The Nobel Prize in medicine draws from Traditional Chinese Medicine for malaria therapy.

The Nobel Prize in medicine draws from Traditional Chinese Medicine for malaria therapy.

The 2015 Nobel Prize in medicine has been awarded to three scientists from China, Ireland, and Japan.

One half of the prize is shared by William Campbell of Drew University and Satoshimura of Kitasato University for their work on “a novel therapy against infections caused by roundworm parasites.”

The other half goes to Dr Youyou Tu of the China Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine for her discovery of “a novel therapy against malaria.”  Dr Tu was the lead discoverer of powerful malaria drug artemisinin. In giving her the prize, the Nobel Prize committee has recognized the role ancient knowledge can play in the modern world.

During the Vietnamese  war with the Americans there was a second front in the battle to fight malaria. The parasite that caused the disease had developed resistance against chloroquine, which was commonly used as treatment. So, in desperation, they turned to China’s leader, Mao Zedong, for help.

Mao’s turned the search into a military project and so more than 500 scientists were involved. One group screened some 40,000 known chemicals to find a malaria drug whilst the other turned to traditional medicine literature and searched for “secret cures” in Chinese villages.

Those working with traditional medicine literature succeeded, but it was no easy task.

Tu described the challenge in 2011 in the journal Nature; "We investigated more than 2,000 Chinese herb preparations and identified 640 hits that had possible antimalarial activities. More than 380 extracts obtained from 200 Chinese herbs were evaluated against a mouse model of malaria. However, progress was not smooth, and no significant results emerged easily".

The first hint of success came when an ancient text described a method of using qinghao, or sweet wormwood, to extract artemisinin. After five years, in 1972, Tu had found a method to successfully extract the drug from the plant.

Tu’s team volunteered to be the first patients to deem the drug’s safety and test it on themselves, only then could they proceed to larger trials.

At the end of the Vietnam war, the project that found the drug was disbanded even though Tu had managed to publish her results widely by the 1980s, the development of the drug languished.

It took nearly 30 years for the World Health Organization (WHO) to endorse the drug. The reasons behind the delays are not clear, but most likely caused by  of political instability and malaria afflicting mostly the poor perhaps and that there was no development incentive for multinationals.

Though it took time, Tu’s method showed other Chinese researchers how to capitalize on the ancient knowledge the ancient scrolls and in oral traditions and this is not the first time with compounds drawn from Chinese traditional medicine such as huperzine  (Huperzia serrata or toothed clubmoss and in TCM Qian Ceng Ta/Jin Bu Huan)  which treats memory dysfunction and paeoniflorin (Paeonia lactiflora or Chinese peony and in TCM Shaoyao) which treats cardiovascular disease.

The Nobel Prize committee said that the researchers’ breakthroughs have had an enormous impact on improved human health and reduced suffering. All three researchers extracted naturally occurring chemicals that became crucial drugs against diseases that affect hundreds of millions around the world. The prize is a nod to the fact that nature still has a lot to offer in terms of medicine.

Tu’s award has special significance. She is only the 12th woman among the 210 Nobel laureates in medicine. It is also an acknowledgement of advances in Chinese science, which has rarely been recognized by the Nobel committee.

Tu is the first Chinese scientist to win the prize for medicine and only the third Chinese citizen to win a science Nobel.

If you would like to discuss your health issues or arrange an appointment please contact me.

Jason is an Acupuncturist and Tai Chi & Qi Gong Sifu in Sale, Manchester, England.

Acupuncture versus Gabapentin for Hot Flushes/Flashes Among Breast Cancer Survivors: A Randomized Placebo-Controlled Trial results.

Acupuncture versus Gabapentin for Hot Flushes/Flashes Among Breast Cancer Survivors: A Randomized Placebo-Controlled Trial results.

Published in the American Society of Clinical Oncology 2015

Acupuncture appears to be more efficacious than oral medication (Gabapentin) for the treatment of hot flashes/flushes in breast cancer survivors. According to a new trial that compared Acupuncture, Placebo Acupuncture, Gabapentin, and a Placebo Pill.

The University of Pennsylvania's associate professor of family medicine Jun James Mao, MD, Philadelphia, and colleagues tested the treatments in 120 women who were breast cancer survivors. The women were experiencing hot flushes/flashes at least twice a day.

The 120 women were randomly placed in 4 groups, 30 each and received either real Acupuncture or an inactive placebo pill, 32 women received placebo Acupuncture, and 28 women received Gabapentin.

Acupuncture had the greatest effect on overall hot flush/flash scores at 8 weeks, when all interventions ended, followed by placebo acupuncture and then gabapentin.

At 24 weeks, 16 weeks after treatments ended, acupuncture was still associated with the greatest reduction in hot flushes/flashes.

However even those who had placebo Acupuncture or placebo pills had steeper drops in hot flush/flash scores at 24 weeks than those who took gabapentin.

"The placebo effects for both acupuncture and drugs are quite intriguing, as they both seem to persist over time," reports Dr. Mao . "The magnitude of the placebo effect for acupuncture is bigger than for the drug."

To be fair its not a massive trial but it is well constructed given the limitations of funding for Acupuncture research and it ties in well with the research being conducted at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center / Harvard Medical School Program in Placebo Studies.  As with all medical research, more is always needed but this research ads to my own clinical observations when treating hot flushes/flashes.

