As if it weren’t tough enough to face cancer, many patients who receive chemotherapy experience severe nausea and vomiting afterward, particularly on the first day of a treatment cycle. And even when antivomiting drugs are used, nausea often continues.

Good news from a recent study: For three days before and after their chemotherapy cycles, cancer patients took conventional antivomiting medication plus either a placebo or capsulated ginger root (purified, dried ginger extract). The daily ginger dosage was 0.5 grams (g), 1 g or 1.5 g—equal to about one-quarter teaspoon to three-quarters teaspoon of ground ginger. Results: At all doses, ginger users reported significantly less nausea than placebo users… patients who took 0.5 g or 1 g of ginger had the biggest benefit, experiencing about 40% less nausea on the first day of chemo than placebo users.

Best: If you are scheduled for chemotherapy, ask your doctor about adding ginger supplementation to your treatment regimen before and after chemo to reduce nausea.

 

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“I felt a bit like Frankenstein, getting zapped with electricity while sharp things were sticking into me,” a friend told me with a laugh. “Yet it did make me feel like I was getting a new life, because after the electroacupuncture, my arthritis pain really was reduced.”

It may seem strange to combine an ancient healing practice with modern technology, but that is basically what electroacupuncture does in sending a small electric current into acupuncture needles. I called Stacy Drinkut Smith, LAc, a licensed acupuncturist who uses electroacupuncture in her practice in Santa Barbara, California, to discuss the technique. She explained that it is similar to traditional acupuncture in that the same points and meridians (energy channels) are stimulated, but adding electrical current makes the needle stimulation stronger and steadier.

Does electroacupuncture work better than manual acupuncture? It can, according to a study that directly compared the two techniques in patients with tennis elbow and found superior pain relief and grip strength in the electroacupuncture group. Experts don’t agree on whether electroacupuncture helps with all the same conditions as regular acupuncture, but a surprising amount of up-to-the-minute research does support the effectiveness of the technique. Recent studies show that electroacupuncture can help…

Relieve arthritis. Patients with hip osteoarthritis had electroacupuncture or took a prescription pain reliever/anti-inflammatory (one that is commonly prescribed but has potentially serious side effects). There was significantly more improvement in joint pain, function and range of motion among electroacupuncture recipients than among medication recipients.

Improve blood flow. With Raynaud’s disease, fingers and toes feel cold and turn white or blue as blood vessels constrict… then throb, tingle and turn red when blood flow returns. Raynaud’s patients reported significantly reduced discomfort and frequency of attacks after receiving a series of electroacupuncture sessions as compared with before their treatment.

Reduce postsurgical pain. The day before heart surgery, patients received either electroacupuncture or a sham treatment… after surgery, the electroacupuncture group reported significantly lower pain intensity and required less pain medication than the other group.

Restore damaged nerves. Patients with peripheral nerve damage and some loss of muscle function had poor prognoses… but after electroacupuncture, function improved or was recovered completely in the majority of participants.

In addition, there are studies supporting the use of electroacupuncture for treating fertility problems and hormonal imbalances. And according to Smith, electroacupuncture works very well for various types of pain… recovery from joint replacement and other surgeries… menstrual cramps and irregularities… headaches… and stress. Electroacupuncture often is preferable to traditional acupuncture when treating chronic pain and other chronic conditions that involve lots of energy stagnation in the body, Smith added. Caution: Electroacupuncture should not be used on anyone who has a pacemaker because the electrical stimulation might disrupt the function of the device. Some practitioners opt not to use electroacupuncture on patients who have a seizure disorder.

What to Expect in an Electroacupuncture Session

During a treatment session, acupuncture needles first are placed in the target meridians and/or acupuncture points, just as in traditional acupuncture. Then electricity is added by attaching small clips (imagine miniature car battery jumper cables) that connect a pair of needles to a small battery-operated generator.

With traditional acupuncture (not using electricity), the practitioner can boost stimulation at a particular acupuncture point by twirling or otherwise manipulating needles. With electroacupuncture, electricity provides the stimulation—called e-stim—and the acupuncturist controls its intensity by increasing or reducing the current.

The practitioner may use e-stim on a single pair of needles at a particular acupuncture point or on more than one pair at a time. “We can do e-stim on one side of the body and then switch to the other, but we don’t do both sides at the same time because crossing the midline would interfere with the stimulation effect, jamming the patient’s own signals,” Smith explained.

When I asked my friend what electroacupuncture felt like, she said, “My acupuncturist increases the current just to the point where I can feel mild tingling, and then he dials back a bit, so all I feel is an awareness of energy flow. If I perceive any numbness, knocking, thumping or discomfort, he dials back more.”

Typically an electroacupuncture treatment session lasts about 30 minutes. The number of sessions required depends on the condition being treated, but generally an acupuncturist recommends a course of six and then does another evaluation, Smith said. Sessions cost about $60 to $120—similar to or slightly more than traditional acupuncture. If your insurance covers regular acupuncture, it probably covers electroacupuncture, too, but check in advance just to be sure.

