A new study reveals the link between loneliness, cravings for high-calorie foods, and unhealthy eating behaviours in women, highlighting a significant brain activity pattern associated with social isolation. The research found that women feeling lonely show increased brain activation in areas related to cravings when exposed to images of sugary foods, alongside decreased self-control towards eating.

These findings underscore the complex interplay between loneliness, mental health, and eating habits, suggesting that recognizing and addressing feelings of loneliness could be key to breaking the cycle of poor diet and mental health outcomes. The study emphasizes the need for holistic interventions focusing on social connections and healthier food choices to mitigate the negative impacts of loneliness on well-being.

https://neurosciencenews.com/loneliness-food-cravings-25859/
#loneliness #obesity #diet #mentalhealth #weightloss

Loneliness, Food Cravings, and the Brain - Neuroscience News

A new study reveals the link between loneliness, cravings for high-calorie foods, and unhealthy eating behaviors in women, highlighting a significant brain activity pattern associated with social isolation.

Acupuncture for Combat-Related Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: A Randomized Clinical Trial
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/article-abstract/2814938?resultClick=1

#acupuncture #ptsd #combatrelated #stress #jama

Acupuncture for Combat-Related Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

This randomized clinical trial assesses the effectiveness of verum vs sham acupuncture in reducing severity of symptoms in combat-related posttraumatic stress disorder.

One of the excellent talks from the Pregnancy summit is "From Womb to World, the Journey that Shapes our Life" by Anna Verwaal. Verwaal has explored how a mother's own birth influences how she will give birth herself, among other aspects of natural birthing vs modern birthing practices.
Highly recommended.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpNGiiteXFU
#birth #natural

The prenatal wellness summit is an event with many speakers on pregnancy and childbirth.
Among the topis are:
- How your Pregnancy Journey can shape your baby’s life
- Practical workshops
- How to Parent your Baby Before Birth
- Prenatal Origins of Long Term Health
- Labor and Birth
- Breastfeeding and Postpartum
- Prenatal Memories
- Mother and Baby’s spiritual journey
- Social impact of a Happy Pregnancy

The free option already has many recorded seminars. For $35 you can get a "VIP Pass", allowing access to even more recorded seminars, on:

• Physical Health
• Emotional Health
• Spiritual and Social Health and more.

https://prenatalwellnesssummit.mailerpage.io/

The special issue of Chinese Medicine and Culture, volume 7, discusses the global cross-cultural integration of TCM in the mainstream healthcare, medical education and the practice of medicine. It describes how TCM was established in the west, how schools were formed, how regulation was put together, and what is the future of the profession. With interviews of some of the key pioneers in the field, Ted Kaptchuk, Peter Deadman, Will Morris, Nigel Wiseman, Peter Eckman, John McDonald , Judy James, Felicity Moir, Edward Neal, and Mel Hopper Koppelman. You can access the journal through this link: https://journals.lww.com/CMC/pages/default.aspx
Ioannis Solos was kind enough to also uploaded the pdf of the entire issue on Google Drive: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fT4BSSEJ5uH8wqeWbry38NoLz2lo4nFJ/view
#tcm #china #healthcare

How the mid-Victorians worked, ate and died
Analysis of the mid-Victorian period in the U.K. reveals that life expectancy at age 5 was as good or better than exists today, and the incidence of degenerative disease was 10% of ours.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2672390/
#health #food #exercise

How the Mid-Victorians Worked, Ate and Died

Analysis of the mid-Victorian period in the U.K. reveals that life expectancy at age 5 was as good or better than exists today, and the incidence of degenerative disease was 10% of ours. Their levels of physical activity and hence calorific...

"Dry needling" or "Trigger point needling" do not seem to have a scientific basis, contrary to real traditional acupuncture, which has a huge evidence base:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/trigger-point-myth-who-claimed-confidently-accurately-brook-cheng-xb1oc/
#acupuncture #dryneedling #triggerpoints #science #evidence

Trigger Point Myth: Who Claimed Confidently They Ever Accurately Identified One? None, Except God

Dr Brian Hortz, PhD, is an instructor and the director of Research and Education for Structure & Function Education on sports medicine. He talked about the controversy over the myofascial trigger points (TrPs) and dry needling (Horz, B, 2022).

Blood letting and cupping most effective for migraines
Initial findings indicate that acupuncture-related therapy exhibits superior effectiveness in the treatment of migraine and clinical decision-making should be patient-specific.
https://www.acupuncturetimes.com/blood-letting-and-cupping-most-effective-for-migraines/
#migraine #acupuncture

Blood letting and cupping most effective for migraines

Objective: Migraine is a common neurological disorder, which resulting in significant societal and personal burdens. Acupuncture has attracted widespread attention in migraine prophylaxis and treatment in recent years. Although some studies have...

https://worldcouncilforhealth.org/

World Council for Health | There's A Better Way

We believe in a better way forward for world health.

Bijna 70 jaar geleden in de Panorama een mooi verhaal over acupunctuur.

