There are, in the United States, over 7 million people who are partially or completely disabled by back pain and another 40-50 million people who suffer from chronic recurrent headaches. Frustrated with my inability to help all my patients with conventional treatments, I have been using acupuncture since 1981. But about ten years ago I started using more acupressure, particularly since I could teach a lot of people to continue treating themselves.

Last month we saw evidence from a study using magnetoencephelography (MEG) scanning equipment that acupuncture reduces the activity of regions of the limbic system of the brain. MEG is a relatively new technology that measures the very faint magnetic fields that emanate from the head because of brain activity, instead of measuring electrical activity itself, which is a fairly blunt instrument. This reduced activity only occurred with deep needling, and when the patient experienced what is known as de qi. In Chinese medicine it is normally considered that the needle has not been correctly positioned until the patient and the practitioner both get the sensation of de qi. By contrast, superficial needling just caused activation of sensory areas of the cortex. Many doctors trained in needling techniques ignore the de qi experience, which is, I think, a mistake. When you are able to elicit it, the efficacy of acupuncture increases enormously.

Keep in mind what I have said before: just because acupuncture is associated with neurological changes, does not mean that they are responsible for the effects of acupuncture.

In this week’s British Medical Journal is an article from Taiwan, showing the effectiveness of acupressure in 129 patients with chronic low back pain. Like every study ever done, it is possible to pick some holes in this one, but overall it appears to be sound.

Now I am interested to see a press release about a form of needle-less therapy. I have written before about Thought Field Therapy (TFT), and the subject of the press release is a development of it called Emotional Freedom Technique, or EFT. While TFT uses tapping at specific points, together with humming, counting and eye movements, EFT is much simpler. It combines gentle fingertip tapping on key acupuncture points with focused thought. It is claimed to effectively reduce – and often permanently eliminating – chronic pain. According to its practitioners, EFT is more than 80-percent effective in treating headaches, back pain, cancer pain, arthritis, and pain from other conditions.

There is the rub: I could find no published research when I did a Medline search. That being said, I have reported elsewhere that I went to California to debunk TFT and became a convert after being treated by its inventor, Roger Callahan. There is a small amount of research on TFT that appears to confirm its effectiveness in some conditions, and I have certainly found it to be very helpful for many people.

Whether the claims of EFT will be born out remains to be seen. I have seen the techniques work, and I have to give credit where it is due. In exchange for your email address Gary Craig, who developed EFT, allows you to download a EFT manual from his website. You may also purchase DVDs from his site to learn more about this treatment modality. As always, I do not suggest using EFT or any other method in place of tried and tested treatments, but it may be a good adjunctive treatment for mild conditions.

In future message and in my newsletter I shall share some of the precise techniques that I have found useful, as well as ones that did not work out for me.

Technorati tags: Emotional Freedom Technique, headaches, acupuncture, acupressure, chronic pain

“Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do on a rainy Sunday afternoon.”—Susan Ertz (a.k.a. J.R. McCrindle, Anglo-American Novelist, 1894-1985)

It is widely known in the scientific community that there has been a great deal of progress on aging research, much of it done behind the closed doors of pharmaceutical companies. According to Professor Tuljapurkar between 2010 and 2030, the modal, or most common, age of death will increase by 20 years if anti-aging therapies come into widespread use. This projected increase is based on some sophisticated modeling, and reflects a life-span growth rate that is five times faster than the current rate. If accurate, this would increase the modal age of death in industrialized countries such as the United States from roughly 80 years to 100.

So back to the question: if you suddenly discovered that you were going to have an extra thirty years of healthy life, what would you do with it?

I really do suggest that you start thinking about that. Assuming that you have enough money to live a decent life, what would you do with that extra twenty years? Would you:

1. Enjoy spending more time with younger members of the family?

2. Learn some new skills?

3. Make new friends?

4. Travel?

5. Read those books you always meant to?

6. Become more involved in spiritual pursuits?

7. Find a new way of serving others?

    8. Sit in front of the television?

What plans or aspirations do you have that you want to add to this list?

But then I have another question for you: if your answers included any of the points from 1-7, why not do them right now? What exactly is stopping you from doing all those things today?

Technorati tags: living, dreams, meaning, purpose

I was very pleased to see that Dean Ornish is now writing a column for Newsweek magazine, and that Andrew Weil will be contributing to Time. This is good news: both of them have made original contributions to holistic health care, and have always been very reasonable in their pronouncements.

