Acupuncture

[SoCo KungFu]

Would pure gold affect an MRI?

So MRI's function by basically, magnetically orienting every atom in your body and then measuring the energy released when they realign to produce the image. So yeah.

That said, it shouldn't be enough to actually move when lodged inside tissue (assuming its real gold).

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17117110

[GeneChing]

I remember when I had an MRI they were rather perturbed to find that I had taken a metal splinter in my eye like a decade prior to the exam. The process needed to be delayed while they did this extensive series of X-rays to see if there weren't any fragments of the splinter left, telling me that if there were, the MRI would rip it right out of my eye. There weren't, which is what I had told them at the onset. I guess it's good that they were prudent but the extra X-ray charges felt like getting nickel & dimed.

Gold is non-magnetic. Your point about 'real gold' is well taken.

[Syn7]

The cost sucks, but at least they were thourough. I consider that a good thing. But then where I come from, it's free(well... close to free. We do pay into HC).

[SoCo KungFu]

Gold is non-magnetic. Your point about 'real gold' is well taken.

This is partly correct. Gold will not induce its own magnetic field. However, it can be magnetized. Although it takes a powerful magnet.

[GeneChing]

[herb ox]

Almost every week I come across an article extolling the benefits of acupuncture as used by the most elite athletes. Kobe Bryant, olympic medalists and Tour-de-France cyclists are using acupuncture to give them the winning edge.

Increasingly, acupuncture's effects are being scientifically validated, although there is much controversy regarding its specific mode of action. Regardless, the data is convincing enough that the US military is now investigating using acupuncture protocols for treating both veterans and active duty soldiers in the field. But more about that later. For the present discussion, I've quoted an abstract from the American Journal of Chinese Medicine, a peer reviewed scholarly journal:

Am J Chin Med. 2009;37(3):471-81.
Effects of acupuncture stimulation on recovery ability of male elite basketball athletes.
Lin ZP1, Lan LW, He TY, Lin SP, Lin JG, Jang TR, Ho TJ.
Author information
Abstract
Developing effective methods for helping athletes recover from muscle fatigue is deemed essential, particularly on the eves' important competitions. This study aimed to investigate the effects of acupuncture stimulation on athletes' recovery abilities. Subjects were selected from 30 male elite university basketball players who were randomly assigned to 3 groups: acupuncture group, sham group, and normal (control) group, each containing 10 subjects. Acupuncture was carried out on each athlete in acupuncture group at the Neiguan (PC6) and Zusanli (ST36) acupoints, beginning at 15 min prior to exercise and continuing until exhaustion of the subject. Similar acupuncture was also carried out on each athlete in the sham group but the positions were 1 cm away from the PC6 and ST36 acupoints. No acupuncture was conducted on the athletes in the normal group. During the experiments, each subject performed separate runs on the treadmill. The data of heart rate (HR(max)), oxygen consumption (VO(2max)), and blood lactic acid were measured during the rest period and at 3 recovery points of time (5th, 30th and 60th min) post-exercise. The results showed that the acupuncture group (PC6 and ST36) has significantly lower HR(max), VO(2max) and blood lactic acid than both the sham and normal groups at the 30th min post-exercise. Blood lactic acid of the acupuncture group was also significantly lower than that of the other two groups in the 60th min post-exercise. Our findings have shed some light on the development of effective acupuncture schemes to enhance the recovery ability for elite basketball athletes.

Pubmed Entry here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19606508

The above quoted study implies that acupuncture can help with recovery in athletes - do you think you could benefit from it in your martial practice as well?

in health,

herb ox

[herb ox]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3725933/
As published in J Am Assoc Lab Anim Sci. 2013 Jul; 52(4): 475–480

Acupuncture as an Adjunct Therapy for Osteoarthritis in Chimpanzees

Abstract:

Acupuncture is an ancient practice that is currently used to treat disorders ranging from osteoarthritis to cardiomyopathy. Acupuncture involves the insertion of thin, sterile needles into defined acupuncture points that stimulate physiologic processes through neural signaling. Numerous scientific studies have proven the benefits of acupuncture, and given this scientific support, we hypothesized that acupuncture could benefit the nonhuman primates at our facility. As our chimpanzee colony ages, we are observing an increase in osteoarthritis and have focused our initial acupuncture treatments on this condition. We successfully trained 3 chimpanzees, by using positive-reinforcement training techniques, to voluntarily participate in acupuncture treatments for stifle osteoarthritis. We used 3 acupuncture points that correlate with alleviation of stifle pain and inflammation in humans. A mobility scoring system was used to assess improvements in mobility as a function of the acupuncture treatments. The 2 chimpanzees with the most severe osteoarthritis showed significant improvement in mobility after acupuncture treatments. Acupuncture therapy not only resulted in improved mobility, but the training sessions also served as enrichment for the animals, as demonstrated by their voluntary participation in the training and treatment sessions. Acupuncture is an innovative treatment technique that our data show to be safe, inexpensive, and, most importantly, effective for chimpanzees.