Acupuncture helps diabetic wound healing
https://www.acupuncturetimes.com/acupuncture-helps-diabetic-wound-healing/
#acupuncture #wound #diabetic #healing

Acupuncture helps diabetic wound healing

Background: Globally, diabetes mellitus (DM) and peripheral artery disease (PAD) have an increasing incidence and a high prevalence and are both associated with high morbidity and complication rates, e.g., as chronic non-healing peripheral ulcers....

I have thought quite a bit about what should become of this institute that we call "healthcare". Is it a monumental grand project, one of mankind's greatest achievements, like the pyramids? In countries where modern healthcare is not available, there is much suffering that may have been prevented.
On the other hand, modern medicine is one of the top causes of death in developed countries, and that doesn't seem to get much better, and it is enormously expensive too, among the biggest items on a nation's budget, increasing very rapidly, again with no end in sight.
There is no natural limit to what could be spend on healthcare: no matter how much is spend, still people will die, still some people will not receive the help we would want them to get. And sadly, no developed country has yet really succeeded in integrating the best forms of medicine, which I consider acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine to be, into the national healthcare system, even though some tantalising efforts have been made.

Who decides what should be the scope? What should be included and what not? What can it cost, and who shall pay?

Is, in the end, the public healthcare system a right, or a privilege?
Thomas Buckley offers a different paradigm through which to view healthcare: healthcare as an evolutionary advantage. I found his essay very interesting.
https://brownstone.org/articles/health-care-right-privilege-or-neither/

Health Care: Right, Privilege, or Neither? ⋆ Brownstone Institute

Much of the current debate surrounding health care – putting aside momentarily the catastrophic failure of the public health system during the pandemic – is whether or not it is a “right” or a “privilege.”

Chinese secret writing for women only

From Igor Simonov:
Nüshu (女书 nǚshū) is practically the only written language in the world intended for women to communicate exclusively with each other. Presumably, it appeared in the 11th century, but became known to wide circles only at the end of the 20th century. Secret writing texts were also embroidered on clothes and fans. Unfortunately, elderly women often asked that the manuscripts be burned or buried with them, so a huge part of the works has not survived to this day. EKD talks about the language that united the women of a small county and frightened the Japanese invaders.
The exact origin of writing is still unknown. According to one legend, nüshu was created by concubine Hu Yuxiu (胡玉秀 Hú Yùxiù) in the period 1086-1100 to tell her family about her sufferings and misfortunes. The girl did not enjoy the favor of the Chinese emperor and, with the help of secret messages, asked her parents never to send their daughters to the palace. The official version says that Nyu Shu was created in Jiangyong County, Hunan Province, and was mainly used by peasant women who did not speak literacy or traditional Chinese writing. In imperial China, only girls of the upper classes living in large and wealthy areas of the country could learn to read and write. Rural girls had no access to education, and all their education boiled down mainly to the need to be submissive and obedient to their husbands. As Lü Kun (呂坤 Lǚ Kūn), a writer and thinker of the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644), said, “Today, few teach their daughters to read and write for fear that they may become too ambitious.” Therefore, Nyuishu became the only form of written communication for girls.
https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20200930-nshu-chinas-secret-female-only-language

Nüshu: China’s secret female-only language

Throughout history, women in rural Hunan Province used a coded script to express their most intimate thoughts to one another. Today, this once-“dead” language is making a comeback.

Acupuncture treatment for Hashimoto's thyroiditis: An exploratory randomized controlled trial
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10899034/
#acupuncture #hashimoto #thyroiditis #thyroid #tcm

Acupuncture treatment for Hashimoto's thyroiditis: An exploratory randomized controlled trial

Hashimoto's thyroiditis (HT) has a high incidence rate and unresolved clinical symptoms. Although Hand Yangming Meridian Penetrating Acupuncture has been used to treat thyroid diseases in China, there is no randomized controlled trial (RCT) on...

https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2024/03/09/elderly-african-penguin-flourishing-after-acupuncture-treatments
#acupuncture #penguins

Elderly African penguin flourishing after acupuncture treatments

“Peeko” the penguin may only be 30, but she's tripled her life expectancy for her species—and living that long usually comes with a bad back.

#acupuncture works for #chemotherapy induced peripheral #neuropathy (#CIPN)

#acupuncture Tops #sham for Easing #ptsd in Combat #veterans — Large #treatment effect observed for clinical and biological measures of combat-related PTSD

There was also a significant pretreatment to post-treatment reduction in fear-conditioned extinction, which was assessed by a fear-potentiated startle response -- a sudden blast of air paired with a certain image, such as a blue box -- in the group receiving verum acupuncture versus the sham group, and a significant correlation (r=0.31) between symptom reduction and fear extinction.

https://www.medpagetoday.com/psychiatry/anxietystress/108851
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/article-abstract/2814938

Acupuncture Tops Sham for Easing PTSD in Combat Veterans

Large treatment effect observed for clinical and biological measures of combat-related PTSD

#Acupuncture is one of the most #Evidencebased therapies known in modern #medicine.
compiled by John McDonald