Hot flushes are the most common symptom of the menopause and not all women will experience hot flushes going through the menopause, but most do. Three out of every four menopausal women have hot flushes. They’re characterised by a sudden feeling of heat which seems to come from nowhere and spreads through your body. They can include sweating, palpitations, and a red flush (blushing), which vary in severity from woman to woman.

Some women only have occasional hot flushes which don’t really bother them at all, while others report 20 hot flushes a day, that are uncomfortable, disruptive and embarrassing.
Hot flushes usually continue for several years after your last period,  however they can carry on for many years.  The most likely cause is hormone changes affecting the body’s temperature control.

And just in case you wanted to know the medical definition for a hot flush/flash is:  A vasomotor symptom of the climacteric characterized by sudden vasodilation with a sensation of heat!

If you would like to discuss your health issues or arrange an appointment please contact me.

Jason is an Acupuncturist and Tai Chi & Qi Gong Sifu in Sale, Manchester, England.

https://jhsacupuncture.co.uk/back-neck-muscle-pain

Back, Neck and Muscle pain, can Acupuncture help?

Reported on the BBC – The UK economy is slowly recovering, but the country’s workforce is in considerable pain. See the full article here

In this report the BBC state that Almost 31 million days of work were lost last year due to back, neck and muscle problems and according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and the the ONS’s Labour Force Survey, found that musculoskeletal (MSK) conditions, which include a large range of bone, joint and muscle complaints, accounted for more prolonged absences than any other ailment!

Although the United Kingdom’s workforce, along with other countries  that have lost or given up their manufacturing base, has largely swapped heavy manual labour for sitting in offices. MSKs have been the primary cause of absenteeism for the past five years, and we in the UK have one of the highest rates in Europe.  The Work Foundation estimates that employees suffering from bone, joint and/or muscle pain cost the EU’s economies 240bn euros (£200bn) each year.  So why have MSK complaints persisted?

“Sitting is the new smoking,” explains Prof Steve Bevan, director of the Centre for Workforce Effectiveness at the Work Foundation.”The more sedentary you are the worse it is for your health.”

Early detection

Once symptoms do occur, we in the UK are slow to react. A two-year trial in Madrid showed that by assessing and treating 13,000 workers with MSKs who had been off for five days or more, their temporary work absence was reduced by 39% in the long term.  The Work Foundation estimates that more than 60,000 Britons would be available for work if the Madrid tactics were replicated in the UK.

However, even the more careful among us are at risk of MSKs, and the workplace may have little to do with it.

“People forget how common musculoskeletal problems are,” Prof Anthony Woolf, a rheumatologist at the Royal Cornwall Hospital. 

Indeed, alarm bells have been ringing for some time over the impact of musculoskeletal diseases.  In 2000, then-UN Secretary General Kofi Annan launched the Bone and Joint Decade at the World Health Organization in Switzerland, an initiative designed to reduce the number of MSKs around the globe.  Not much has changed since. A study by medical journal The Lancet,  Global Burden of Disease Study 2010 – published in 2012, found that musculoskeletal conditions were the second greatest cause of disability in the world, affecting over 1.7 billion people worldwide.

How can Acupuncture help?

MSK pain is generally seens as Qi/Xua Stagnation or Bi Syndrome which may be due to Injury/Trauma, Pathogenic Qi Invasion or disease within the ZangFu, all of which probably makes no sense to anyone not trained in Chinese Medicen so here is a quick overview:

Qi/Xua Stagnation – The rough translation here is Energy (Qi or Yang)/Blood (Xua or Yin) stagnation which basically means something has happened to stop the normal flow of the essential Qi and or Blood in an area of the body and is generally caused by injury/trauma.  This stagnation can lead to many different types of pain in any area of the body and if untreated can lead to disease within the ZangFu (Yin/Yang Organs) due to the impairment of natural energy flow.

Bi Syndrome – Painful Obstruction is a very difficult subject in Asian Medicine as it can cover any part of the body and is generally, but not always, connected with a pathogenic invasion of Qi (which in its self is a difficult concept for the western mind), but normally will have some of the following associated:

• Invasion of Wind, Cold and Damp or Wind, Heat and Damp in the Meridians
• Weakness of the body due to Yang Deficiency
• Qi and Blood Deficiencies due to childbirth or long term illness causing Wei Qi Deficiency
• Overstraining, hence weakening the body
• A Yang excess constitution, a Yin Deficient constitution or long standing Wind-Cold-Damp, stagnation may turn into Heat Bi

Disease within the ZangFu – ZangFu translates as Yin/Yang Organs within the body.  If the ZangFu are diseased then then the energy within the meridians will not flow correctly and this may lead to Qi/Xua stagnation and hence pain.

With all the above I would used a combination of Acupuncture, Moxibustion, Tui Na Massage or Acupressure and Qi Gong exercise, depending on the exact diagnosis I may use Fire Cupping and I would hope to see improvement in 4 to 6 sessions.

Here are some fact sheets related to MSK conditions:

• Sciatica
• Sports Injuries
• Tennis elbow (lateral epicondylitis)
• Osteoarthritis
• Fibromyalgia
• Facial pain or temporomandibular joint (TMJ) disorder
• Persistent (chronic) pain
• Back Pain

Its also worth noting that you can have treatment and continue with your pain medication until such time as you agree with your Doctor that you can reduce or stop however you should always tell your Acupuncturist all the medication you are taking.

If you would like to speak to me or arrange an appointment please contact me