What gets me is that some researchers and doctors want to continue to insist that acupuncture's effects are based upon expectations or placebo, and yet, animal models show an effect and fMRI shows substantially different brain activity patterns when a "verum" point is needled versus an off-channel point.

But, then again, Sammelweis' idea that hand washing could reduce postpartum deaths was ridiculed for years by the medical community who refused to acknowledge the idea that the doctors could be spreading the disease!

in health,

herb ox

[GeneChing]

Good to see Berkeley Breathed back

[GeneChing]

There's a vid if you follow the link.

Komodo Dragon gets acupuncture for aching back

Hannah the Komodo Dragon has been in pain. To relieve it, her doctors and keepers are taking an approach that has not yet been tried on an animal at the Palm Beach Zoo: acupuncture. Dr. Cara Pillitteri, who has been treating Hannah, said, "Although the research is still inconclusive, current findings suggest that the mediators released by acupuncture may serve to lessen or block the pain response." Additionally, Hannah recently had a CT scan, commonly known as a cat scan, to try to better pinpoint the source of her pain. Neck pain has left her unable to eat at times and has her sidelined from the breeding program. Hannah is the first animal at the Palm Beach Zoo to have acupuncture treatment.

Amy Beth Bennett
Staff Photographer

Hannah the Komodo Dragon has been in pain. To relieve it, her doctors and keepers are taking an approach that has not yet been tried on an animal at the Palm Beach Zoo: acupuncture. Additionally, Hannah recently had a CT scan, commonly known as a cat scan, to try to better pinpoint the source of her pain. Neck pain has left her unable to eat at times and has her sidelined from the breeding program. Hannah is the first animal at the Palm Beach Zoo to have acupuncture treatment.

[SoCo KungFu]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3725933/
As published in J Am Assoc Lab Anim Sci. 2013 Jul; 52(4): 475–480

Acupuncture as an Adjunct Therapy for Osteoarthritis in Chimpanzees

Abstract:


What gets me is that some researchers and doctors want to continue to insist that acupuncture's effects are based upon expectations or placebo, and yet, animal models show an effect and fMRI shows substantially different brain activity patterns when a "verum" point is needled versus an off-channel point.

But, then again, Sammelweis' idea that hand washing could reduce postpartum deaths was ridiculed for years by the medical community who refused to acknowledge the idea that the doctors could be spreading the disease!

in health,

herb ox

So its been a while since I've seen this thread. I'll need to read this study in more detail but just by the abstract and looking at their methods, its garbage. They've conditioned the animals to accept the treatments. For chimps, that positive reinforcement training means a reward (a box of juice). Looking at other studies using the same methods, that reward is removed if they break behavior. This study is useless. Its common knowledge that activating reward centers releases hormones that are also implicated in pain suppression. Their training protocol completely confounds their results. All this study actually shows is that we can train chimps to expect a positive result through behavioral conditioning. Which, to me, sounds an awful lot like placebo.

[herb ox]

Funny - even with solid research and the medical community publishing reviews of research and finding there is a bona-fide effect to acupuncture BEYOND placebo, and that the effects of acupuncture are actually likely underestimated given research methodology issues, armchair scientists continue to claim to know better.

http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article....icleid=1835483 concluded that acupuncture is a reasonable option for pain management for several conditions (which is a huge deal considering how conservative the Journal of the American Medical Association is).

There will always be those who do not believe like you do. There will always be those who dig and pick and negate.

I choose to spend my energy on finding more ways to unite, not divide; find more ways that we are common, not different; prefer Yoda and Laozi as my archetypal ideals, instead of Trump and "Pharma-bro" Shkreli.

Would I want to live in a world of hard science that predicts only my eventual demise or believe that there is a faint thread of hope in something more than meets the eye? Yes, I believe in magick . I'd rather be looked upon as the Fool than to live in the world of grumpy old men who are really only concerned with profit and power.

