body weight, blood glucose, serum insulin, lipid peroxidation, and antioxidant enzymes were measured by routine standard methods. Histological analysis of pancreatic islets was conducted. Their results showed preventive acupuncture significantly reduced blood sugar ...

There are several possible bases for the increasing prevalence of ovarian cysts:
1. High insulin levels due to high sugar intake: Many doctors including Dr. Steven Hotze and Dr. Carolyn Dean suggest a connection between obesity coupled with high sugar intake and polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS). The term Syndrome X indicates a group of symptoms including hypertension, obesity, high cholesterol, elevated triglyceride, and elevated uric acid, a chemical causing severe joint pain and kidney stones. High sugar intake can trigger insulin secretion, and the high insulin level shuts down the body’s ability to burn fat, thus moving the sugar into fat cells. Furthermore, high insulin interrupts the balance between estrogen and progesterone, causing many cysts formed in ovaries.
2. Birth ...

There are several possible bases for the increasing prevalence of ovarian cysts:


High insulin levels due to high sugar intake: Many doctors including Dr. Steven Hotze and Dr. Carolyn Dean suggest a connection between obesity coupled with high sugar intake and polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS). The term Syndrome X indicates a group of symptoms including hypertension, obesity, high cholesterol, elevated triglyceride, and elevated uric acid, a chemical causing severe joint pain and kidney stones. High sugar intake can trigger insulin secretion, and the high insulin level shuts down the body’s ability to burn fat, thus moving the sugar into fat cells. Furthermore, high insulin interrupts the balance between estrogen and progesterone, causing many cysts formed ...

Q. Wei et al.’s research on obese rats found that tryptophan and serotonin levels were decreased in certain areas of the brains in the obese group as compared to the control. Acupuncture could produce weight reduction by optimizing the serotonin (5-HT) level. Serotonin not only makes people relax and feel good, but also enhances intestinal motility to help discharge toxic materials that could produce food stagnation and internal heat. Internal heat, from a Chinese medical perspective, leads to increased appetite and more craving for food. In Western medicine, if food cannot be properly absorbed and converted into blood sugar to provide energy, it will be stored instead as fat in the body. Then, the person feels hungry all the time and must eat constantly to ...

Hormones and the autonomic nervous system have to be balanced in order to initiate and maintain sleep. Many studies have shown that acupuncture treatments can help maintain the balance of biological chemicals in the central nervous system and promote the recovery of homeostasis.
 


Acupuncture can help your body produce more melatonin:


In an article published in the Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience, Spence et al. explored the relationship between melatonin and acupuncture treatments. They observed a significant increase in endogenous melatonin secretion in all of the 18 patients suffering from severe insomnia who were given acupuncture treatments twice a week for 5 weeks. Records of electrical and muscular states during the entire sleeping time ...

Depression is an illness involving the mind and the body and that because it affects how one feels, thinks, and behaves, depression can lead to a variety of emotional and physical problems such as sadness, irritability or frustration, reduced sexual drive, insomnia or excessive sleeping, changes in appetite, agitation or restlessness, slowed thinking, indecisiveness, distractibility, fatigue, and loss of energy. So many symptoms for a single illness.
 
Depression affects 26.2 % of all Americans, which means that when you board a bus to work in the morning, one in every four passengers is clinically depressed. It is a hidden illness that often goes undiagnosed and untreated because we can easily blame its symptoms on something else. Thus, we spend a lifetime convincing ourselves ...

When our bodies are exposed to different stresses physically or mentally, they first increase the cortisol level to cope with the stress. If the condition continues for a long time, the cortisol level starts to drop. When the cortisol level is low, the body has a tendency to develop inflammation in different kinds of tissues. If this happens in joints, it will cause rheumatoid arthritis; if it happens in the nervous system, it will cause multiple sclerosis, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), or neuropathy; if it happens in blood vessels, it will cause vasculitis, migraines, or cardiovascular disease; if it happens in the bladder’s connective tissues, it will cause interstitial cystitis of the urinary bladder; and if it happens in intestinal tissues, it will cause irritable bowel ...

Q. Wei et al.'s research on obese rats found that tryptophan and serotonin levels were decreased in certain areas of the brains in the obese group as compared to the control. Acupuncture could produce weight reduction by optimizing the serotonin (5-HT) level. Serotonin not only makes people relax and feel good, but also enhances intestinal motility to help discharge toxic materials that could produce food stagnation and internal heat. Internal heat, from a Chinese medical perspective, leads to increased appetite and more craving for food. In Western medicine, if food cannot be properly absorbed and converted into blood sugar to provide energy, it will be stored instead as fat in the body. Then, the person feels hungry all the time and must eat constantly to maintain his or her blood ...

When our bodies are exposed to different stresses physically or mentally, they first increase the cortisol level to cope with the stress. If the condition continues for a long time, the cortisol level starts to drop. When the cortisol level is low, the body has a tendency to develop inflammation in different kinds of tissues. If this happens in joints, it will cause rheumatoid arthritis; if it happens in the nervous system, it will cause multiple sclerosis, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), or neuropathy; if it happens in blood vessels, it will cause vasculitis, migraines, or cardiovascular disease; if it happens in the bladder’s connective tissues, it will cause interstitial cystitis of the urinary bladder; and if it happens in intestinal tissues, it will cause irritable bowel ...

Women have since antiquity pursued matters of their beauty with unrelenting passion. In fact, some well-up ladies are known to spend a fortune every month purchasing cosmetics and going for facials in top-notch salons. Getting the best beauty products and services of the best salons has kind-of been a preserve of well-heeled women. One question that still lingers is what happens to the rest who cannot afford such luxuries. Well, your guess is just about right if you have thought about the thousands of women who go through untold suffering every year after using cheap cosmetics bought from dubious online dealers.
 
The notion that the best beauty products should be expensive is what compels the many women who have limited incomes not to think beyond the horizon. ...