Dean’s debut column has just come out. As you might expect, given his long history of making valuables contributions to the diet debate, he has called his article The Facts About Fat, and he reports on an important article published earlier this month in The Journal of the American Medical Association. The study presents some of the results of the Women’s Health Initiative dietary modification study, which followed nearly 49,000 middle-aged women for more than eight years. The study compared those on a regular diet to those on a low-fat diet, to see if dietary modification could help prevent heart disease and cancer. The women in the “dietary change” group were asked to eat less fat and more fruits, vegetables, and whole grains each day to see if it. The women in the comparison group were asked to continue on their usual diets.

The results of the study have caused some consternation, because low-fat diets did not appear to protect against heart disease, or stroke, or breast cancer, or colon cancer. But here we come back to a point that I have made in other articles. We must not take studies at face value, but instead analyze the data in detail. It is hard work to extract the real message from published data, but it is incredibly important to do so.

So what were the limitations of this study?

1. The reduction in dietary fat was very small.

2. People are not good at keeping diet diaries, and often think that they are eating more healthily than they are. (Some years ago we did an experiment in which we estimated our daily calorie intake and also kept diet diaries. We were all experts in human nutrition, but each of us under-estimated out intake by about 300-500 calories per day)

3. The increase in consumption of fruit and vegetables was small.

4. The control group that was supposed to stay on their regular diet actually did not. Most of us know something about healthy eating, and most people are making some changes toward better diets.

5. Eight years is actually quite a short duration for a cancer prevention study.

Dean then returns to a favorite and important theme: the study didn’t distinguish between beneficial and harmful fats. Several previous studies have shown that the omega-3 fatty acids found in salmon, halibut, mackerel, walnuts, and flax seed oil may reduce your risk of a heart attack by 50 percent or more, as well as perhaps reducing the risk of inflammation and some forms of cancer.

I am certainly persuaded by the data on omega-3 fatty acids, as well as recent evidence indicating that reducing overall dietary fat to around 33 grams of fat per day, reduces the risk of breast cancer recurrence by 42%.

Dean also endorses another comment that I have made in previous posts: what you include in your diet is as important as what you leave out.

Technorati tags:  Dean Ornish, Newsweek, Nutrition, low-fat diet

I was very sorry indeed to hear that the amazingly gifted singer Sheryl Crow, who is only 43 years old, is facing a challenge with cancer. She is, of course, by no means the first. Cancer is not something that just hits the older people in the population. Two recent examples: Lance Armstrong who even now, after years of treatment and triumph is only 34, and Kylie Minogue, who is 37. Those two are apparently doing very well indeed, and have used their celebrity to publicize the importance of health screening and of looking at all the options in treatment.

Because of the kind of work that I do, I know of many other well-known people who have dealt with similar problems, and are doing extremely well, but who have chosen to maintain their privacy. Most forms of cancer are no longer the death sentence that they once were.

For more than two decades, I have been heavily identified with holistic medicine, which has gone through more names than the artist formerly known as Prince: alternative, complementary, integrative and integrated. So people are often surprised that I am also an expert in conventional medicine. “After all,” I am asked, “If integrated medicine is so great, then why bother with conventional medicine at all?” The answer is that the best way to treat anyone is by an integrated approach that treats the five principle dimensions of a person: physical, psychological, social, subtle and spiritual.

I regularly receive mailings from people and organizations claiming that they can cure all types of cancer using all sorts of unusual approaches, from nutrition to detoxifications and methods for getting rid of parasites. I have never recommended these approaches because the evidence is so flimsy, and we have data to show that there are indeed treatments that can improve survival and quality of life. But what I am very keen on is using conventional treatment as well as these less orthodox approaches, which are precisely tailored to the individual.

The United States Department of Health and Human Services has Task Forces that make screening recommendations, and I thought that it would be a good idea to make a note of some of their recommendations:

• Breast Cancer: Mammography every 1-2 years over age 40. Interestingly, the Task Forces don’t recommend routine breast self-examination, although many European countries do.
• Cervical Cancer: Screening every three years after age 21 or after becoming sexual active.
• Colon Cancer: “Regular” screening for everyone over age 50
• Prostate Cancer: They do not recommend routine PSA screening, but certainly clinical examination.

All of these recommendations get ramped up if an individual has a family history of a specific cancer and breast and colon cancer screening should start earlier in African Americans.

So I wish the very best to Sheryl, Lance and Kylie. And if you have been following my posts about spirituality and healing, it is, I think, highly likely that if enough of us think kindly of them, it will help them heal.

