Amherst Acupuncture & Chinese Medicine

04/12/2024

A study in the New England Journal of Medicine throws shade on beta blockers after heart attacks. Read about the pros and cons of such drugs.

03/01/2024

Paying too much for Rx medications? Mark Cuban's Cost Plus Drug Company fills prescription medications at 15% above cost. (One of my docs just told me about this). That looks to me well below what many co-pays are as well as the prices with GoodRx coupons:

Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug homepage. Provides safe, affordable medicine or medication with transparent low prices.

03/27/2023

Chinese Medicine has been aware for Millenia about the relationship between the brain and the bones. Both are manifestations of what is considered to be the deepest energy in the body, also referred to as Jing or Essence. This essence is the foundation of our constitution and as it declines with age, it could manifest as weakness in the bones or the brain. Another related aspect would be the hearing which often declines with age.

Low bone density, particularly at the femoral neck, may raise dementia risk in older adults, possibly through the little-known bone-brain axis.

12/30/2021

Is lower blood pressure always better? Many people think that 120/80 is ideal but older people may be at risk for dementia if diastolic BP goes too low.

05/07/2021

Good news - a biomarker for severe covid has been found: "The number of natural killer T cells in the blood can be used to predict severe cases of COVID-19 with a high degree of certainty—even on a patient's first day in hospital," . . . The new biomarker test helps clinicians decide which organizational and treatment measures need to be taken for patients with COVID-19, such as transfer to the ICU, frequency of oxygen measurements, type of therapy and treatment start.

12/19/2020

Get your Vitamin D folks.

A growing amount of research is finding a link between vitamin D and COVID-19, leading some experts to believe the vitamin may be helpful in the fight against the virus.

12/03/2020

Not to fat shame anyone (I've become a bit portly recently). An interesting article explaining that BMI is not associated with future Heart Attack or Stroke. "Patients with the same BMI can have markedly different ratios of subcutaneous fat to skeletal muscle". However, a high amount of visceral fat is associated with future heart attack or stroke:

Body composition metrics automatically calculated from abdominal CT exams by an artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm are significantly associated with patient risk for future major cardiovascular events, according to a Wednesday morning presentation at the RSNA 2020 virtual meeting.

04/07/2020

Steamed Asian Pears are excellent for soothing dry coughs. Despite the recipe instructions, they would be more healing served warm, not cold:

Baesuk is a Korean pear dessert that can be either poached or steamed. It's also a popular natural cough remedy! A few weeks ago, I was sick for a week. I had a deep chesty cough that I couldn't shake off easily. My husband asked me to consider some natural cough remedies and I thought

04/05/2020

https://njacucenter.com/covid-19-and-chinese-medicine-a-response-to-nbc-article/?unapproved=14&moderation-hash=e6fe2fbe4710aa0b9a9d2064941cc0fc -14

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/china-encouraging-herbal-remedies-treat-covid-19-scientists-warn-against-n1173041 I recently read the above-referenced article regarding the use of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and COVID-19. The unfortunate conclusions and one-sidedness of the article have le...

03/31/2020

A bit of a dense read but thoughtful and incisive.

Covid-19 is showing us that when humanity is united in common cause, phenomenally rapid change is possible. None of the world’s problems are technically difficult to solve; they originate in human disagreement. In coherency, humanity’s creative powers are boundless.