Frequently Asked Questions about Acupuncture:

Q: What is acupuncture?

A: In this treatment, Dr. Olson strategically places extremely thin needles into specific points of your body. The stimulation of these miraculous pressure points will help your body to balance its vital life energy. After the needles are placed, you will comfortably relax in one of our soothing treatment rooms for 15 minutes of energetic rejuvenation.

     Acupuncture is an ancient form of healing originating in China. Its beginnings date back nearly 4,000 years. It began as a philosophy and expanded to become a healing art. The premise is based on the belief that there is a substance that causes all movement and stimulates all life in the universe. This substance they call ‘Qi.’ The best label in our language for this substance in non-religious terms would be ‘life force’ or ‘energy.’ Each and every living being on our planet has this energy in their body. It is channeled in pathways or meridians that run throughout the body. Each meridian connects to a different organ or controls a function in the body.

     If the Qi in the body is of proper quantity and moves freely in its designed pathways, health reigns supreme. When the Qi is out of balance or flows improperly we enter the phase where disease occurs. Disease is when we are not at ease with our environment, and our ability to adapt and react properly is limited. This is when we eventually get ill. Acupuncture is designed to correct imbalance in these meridians to prevent the development of disease as well as to treat problems that may occur in our life.

Q: How does acupuncture work?

A: Acupuncture works by manipulating the energy channels via points along these channels called ‘acupuncture points’ or ‘pressure points.’ Each point has a different effect on the energy in the body. Point selection and the method of working the point is determined. Properly applied needles, lasers, massage, or other forms of mechanical stimulation will ensure correction in the energetic imbalance. When the imbalance is corrected, health returns.

Q: What can acupuncture help?

A: Acupuncture has been used historically for a wide variety of conditions. In our practice, patients who suffered from the following conditions have been helped: multiple sclerosis, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, headaches of various origins, menstrual problems, infertility, digestive disorders, learning disabilities, joint injuries, arthritic conditions, sinus problems, allergies, frequent colds and flus, depression and many, many more. What acupuncture really treats is health. As your health fully returns, the body fulfills it's innate self-healing work, and symptoms will leave.

Short and Sweet

Mayo Clinic Researchers Say They’ve Cracked The Code To Being Happy: Dr. Amit Sood led the research and says the first and foremost way to be happy is to focus our attention. “You can choose to live focusing on what is not right in your life,” Dr. Sood said. But if we learn to command our thoughts, shifting perspective away from the negative, and embrace the positive, we will be happier, experts say. “Resiliency has everything to do with happiness,” Dr. Sood said. The Mayo Clinic’s research also shows the degree of happiness people enjoy has to do with how resilient they are to life’s many curve balls. Happy people are very good at compartmentalizing and creating boundaries. “So for example, if you’ve had a difficult day, when you get back home, for the first three minutes, forget about it, park it, and meet your family as if they’re long lost friends,” Dr. Sood added. And perhaps one of the biggest hindrances to being happy is too much thinking about one’s self, research shows. “Complainers are never going to be happy,” Ketchian said. “Happiness is a decision.” So why did the Mayo Clinic decide to study happiness? Studies show happier people are healthier people. http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2015/06/05/researchers-cracked-code-happiness/

Centenarians’ Positive Attitude Linked to Long Life: A recent study published in the journal Aging suggests that having a positive attitude and a sense of humor could play a role in living a longer, healthier life. "The results indicated they had two things -- a positive attitude for life, meaning they are optimistic, easygoing, extraverted, laughed more and expressed emotions rather than bottling them up," said Dr. Nil Barzilai, a study co-author and director of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine's Institute for Aging Research. The study participants also were less neurotic and more conscientious than a representative sample of other Americans. http://abcnews.go.com/Health/centenarians-positive-attitude-linked-long-healthy-life/story?id=16494151

For Headaches, A Lifestyle Change May Be The Best Remedy:

At the Comprehensive Headache Center of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, patients receive a thorough medical history that includes headache patterns, disability and mood assessments. Then the center works with patients to try to identify what triggers their headaches and how they can avoid those triggers in the future.