To find a licensed acupuncturist in your area, consult the American Association of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (call 866-455-7999 or visit www.aaaomOnline.org and click on Patients and Find a Practitioner). Practitioners’ AAAOM profiles may or may not specify the types of acupuncture they provide, but you can phone or check individuals’ Web sites to find out whether they practice electroacupuncture.

Sitting down with a nice cup of hot tea feels positively virtuous these days. Every time we glance up at the evening news, there’s been another scientist telling us how good tea is for our health — it’s those antioxidants! But now here comes another study with a decidedly different take — tea can be dangerous… and the danger is cancer.

Tea? Cancer? Really? The study being reported found that drinking hot tea seems to be the reason people in a certain area of northern Iran have one of the world’s highest rates of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma, an often deadly form of the disease. For the study, published in the online edition of BMJ (formerly the British Medical Journal), researchers interviewed 300 people with esophageal cancer and 571 of their healthy neighbors. All had similar backgrounds and habits — including regular tea drinking. The difference? Compared with those who drank their tea warm or lukewarm, people who drank their tea “very hot” were eight times as likely to develop cancer, and those who drank it “hot” were twice as likely. In other words, it seemed that the culprit might not be the tea — but the temperature. Well, I thought, maybe there’s hope yet for us tea drinkers.

I called the study author, Farhad Islami, MD, PhD, at the International Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyon, France, to learn more. He let me know that this particular group of Iranians were at otherwise low risk for esophageal squamous cell cancer — very few smoked and most did not drink alcohol, two very significant risk factors for that disease. The study showed that tea drinking was a common habit among all subpopulations in the region (a total of 48,500 people) and that approximately 25% of the people there drink their tea at the hottest level — about 149°F or higher. This was verified later when researchers actually measured the temperature. (“Hot” was considered to be 149°F to 158°F… and “very hot,” above 158°F.) Although researchers aren’t sure why this is a problem, they believe that the heat may trigger inflammatory processes that stimulate potentially carcinogenic compounds in the esophageal mucous membranes. Perhaps even more likely, Dr. Islami says, is the fact that high heat can damage the esophageal lining, making it less able to protect itself against carcinogens coming in from the outside world.

America, of course, is a land of coffee drinkers, many of whom like their brew piping hot. Based on what the tea study tells us, is there reason to worry about coffee, too? Dr. Islami says it is important to note that the type of esophageal cancer most common in the West — adenocarcinoma of the esophagus — is not the same as squamous cell carcinoma, which is the most common type of esophageal cancer in Iran and worldwide. Furthermore, while a few reports suggest that other hot beverages, including coffee, might increase esophageal cancer risk, there is little research on hot coffee specifically. So we do need more studies. In the meantime, Dr. Islami speaks to common sense. “If the issue is damage to the esophageal lining, it would be safer if people do not drink very hot coffee or tea,” he says. It takes only a few minutes or so to allow your hot beverage of choice — coffee or tea — to cool to 140°F and into the safety zone.

Source(s): 

Farhad Islami, MD, PhD, research fellow, International Agency for Research on Cancer, Lyon, France.

Maybe life has been easy for you and maybe it hasn’t, but I bet that at some point in the past weeks you have wondered how you, personally, would have fared if you had been living in Japan when the earthquake and tsunami hit… or in the high-nuclear radiation zone… or, for that matter, in any of a number of other parts of the world where people must use every resource they have just to keep their lives going. That includes a particular “resource” that isn’t canned goods, bottled water or emergency medications, but rather the personal wherewithal to remain calm and focused… to put aside your fears in order to make important, even lifesaving decisions… and to be a supportive problem solver for the people who rely on you. In other words, I’m talking about courage of the deeply personal sort.

Courage is a critical resource that we all need — and not just when faced with a natural disaster or during wartime. The news is full each day of many people braving life under the harshest of circumstances, so this seemed an excellent topic to discuss with Lauren Zander, life coach and regular Daily Health News contributor. Zander had a lot to say because, as she pointed out, courage is not only an essential tool for navigating life’s inevitable crises, but one you can use for enrichment when life is going well. “I can’t think of a more important ingredient for having a fulfilled life than courage,” she said.

Zander told me that we first needed to clarify an important point: People often believe that being brave means that you are not afraid — but the reality is quite the opposite. Bravery is acting in spite of fear — not without it.

During times of disaster and true crisis, we all have no choice but to overcome fear and take action. Those living in Japan have no time for sitting around scared. They must focus on surviving and rebuilding. The need for courage doesn’t arise only in times of crisis, however. Zander points out that our daily lives often require inner fortitude as well. In our lifetimes, we face all manner of situations where we must confront fear and move past it. Sometimes it’s dramatic — for instance, accepting your own homosexuality in the face of your family’s disapproval… or knowing you should speak up when someone in your office says something racist or sexist to a coworker. You also need guts to confront someone you love about a destructive habit, such as smoking or abusing alcohol. You need courage to end a relationship that is no longer healthy or productive… and it certainly requires compassionate bravery to keep showing up day after day after day to support a loved one as he/she faces the end of life.