[SoCo KungFu]

Funny - even with solid research and the medical community publishing reviews of research and finding there is a bona-fide effect to acupuncture BEYOND placebo, and that the effects of acupuncture are actually likely underestimated given research methodology issues

Congratulations, you can quote mine. Now tell me, do you know anything at all about meta analyses? (I'm thinking not)

armchair scientists continue to claim to know better.

Takes one to know one? I'm going to assume you aren't speaking directly to me, seeing as you aren't qualified to comment on my scientific cred.

http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article....icleid=1835483 concluded that acupuncture is a reasonable option for pain management for several conditions (which is a huge deal considering how conservative the Journal of the American Medical Association is).

See my above comment on meta analyses. Lets see, no reporting on how included studies were obtained (fairly important given the different sources with different publishing standards), what response scoring methods they considered (we're just to assume they standardized correctly), and no listed methodology for excluding faulty studies (i.e. what were they considering "high quality" studies?), no reported bias estimates, etc. This is ****ty journal writing. You can't tell anything from this. And it looks like a number of the studies they used made zero attempt to account for confounding effects given they report no data on demographics other than patient sex and ages. And those effect sizes (which I'm assuming they calculated using Cohen's method), they're so small, especially between acupuncture and sham (the subject of this discussion). And given the low sample size, most likely inflated at that (and nevermind that some of the trials they included contain groups receiving multiple types of treatment. Oh, and I'll ignore that the responses reported were only short term...). Did you even look into the supplement?

There will always be those who do not believe like you do. There will always be those who dig and pick and negate.

What you whine about as digging and picking, those of us involved in actual, legit science call, "standard procedure." Quit complaining because the rest of the world holds you to the same standards. But this is typical for you alt med types. Play victim, demonize mainstream med/research while trying to skate by with limited evidence and no regulation for your own procedures. Makes it easy to prey on those disillusioned by mainstream med and desperate for a fix, eh?

I choose to spend my energy on finding more ways to unite, not divide; find more ways that we are common, not different; prefer Yoda and Laozi as my archetypal ideals, instead of Trump and "Pharma-bro" Shkreli.

Get over yourself. This is your ego attempting to deflect. Its not remotely relevant to the conversation at hand. Its simply emotional begging. Nice ad hominem btw. I like how you managed to wrap it up in non sequitur. You are every bit a part of an industrial machine as those you rail against.

Would I want to live in a world of hard science that predicts only my eventual demise or believe that there is a faint thread of hope in something more than meets the eye?

Irrelevant

Yes, I believe in magick . I'd rather be looked upon as the Fool than to live in the world of grumpy old men who are really only concerned with profit and power.

Or concerned with protecting vulnerable people from quack medicine, it seems.

This type of whining is why the mainstream medical sciences do not take your field seriously. Quit complaining about being told to do proper research. And quit complaining that the mainstream doesn't do it for you. Get an education in proper trial procedure and analysis, find your own research committee, get your own **** grant money and do your own **** work.

[Mor Sao]

So its been a while since I've seen this thread. I'll need to read this study in more detail but just by the abstract and looking at their methods, its garbage. They've conditioned the animals to accept the treatments. For chimps, that positive reinforcement training means a reward (a box of juice). Looking at other studies using the same methods, that reward is removed if they break behavior. This study is useless. Its common knowledge that activating reward centers releases hormones that are also implicated in pain suppression. Their training protocol completely confounds their results. All this study actually shows is that we can train chimps to expect a positive result through behavioral conditioning. Which, to me, sounds an awful lot like placebo.

yeah, and where does your degree in Acupuncture and Herbal Medicine come from? Yeah, I thought not.

Sounds like the only chimp here is what you see in the mirror, twat.

[Mor Sao]

fahking mouthboxers who hide behind the internet need not make any comments on things they know nothing about.

[SoCo KungFu]

yeah, and where does your degree in Acupuncture and Herbal Medicine come from? Yeah, I thought not.

Sounds like the only chimp here is what you see in the mirror, twat.

Is this idiocy something you believe constitutes a proper, logical argument sh!t brick? So lets take it with your dumb ass notion you just presented. Where did you get your M.D.? Since you, along with your butt buddy here, seem to like trashing actual medicine. Where did you get your education on experimental design and analysis? Exactly what credentials do you have at all other than "treating stress"? Congrats, you're a blowhard cheerleader with needles. Fuk off. You might be good at hitting coconuts, but you're a freggin idiot when it comes to evidenced based medicine, or evidence in general.