Some people find relief through exercise. "I write an exercise prescription probably as often as I write a prescription for medication," the headache center’s director, neurologist Carolyn Bernstein, says. She acknowledges it's sometimes difficult to encourage a patient with cracking head pain to get up and exercise. But even a little can help, and according to Bernstein it doesn't have to be jogging for miles and miles. It can be yoga, tai chi or even just a little stretching. http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2015/05/11/404693609/for-headache-pain-a-lifestyle-change-may-be-better-than-a-doctor-visit

Chiropractic and Acupuncture are natural therapies for those who have headaches.  Because we deal with cause, and not the symptoms, headaches are a natural fit in our practice.  If you or someone you know has headaches, please give us a call, and make the world a healthier place today. 

-Dr. Olson

Getting a tattoo may be a rash decision: Folks in New York who’ve gotten tattooed sometimes receive a little something extra—a “rash, severe itching or swelling that lasted longer than four months and, in some cases, for many years,” according to researchers. "The skin is a highly immune-sensitive organ, and the long-term consequences of repeatedly testing the body's immune system with injected dyes and colored inks are poorly understood," says Leger. "Some of the reactions appear to be an immune response, yet we do not know who is most likely to have an immune reaction to a tattoo." http://www.citylab.com/work/2015/05/tattooed-new-yorkers-report-all-kinds-of-nasty-skin-conditions/394304/

Unhealthy lifestyle can knock 23 years off lifespan: Suffering from heart disease, stroke and type two diabetes could knock 23 years off life and yet they are preventable for eight out of 10 people. "Our results highlight the importance of preventing heart disease and stroke amongst patients with diabetes, and likewise averting diabetes amongst heart disease patients," said Professor John Danesh, Head of the Department of Public Health and Primary Care University of Cambridge and British Heart Foundation Professor. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/11723443/Unhealthy-lifestyle-can-knock-23-years-off-lifespan.html

5 Ways Vinegar Keeps You Healthy: Vinegar has been used for healing since Hippocrates used it to treat wounds. Recently, vinegar has been touted as a cure for everything from an upset stomach to dandruff. Can vinegar really be such a "cure-all?" Modern scientific studies are giving the old folk remedies new life by showing that they can indeed be used to treat modern medical scourges. Read the full article to check out the following ways vinegar can help keep you healthy: Diabetes, Weight loss, Heart disease, Cancer, Stomach ailments. http://www.newsmax.com/Health/Headline/vinegar-healing-healthy-cure/2015/06/02/id/648310/#ixzz3c1pycmau 

Diet soda may do more harm than good: Purdue University researchers reviewed a dozen studies published in past five years that examined the relationship between consuming diet soda and health outcomes. http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2013/07/10/diet-soda-may-do-more-harm-than-good/

Short and Sweet

Children who watch three hours of TV a day could be left 'educationally stunted and prone to bullying': Researchers have found that after two hours of viewing, every extra hour of TV has the potential to harm a child's development, both physically and socially.  This includes poorer vocabulary, math skills and attention in class, victimization by classmates and poor physical prowess at nursery. Read more at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2559336/Children-watch-three-hours-TV-day-left-educationally-stunted-prone-bullying.html#ixzz2tOgrett1 

Antibiotic-Resistant Diseases Described As 'Apocalyptic' Threat: Britain's most senior medical adviser, Dame Sally Davies, said the threat from infections that are resistant to frontline antibiotics was so serious that the issue should be added to the government's national risk register of civil emergencies. She described what she called an "apocalyptic scenario" where people going for simple operations in 20 years' time die of routine infections "because we have run out of antibiotics". Read more at http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/jan/23/antibiotic-resistant-diseases-apocalyptic-threat?intcmp=239

Children Exposed to More Brain-Harming Chemicals Than Ever Before: In 2006, scientists identified five industrial chemicals responsible for causing harm to the brain – lead, methylmercury, polychlorinated biphenyls (found in electric transformers, motors and capacitors), arsenic (found in soil and water as well as in wood preservatives and pesticides), and toluene (used in processing gasoline as well as in paint thinner, fingernail polish, and leather tanning). Exposure to these neurotoxins was associated with changes in neuron development in the fetus as well as among infants, and with lower school performance, delinquent behavior, neurological abnormalities, and reduced IQ in school-aged children. “The consequence of such brain damage is impaired [central nervous system] function that lasts a lifetime and might result in reduced intelligence, as expressed in terms of lost IQ points, or disruption in behavior.” Read more at http://healthland.time.com/2014/02/14/children-exposed-to-more-brain-harming-chemicals-than-ever-before/#ixzz2tM20Qn26

