Integrative medicine最新文献

The world is suffering a pandemic of neurodevelopment and neurodegenerative disorders. Autism, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, dementia, Alzheimer disease, Parkinson disease-the list is long-have all increased relentlessly the past few decades. The primary cause appears to be the saturation of the environment with microbial, chemical, and metal neurotoxins. This editorial reviews the research on commonly found neurotoxins and attempts to assess their contribution to neurodegeneration and its prevalence in the population.

Background: Long COVID remains a significant burden for patients, clinicians, employers, and the U.S. healthcare system. Despite substantial resources and scientific studies directed at understanding and treating long COVID, its cause, and thus targeted treatment remains elusive. Conventional medicine focuses on symptom evaluation to rule out other etiologies. Intervention typically offers the patient current understanding and education and provides reassurance and context for their symptoms. Treatment is mostly supportive care directed at symptom management to improve quality of life, including occupational and physical therapy, breathing exercises, pulmonary rehabilitation, and mental health therapy. Classical Chinese Medicine (CCM) can help make sense of an individual's response to COVID-19 infection, as each pathophysiological change caused by COVID can be correlated with CCM principles, therefore a corresponding treatment approach is available.

Methods: A case series of four representative patients with long COVID treated with CCM is presented. Symptom complex, CCM diagnoses and treatment, and response to treatment are provided for each case, and the rationale for the selected therapy approach is explained.

Results: All four patients recovered fully from long COVID after treatment with CCM therapy. These cases are representative of 56 patients successfully treated thus far with CCM for long COVID.

Conclusion: There is no single treatment for long COVID in Western or Chinese medicine. Western medical treatment centers around reassurance and supportive care, whereas CCM treatment can be more directly targeted and individualized to underlying causes and increase the probability of recovery. These cases indicate the potential of CCM for treating long COVID. However, more research is needed to evaluate the effectiveness of this approach to long COVID recovery.

This case study reports the impact of the Neubie direct current electrical stimulation device in helping restore nerve conduction and function in a 65-year-old woman with sporadic ALS. Use of the Neubie began 12 months after her sudden onset of symptoms. By then, she could not move her fingers or toes, had drop foot, had lost considerable weight and muscle mass, and was in pain. After her first Neubie session, she could wiggle her toes and that movement persisted. After two months she had no hip pain and was moving her fingers, toes, hands, and feet. The Master Reset protocol was used to facilitate the calming of the nervous system and required a sequential increase of settings. She then developed tight, painful shoulders from being in a wheelchair and Neubie treatments on her shoulders ultimately allowed her to become pain-free and regain some range of motion to increase her shoulder flexibility. Her voice then became soft due to a weak diaphragm. After two months she could feel the Neubie treatments increase the innervation of her diaphragm. At the time of this data collection and work, she was pain-free, had increased movement and range of motion, and had more energy. She showed improvements in muscle activation and strength in her legs and was able to stand with assistance. The results of this case study support the need to further study the impact of the Neubie in ALS, especially early in the course of the disease.

Background: Traditional foot reflexology impacts autonomic function by applying pressure to the foot. However, evidence of walking on foot reflexology path and its influence on autonomic function was limited.

Primary study objective: The study aimed to ascertain whether walking on a foot reflexology path was feasible and how this would affect autonomic function.

Methods: This was a randomized, counterbalanced, open-label crossover trial. 24 healthy volunteers recruited, aged 18 - 26 years, were randomly assigned into 2 groups (n = 12 in each). After a washout period of 2 days, they switched to receive the opposite phase of intervention.

Setting: A holistic health centre in southern India.

Intervention: Walking on a foot reflexology path or walking on a plain surface for 15 minutes.

Outcome measures: Measures include feasibility, blood pressure, and heart rate variability. Participants were assessed at baseline, during walking, and 5 minutes after intervention.

Results: All participants completed the study with no adverse events, indicating the feasibility of the study. Participants were comfortable walking without any deviation in the horizontal and vertical accelerometry. There was a significant decrease in mean RR interval and percentage of differences between adjacent normal heartbeats that are greater than 50 milliseconds during walking on foot reflexology path and walking on plain surface compared to pre-intervention values (P < .05). At post-intervention, a significant increase in mean RR and percentage of differences between adjacent normal heartbeats that are greater than 50 milliseconds (P < .05) was noted, along with a significant decrease in heart rate, systolic blood pressure, and diastolic blood pressure only after walking on reflexology path when compared with pre-intervention values (P < .05).

Conclusion: The findings indicate that walking on foot reflexology path is feasible and potentially helps to regulate cardiac vagal tone by reducing blood pressure and increasing heart rate variability compared to walking on plain surface.

This case report presents a 46-year-old woman with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) who sought to discontinue glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonists (RAs) therapy while maintaining her weight and metabolic health. Her desire to reduce medication dependency, combined with her apprehension about potential metabolic regression following discontinuation of the drug, highlights a challenge often faced by patients managing chronic conditions, and the value of naturopathic adjunctive therapies to support these individuals in their wellness goals. This report details a comprehensive intervention strategy combining probiotics, nutrient supplementation, and lifestyle modifications to address her concerns. Over an 8-week period post-GLP-1 RAs therapy discontinuation, she maintained weight loss, improved glycemic control and lipid profile, demonstrated improvements in micronutrient levels, and experienced improvements in her quality of life. This case contributes to the growing body of evidence suggesting that targeted naturopathic interventions can play a supportive role in managing T2DM and mitigating the reliance on pharmacotherapy without compromising health outcomes.

Vulvar lichen sclerosus (VLS) is a chronic inflammatory skin condition characterized by vulvar pruritus, pain, dyspareunia, and architectural changes, including significant and permanent scarring and deformity of the vulva if left untreated. Untreated VLS significantly increases the risk of invasive squamous cell carcinoma, even in asymptomatic patients. However, there is an overall paucity of preclinical and clinical research on VLS. Although the disease is becoming more commonly recognized, it is often under- or misdiagnosed and its prevalence is likely underestimated. While the exact underlying etiology is still unknown, VLS is most likely an autoimmune disorder within the background of genetic predisposition and environmental triggers. The skin and gut microbiomes also appear to be involved. The first line treatment for VLS, ultrapotent topical corticosteroids, helps relieve symptoms and reduce the risk of architectural changes and vulvar cancer. The second-line medications and treatments with more limited evidence of efficacy include topical calcineurin inhibitors, topical hormones, platelet-rich plasma, and fractional CO₂ laser therapy. Surgical intervention may also be required. Additionally, some VLS patients and practitioners report improvements with diet and lifestyle changes, nutritional supplements, low-dose naltrexone, botanical medicines, and other integrative treatments, although clinical research on these integrative therapies for VLS is generally lacking. This review aims to describe VLS in adult women, summarize the recently published literature, and provide a clinical overview that includes evidence-based integrative therapies.

As documented now in several of my editorials, the primary causes of the chronic disease pandemic are the toxic metals, metalloids, and chemicals polluting the environment. The entire population is exposed and there are no control groups. Clinical efficacy requires recognizing how much of a patient's disease burden is due to toxins. In this editorial I propose a novel approach to assessing toxin load in the general population: determine who is exposed, use conventional laboratory tests to determine the amount of damage from the toxins, and finally, work with the patient to decrease exposure, measure specific toxins when appropriate, and increase toxin elimination.