Norwegian lab company ORIVO has developed a first-of-its-kind test that verifies whether a fish oil product is made of real marine sources (salmon oil, salmon meal, anchovy oil, cod liver oil, krill oil, etc.); and the specific region (Norway, Alaska, Peru, Iceland, New Zealand, etc.) from which the fish oil was sourced.
Any fish oil product bearing the ORIVO seal is a guarantee that the product's claims are in line with the above two requirements. In other words, it ensures that the fish oil product you recommend / provide to your patients is what it claims to be.
Biotics Research Corporation is the first U.S. supplement brand to use the independent, third-party lab test to verify the authenticity of its fish oil products. (Biotics' fish oil products claim to use an anchovy sourced from the cold waters of the South Pacific Ocean off the South American coast. Using the ORIVO test, those claims can now be verified.)
ORIVO received partial funding to develop the test from the Norwegian Research Council and Innovation Norway, an organization that promotes business development throughout the country; with additional support from (among others) SINTEF Ocean, a department of Scandinavia's largest research and development institute, SINTEF.
A student stands over a patient, needle poised. They have a “perfect” prescription: a textbook combination of points harvested from a lecture slide on chronic lower back pain. But as the needle meets the skin, the student hesitates - the symptom of a quiet habit that has taken hold of our profession. We routinely say we “prescribe” points. It sounds efficient. It echoes the authority of biomedical culture and fits neatly into the insurance field. But vocabulary is never neutral; repeated long enough, it dictates behavior.
Acupuncture can be highly effective in cases of nasal congestion so common in allergy presentations; so much so that I often treat such issues using acupuncture protocols alone. In cases of seasonal allergies with highly predictable causes such as obvious elevations of environmental allergens, I use a skeleton acupuncture prescription that can easily be fleshed out to target potential underlying patterns and effectively customized to the patient.
The field of acupuncture in the U.S. continues to grow in visibility, patient demand and clinical effectiveness. Yet behind the curtain, many acupuncturists are quietly struggling to keep their doors open. While the profession is rooted in centuries of healing tradition, modern economic pressures – particularly those driven by insurance limitations, low reimbursement rates and job-market saturation – are making it increasingly difficult for licensed acupuncturists to thrive.
