Traditionally, herbs are widely utilized by acupuncturists as an important treatment tool. Acupuncturists have also, for centuries, used food and supplements to maintain, promote and restore health. It is believed that imbalances in diet can negatively affect health, which can lead to diseases. Chinese food therapy is the practice of healing using food as a form of medicine.
Chinese food therapy philosophy about nutrition and diet is imbedded in Asian culture. Today, many acupuncturists integrate their beliefs about nutrition, supplements and TCM into a mixed practice with the advantages of both the Eastern and Western diets.1,2
Unfortunately, it is very difficult and time-consuming for clinicians to keep up with the scientific evidence on the efficacy, safety and contraindications of most dietary regimens and supplements. To learn the most up-to-date information about diet and supplements, acupuncturists should consider attending an evidence-based nutrition and supplements conference such as the one organized by the Susan Samueli Center for Integrative Medicine, held March 1-2, 2008 at the UCI campus. Expanding on the success of last year's conference, this conference will once again assemble an outstanding array of internationally known scientific researchers and clinicians whose work focuses on the interface between nutrition and good health.
Who should consider attending the conference? Those interested in the most current and up-to-date information relating to the incorporation of nutrition into their clinical practice; those who enjoy learning about the latest research findings on nutrition, diet and supplements as therapeutic interventions; and those who benefit from new knowledge on nutritional recommendations for management of specific conditions. Attendees include a wide variety of health care providers (physicians, nurses, dietitians, pharmacists, acupuncturists, chiropractors, naturopaths and other professionals who incorporate nutritional recommendations as part of their clinical practice). The conference provides a great opportunity to learn and interact with other health care providers.
For more information about the conference, please visit www.sscim.uci.edu/index_2col.asp?page=16.
References
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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