Virginia Prior, DAOM, L.Ac.

02/11/2022

Tis the season to take care of your heart. And by heart I mean (also) your mind, your spirit, your soul. What can we do to decrease our stress and reduce our suffering? What can we do to reduce the suffering of those around us?

Heart disease is the number one killer in the U.S. And as Dr. Bairey Merz suggests, our brain may have a lot to do with it. Thanks to doctors like her, more research is being done with women, and we’re learning that women have a much more complex system that bares a deeper dive, and more time & care, both in the hospital, and at home.

09/02/2020

The (newest) data are in. It may not be the cytokine storm that’s causing so much damage in Covid-19, but a bradykinin storm. This would explain all of the vascular issues, why vents don’t work, increased mortality in men, etc. Good news - there’s an app for that, or rather, we already have several approved therapeutics for this (safe medications that have been around for decades, more natural approaches like herbal medicine and vitamin D, etc.), possibly rendering the vaccine approach and race unnecessary. We’ll see where the bradykinin hypothesis takes us over the next few weeks. In the mean time, talk to your health care provider about safely boosting your immune system and protecting your vascular system. And wash your hands.

A closer look at the Bradykinin hypothesis

08/25/2020

Excellent news in Parkinson’s research.

06/21/2019

06/20/2019

“Complementary therapies such as acupuncture and massage are recommended by the American College of Physicians for chronic low back pain."

Review Article from The New England Journal of Medicine — Nonnarcotic Methods of Pain Management

05/23/2018

A new meta-analysis published in the Journal of Pain has found that acupuncture is effective for the treatment of chronic pain, which may have implications for the way family physicians treat patients with this condition.

05/18/2018

Being poked with needles reduces activity in areas of the brain associated with pain, called “the pain matrix”. According to Hugh McPherson, acupuncture researcher at University of York, “it actually de-activates it,” dialing down the pain mechanisms.

Placebo acupuncture can ease short-term pain but the real thing might help to reverse the underlying pathology of a disease

02/21/2018

Go Ohio! (And California, Massachusetts, Oregon and Rhode Island)

Ancient acupuncture is increasingly used as weapon in the nation's struggle with opioids.

01/29/2018

Is the world getting better or worse? Steven Pinker, a cognitive scientist at Harvard and a trained psychologist, may have the answer, and the data to back it up.

Bill Gates reviews “Enlightenment Now” by author Steven Pinker.

01/29/2018

"The history of Western medicine, moreover, is riddled with examples of broad miscalculations rooted in hubris, which may also help explain the tendency of fictional medical narratives to follow these punitive arcs."

- Nitin K. Ahuja, Slate Magazine, "Why Do We Keep Resurrecting the Cautionary Medical Tale?"