According to Zander, there is a common thread through all of these sorts of situations — the courage we need will be directly connected to our “personal truth.”

“Many people find that they can be ‘courageous’ in the name of telling their truth or when they want very badly to accomplish something important,” she said. But when it comes to speaking up, people tend to fall short about saying what they really want to say because it either will hurt another person or change the dynamic between them. Being the real you is only done through expressing your deeper hidden thoughts and feelings versus running your life to keep everyone happy. In that moment of potential willingness to reveal your true voice, you will need a serious dose of courage. “I can get most people to admit they have lists and lists of things that they feel they cannot say to people in their lives, and then matching lists of why not — and all of this is fear of being authentic. This kind of courage is very connected to one’s heart.”

How’s all this sitting with you? What thoughts are going through your mind? Have you experienced situations that have called for personal bravery? Are you proud of how you have forged on and what you’ve accomplished? Or are some of these questions feeling uncomfortable?

Most of us would benefit from some spine-stiffening introspection. Ask yourself what you fear — and what fears you might not be openly acknowledging. Here are some to get you started…

Taking the “next step” is the basis for any courageous action. Think about the classic Alcoholics Anonymous line, “One day at a time.” It’s just that next step you have to take, because the ones that follow can be dealt with in their own time. For instance, says Zander, “I never knew I could build a company based on my work as a life coach. The thought alone scared me. I found that I was really able to figure out my dream if I let go of all my fears and just chased it. The same was true for being on TV — I had no experience and was scared to death to want it, let alone do it. I got a coach, went to improv class and just kept moving ahead. This is the best part about learning courage — it works!”

We all have courage — but it’s easy for fear to overwhelm our courageous actions. By focusing on the goal and advancing one step at a time, you can move on to ever greater levels in life, challenges you might once have thought impossible. “If you are on a road where you encounter scary challenges that require courage to keep you moving, you are likely living your best life,” says Zander.

Source(s): 

Lauren Zander, cofounder and chairman, The Handel Group, www.TheHandelGroup.com

In past generations, overuse injuries from tennis, basketball, baseball and other sports were pretty much the province of professional athletes and aging men and women. Now, because of kids’ aggressive sports schedules, pediatricians and orthopedic physicians report that they are seeing “wear and tear” injuries in children of younger and younger ages, which is of great concern for those young bodies.

In fact, new research from the American Sports Medicine Institute (ASMI) in Birmingham, Alabama, has found a direct correlation between the number of innings played by the pitchers in youth baseball and the likelihood of injury in years to come. Based on the findings, researchers hope that youth leagues will establish and enforce a 100-inning-per-year limit — and I’ll weigh in here and say that I’d like to see similar, commonsense standards applied to other youth sports as well.

The Real Boys of Summer Play All Year

“Years ago, most youngsters played organized baseball only in Little League and school teams,” says Glenn Fleisig, PhD, lead author of the pitching study and research director for ASMI. “But a sharp rise in travel teams is giving kids the opportunity to play organized baseball more months of the year.” Today, a young pitcher might pitch 30 or 40 games a year (at six innings per game, that’s as many as 240 innings) — compared with 10 games a year in previous generations — which has led to an increased number of elbow and shoulder injuries. And these are kids in primary and secondary school!

The study participants included 481 boys between the ages of nine and 14 who were followed for a decade. They were asked, yearly, whether they had pitched… if so, how many innings… whether they had had an elbow or shoulder injury that resulted in surgery or retirement from baseball. Researchers found that boys who pitched more than 100 innings in a year were 3.5 times more likely to be injured. Playing pitcher and catcher in the same game also appeared to increase the risk for injury.

Little Pitchers

Pitching brings stress to the bones, tendons and ligaments of the elbows and shoulder at any age — and there’s a reason why childhood and adolescence are called “the tender years.” “Kids’ bones are still growing, with soft areas at the ends of their bones — the so-called growth plates,” said Dr. Fleisig. “Young pitchers are especially susceptible to injuries at the growth plates of the elbow and shoulder.”

Most elbow injuries involve the ulnar collateral ligament of the elbow, known as the Tommy John injury after the professional pitcher who tore this ligament in the 1970s and then made a very unlikely comeback after innovative surgery to replace it. Shoulder injuries usually involve the rotator cuff tendons or the shoulder capsule (the ligaments that wrap around the upper arm bone connecting it to the shoulder socket).

Safe Pitching

If you know and care about young pitchers (male or female), you’ll want to encourage them along with their coaches to consider these guidelines offered by Dr. Fleisig:

“The issue of overuse comes largely from playing the same sport year-round,” said Dr. Fleisig. “For children to be as healthy as possible, they need athletic activity, but they develop best if they engage in multiple activities using a variety of muscles rather than specializing in one sport or position.”

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Source(s):

Glenn S. Fleisig, PhD, research director, American Sports Medicine Institute, adjunct professor, department of biomedical engineering, University of Alabama at Birmingham, and pitching safety consultant for Little League Baseball & Softball.