Technorati Tags: Sheryl Crow, cancer screenings, breast cancer

I have a confession to make: I have been a life long chess enthusiast, and I can’t start the day without visiting the best chess website on the internet. We are currently almost half way through the second major tournament of the year: the same one at which the incomparable Garry Kasparov announced his retirement last year.

Chess is not just a pastime. There is evidence that it is one of the ways in which we can improve the thinking abilities of young people and prevent the downward slide of our minds as we get older.

In the United Kingdom, studies have shown an astonishing correlation between the academic attainments of schools and the success of their chess teams. Year after year, the schools with the most successful teams send more of their students to top universities, compared with schools that do not play the game or have weak teams. During the Second World War many of the geniuses working at Bletchley Park who cracked the Enigma Code, were outstanding chess players.

For a long time now big business has been recruiting high-level chess players into particular positions that require their unusual skills. It tells you something when you see a major corporation placing advertisements for executives in chess magazines. Chess helps develop memory, concentration, visualization, decision-making, and sharpens our analytical and strategic thinking. It can even help make us more creative and more imaginative. Tournament players have to have a good degree of self-knowledge, and some grasp of psychology is a must. I have won more than one tournament game because of my ability to read the body language and intentions of an opponent. It is no surprise that a good many strong chess players are doing extremely well playing online poker. Chess really is a microcosm of life in general.

“Life is like a game of chess: we draw up a plan; this plan, however, is conditional on what - in chess, our opponent - in life, our fate - will choose to do.” –Arthur Schopenhauer (German Philosopher, 1788-1860)

The chess master Bruce Pandolfini was portrayed - and had a brief cameo – in the film Searching for Bobby Fischer. He has written a nice little book called Every Move Must Have a Purpose, about applying chess strategies in business and life, and next month will see the eagerly awaited publication of a similar book by the master himself, Garry Kasparov.

Here are some principles that I have learned from chess, and that I apply to health, life and business:

• When confronted with any kind of a problem, try to break it down into small manageable chunks, and if you can’t, learn to use and to trust your intuition. (Have a look at my post on Unconscious Processing and Intuition)
• Constantly ask questions: Why is this happening? Is there a pattern here? What does the other person intend? How can I fashion a response that fits and will move things in the direction that I want and is congruent with my overall plan of life? What are the rules here? Can I break the rules? This does not mean cheating, it means being sure that you are not applying rules mechanically, without checking to make sure that they apply in your particular situation.
• Always work to a clear plan. Even if the plan is not correct, it will always be better than the efforts of someone who has no plan at all. It is fine to “go with the flow,” after you have won the game!
• Be constantly on the lookout for opportunities and if there aren’t any, create them!
• As in life, chess demands action. You will succeed at nothing by sitting and waiting for success to come to you.
• A game of chess, like the game of life demands one move after another. The successful person is one who makes each move to the very best of their ability. As Willard J. Marriott said: “It’s the little things that make the big things possible. Only close attention to the fine details of any operation makes the operation first class.”
• Have absolute integrity in everything that you do. Be honest with other people and be honest with yourself. If you say that you are going to do something, do it. If you commit to a plan, do not stop until it is complete.
• Coordinate all of your resources. In chess, it is impossible to win unless all the pieces are coordinated. You can destroy everything that you’ve worked for by having a piece adrift on the far side of the board, with nothing to do.
• If you have any weakness, make it your business to convert them into strengths.
• Don’t exceed your own capacity by over-extending yourself.
• Resilience is an extremely important attribute that we all need to develop: things do not always go according to plan, and when they do not, it is important to be able to bounce back quickly.
• Learn not to be over-awed by challenges. Many people defeat themselves with faulty expectations. I once had a trainer who was an extremely fine player. In one tournament he was in with a chance of winning serious money, but in the last round he was drawn against a Russian grandmaster. I saw him before the game: shoulders hunched over, hyperventilating and a scowl on his face. Play began with a variation that my coach and I had analyzed five days earlier, and he had shown me what not to play. In the game against the Russian he played the very move that he had just told me was a critical mistake! He lost in just a few moves. Not because the Russian beat him, but because he beat himself.

“A mountain is composed of tiny grains of earth. The ocean is made up of tiny drops of water. Even so, life is but an endless series of little details, actions, speeches, and thoughts. And the consequences whether good or bad of even the least of them are far-reaching.” — Sri Swami Sivananda (Indian Physician and Spiritual Teacher, 1887-1963)

Technorati tags:  chess, life lessons, mind