ISAA Elects New Officers
At its most recent meeting, the Illinois State Acupuncture Association elected new officers to its board of directors. The new officers are:
President: Wen Xuan, LAc
Vice President: Diane Miller, Dipl.Ac.
President Emeritus: Connie Aburano, LAc
Treasurer & Legislative Chair: Mary J. Rogel, PhD, LAc
Assistant Treasurer: Debra Payne, Dipl.Ac.
Secretary & Continuing Education Chair: Patricia Worth, LAc
Board Members: Christie Jordan, Dipl.Ac., Charles Turner, Dipl.Ac.
Northwest Institute Revises, Augments Website
More than three years after its debut, the Northwest Institute of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine has expanded its website for a more professional appearance.
"More than half of our applicants are visiting our website and getting information about us there before they apply," said Mary McGhee, the school's dean of students and admissions. "We're finding the Internet to be an invaluable way to connect with potential students, who are becoming more and more technologically savvy all the time."
The site (www.niaom.edu) is divided into 11 sections for easy navigation, including a welcome page; academics and clinics information; news and research; a link to the institute's bookstore; a question-and-answer section; and a "contact us" page. In the future, the institute plans to include online discussion forums, book purchases and class registration, and a course catalog.
Organic Selenium May Prevent Cancer
An essential trace mineral, selenium has been shown to help prevent cancer in laboratory animals. A new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association has demonstrated that selenium may provide the same type of defense against cancer in humans.
A research team at the University of Arizona headed by Dr. Larry Clark selected 1,312 patients with a history of skin cancer and divided them into two groups. One which received a capsule containing 200 micrograms of organic selenium; the other received a placebo. Neither the patients nor the researchers knew which capsule they were receiving.
Although no differences were seen in the rates of skin cancer, there was a wide discrepancy in terms of other, more serious forms of cancer. Those receiving the selenium experienced 63% fewer prostate cancers; 58% fewer colorectal cancers; and 46% fewer lung cancers than the placebo group. In addition, the overall mortality rate of the selenium group was 50% lower than the placebo group.
"It's the most exciting finding we've ever had in nutrition and cancer," said Dr. Tim Byers, a professor of preventative medicine at the University of Colorado and a member of the study's safety committee.
Chronic pain afflicts over 20% of the adult population. Sadly, most MDs have essentially no education in treating pain, beyond offering a few toxic medications. Then they tend to steer people with pain away from those health practitioners who are trained. This puts the acupuncture community on the front lines for addressing this epidemic.
When the body is going through a stressful event, the sympathetic system is activated. This activation will help the body with a life-threatening situation. If this state is activated for prolonged periods of time, it starts to consume energy. These traumatic events that generate stressors in the autonomic nervous system (ANS) will eventually become internalized.
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One of the things that makes acupuncture so difficult to measure is that the medicine actually does contain some esoteric aspects. There have been numerous studies that demonstrate the neurochemical reasoning behind why acupuncture points stimulate the autonomic nervous system to enact change However, not all the benefits of TCM can easily be measured by randomized, controlled trials. But does that make them fundamentally and definitively untrue?
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