Acupuncture as Medical Preventative Measure

Cuddling with my kitties makes me feel better. I can't prove it - but I know it's so. And apparently I'm not the only one who finds one-time weirdo medicine like acupuncture helpful too. Yes, I've been researching to make sure I'm not totally out there.

An article in AARP magazine recognizes that at one time a cancer patient might have been thought "wacky" for seeking out something outside the oncologists' office to add to conventional therapy.

Years of research and observation on the impact of acupuncture and other components in what I call a stew of integrated care, now more medical professionals are seeing the value of other approaches to healing than those they've known previously.

In recent years top medical institutions such as the Cleveland Clinic, Columbia University Medical Center, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Duke University Medical Center, and the Mayo Clinic, among others, have started or greatly expanded integrated-care programs for cancer, heart disease, and other illnesses, while increasing numbers of medical schools have begun designing curricula to train physicians in integrated medical care.

Already, most states can boast at least one major hospital offering integrated care. And smaller integrated-care clinics are proliferating in cities throughout the country.

The momentum is being driven, in part, by the National Institutes of Health's (NIH's) National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), which has funded more than 1,800 research studies at 260 institutions and which runs a consumer-information website that received 2.6 million inquiries in 2006 alone.

In my way of thinking however, neither the number of inquiries nor the people streaming into acupuncturist, massage therapists, nutritionists and yoga studios should be a deciding factor in whether cancer patients should be advised to seek out alternate forms of therapy.

But measurable changes should make us think.

For example the relationship between stress and the way cancer progresses hasn't always been clear,  though it made sense that stress would be a negative influence.

In 2006 however researchers were able to pinpoint beta-2 receptors for the stress hormone adrenalin on actual tumor cells. There is now no question.

"Stress was advancing the cancer"

According to Lorenzo Cohen, Ph.D. the director of M.D. Anderson's integrative medicine program the tumor grew a whopping 275 percent in stressed test mice compared with nonstressed mice, and metastasis (cancer breaking outside the confined walls of where it is and leap-frogging to somewhere else as well) was 50 percent higher.

"From this we can now speculate that stress affects cancer in humans," says Frenkel, of M.D. Anderson. "We don't have a pill for this—but we do have yoga, meditation, and guided imagery."

Another study, presented to the American Society of Clinical Oncology, showed that patients with stage-three pancreatic cancer who received a range of alternative therapies along with aggressive chemotherapy had a median survival rate nearly double that for similar patients who received the chemotherapy treatment alone.

This makes it only a short jump to acupuncture, which in my mind at least is a source of positive energy and stress relief plus a sense of being cared for and nurtured.

I'm not, as I always say, advocating any form of cancer treatment. But for right now, my personal blend includes not just a mastectomy, but acupuncture too. And animals, which is another subject indeed. It just stands to reason though, if I feel better I can heal better.

Resources: The Best Medicine
                 cancercenter.com
                 Universtiy of Tx MD Anderson Wellness Center
                 National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine

Comments

[Gavin Heaton]

Just because medicine has not "proven" something doesn't mean it doesn't work. You are right ... it is a matter of finding what works for you, and what helps you heal.