Acupuncture can do wonders for pain – both acute and chronic. It both eases the pain and helps you bring greater awareness to your body as a whole entity. Your acupuncturist can’t be there in the middle of the night, however, or at your desk at work, or at your dinner table. This approach has helped many people deal with pain in a healthy way, no pills required! Continue reading
Acupuncture reduces protein linked to stress in first of its kind animal study. More news on the possible mechanisms of acupuncture! A researcher at Georgetown University Medical Center has found molecular evidence of acupuncture’s ability to reduce stress by lowering … Continue reading
Are you falling asleep easily? Are you staying asleep? Do you have dreams that wake you up? Do you feel refreshed in the morning? Acupuncturists will always ask you about your sleep because it gives us insight into your body’s … Continue reading
When you go to an acupuncturist, they will inevitably ask you if you have any food cravings. The idea is not to shame you or find out about your “guilty pleasures”. In Chinese medicine, the nature of your cravings is diagnostic – it helps us understand where your imbalances are. Continue reading
Since we’ve all just recovered from the Thanksgiving Turkey, only to gear up for the Christmas Goose/Chanukah brisket, I thought I’d share this very important book with you. The China Study tells the story of T. Colin Campbell, PhD, a … Continue reading
Traditional Chinese Medicine is often used to address various menstrual and reproductive issues, such as PMS, painful periods, irregular periods, excessive bleeding, PCOS, and a host of other issues. A lot of people have heard that TCM can improve fertility in … Continue reading
Researchers from University of Alberta have published a study in the journal Pediatrics that looks at data from around the world, collected over a span of 60 years. They find that acupuncture is safe for children, concluding that most of … Continue reading
If you know anyone who has battled lung cancer, you know that one of the biggest obstacles to survival is the fact that people are often diagnosed in later stages of the cancer. One reason for this trend is that … Continue reading
How does acupuncture work? Yes, acupuncture needles manipulate qi flowing in meridians to balance the body, but what does that mean in our modern physiological understanding of the body? This is a question that the scientific community has not been … Continue reading
OMG, my acupuncturist says I have Liver Qi Stagnation!!??! OK, relax, it’s nothing to go running to your MD about. People hear this from acupuncturists all the time. Liver Qi stagnation is really TCM’s way of talking about the presence of stress in the body. Continue reading
Now that you understand Liver Qi stagnation a little better, let’s talk about what you can do about it. Unfortunately, in our society, we have a lot of unhealthy ways to deal with stress, but dealing with stress in a … Continue reading
The largest study to date on the relationship of stroke to red meat consumption suggests higher intake of processed meat, but not fresh red meat, is associated with an increased risk for stroke. Continue reading
FYI, The Atlantic Magazine just published a very good article discussing the trend towards integrative medicine in the US.
This is a video about a scientific review done by Duke University in 2009. Scientific reviews take a lot of different studies on the same topic and systematically compare them, pulling the data together when possible to get larger sample … Continue reading
Organic food is all the rage, and with good reason, but many people still feel they can’t afford the higher price tag that comes with the organic label. If you want to buy organic food, but can’t seem to work it into your budget, here’s a few things to help you prioritize your choices:
1. Choose organic meat and dairy. I know this sounds counter-intuitive, and ideally, you’re eating more vegetables and fruits daily than meat or dairy. While pesticides are actually sprayed directly onto vegetables and fruits, meat and dairy animals are higher on the food chain. So while you can still wash your vegetables and peel many of your fruits, animals that have eaten large amounts of feed with pesticides have concentrated those toxins, often in their fat cells. Combine those toxins with the well-documented health effects of animal-based proteins, and you have a recipe for poor health. Animals raised in an organic manner will also have been fed a more balanced diet, which will reduce the inflammatory properties of their meat significantly, and lessen the negative effects on your long-term health.
2. Some fruits and vegetables are more pesticide-laden than others. Some foods require more pesticides when they’re grown conventionally and others don’t need as much. The Environmental Working Group puts out a Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce that you can download and keep in your wallet to reference when you’re at the grocery store. It can help you decide which produce is the most important to buy organic.
According to EWG’s guide, the most important fruits/veggies to buy organic are apples, peaches, strawberries, nectarines, grapes, and blueberries, celery, spinach, bell peppers, kale, collards, and potatoes.
3. Join a CSA. Community Supported Agriculture initiatives have become much more common across the country. Depending on the farm, they can be a cheaper way to get organic produce regularly, and sometimes they also provide eggs or dairy. Local Harvest has a great directory to help you find a CSA or farm in your area.
Integrating Health 