Heartburn Drugs Linked to Kidney Failure: Older patients taking drugs known as proton pump inhibitors, a common remedy for heartburn and acid reflux, are two times more likely to be hospitalized with kidney failure than peers who don't take the pills, a study finds. While the side effect is extremely rare, and the study doesn't prove the drugs cause kidney failure, the association is worrisome because tens of millions of people a year take these pills, sold by prescription and over-the-counter in some countries, with brand names including Prilosec, Prevacid and Zegerid. Read more at http://www.newsmax.com/Health/Health-News/heartburn-kidney-drugs-proton/2015/04/16/id/639044/#ixzz3XX9zDIyS 

Surprising Ways the Moon Affects Your Health: A study of British physicians found that visits and emergency calls increased during a full moon and decreased during a new moon. And numerous studies have also confirmed that the moon has a definite effect on sleep, menstrual cycles, heart health, kidney stone pain, mental and emotional health, and even animal behaviors. Read more at http://www.newsmax.com/Health/Headline/moon-affects-health-tales/2015/04/15/id/638770/#ixzz3XX9SeXM1 

“Antioxidant supplements should not be used to replace a nutritionally adequate diet”: Antioxidants, including vitamins A, C and E, are plentiful in vegetables and fruits and may help protect against cell or DNA damage – as a result, they’ve been touted for cancer prevention, heart disease prevention and warding off dementia. “There is good scientific evidence that eating a diet with lots of vegetables and fruits is healthful and lowers risks of certain diseases,” said lead author Annlia Paganini-Hill of the Clinic for Aging Research and Education at the University of California, Irvine. “However, it is unclear whether this is because of the antioxidants, something else in these foods, other foods in people's diet, or other lifestyle choices,” she stated. Read more at http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/07/us-health-antioxidants-mortality-idUSKBN0KG1TN20150107

A hormone used to raise beef cattle may be staying in the environment longer than previously believed and changing the sex of fish, among other effects: These hormones are so effective at causing the sex changes in fish that some fish farms in both the U.S. and abroad intentionally feed similar compounds, such as 17-alpha methyltestosterone, to their fish—usually tilapia—to prevent breeding by turning all of their fish into males. This helps farmers control populations, and divert the energy the fish would use for breeding to growing more tissue, producing a larger animal. http://www.cnbc.com/id/102667398

Whole Grains Help You Live Longer: That’s the upshot of a new study from the Harvard School of Public Health that indicates each average daily serving of whole grains lowers a person's risk of dying from heart disease by 9 percent and lowers the overall risk of dying from anything by 5 percent over a quarter-century. "Eating whole grains as a regular part of a healthy diet for many years is associated with a lower risk of death from cardiovascular-related diseases," the researchers said. "These findings further support current dietary guidelines that recommend increasing whole grain consumption to facilitate primary and secondary prevention of chronic disease and also provide promising evidence that suggests a diet enriched with whole grains may confer benefits toward extended life expectancy." Whole grains include whole wheat, brown rice, and whole oats. Read more at http://www.NewsmaxHealth.com/Health-News/whole-grain-health-longevity/2015/01/05/id/616525/#ixzz3NzxKJfcw 

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"O" Zone - Guest Writer

The following article, by Donald M. Petersen Jr. and published in Dynamic Chiropractic, contains important information about breast cancer screenings and the dangerous overdiagnosis of breast cancer due to false-positive test results. Please take this information into consideration as you make your personal decision concerning future mammographies.

First Do No Harm?

By Donald M. Petersen Jr., BS, HCD(hc), FICC(h), Publisher

There's no questioning the frightening nature of breast cancer, which strikes one in eight women in the U.S. – eclipsed only by skin cancer in terms of prevalence. Some women with a genetic risk have even elected to have preventive double mastectomies (removal of both breasts) in an effort to eliminate the possibility of developing breast cancer.

While I certainly respect their deeply personal decisions and appreciate the potential danger / risk breast cancer poses, particularly if a high-risk situation exists, it's also important to note that a mounting number of studies suggest there is a considerable amount of overdiagnosis when it comes to the disease. These studies bring to light high "false-positive" rates and suggest women not at high risk may want to reconsider whether to have routine mammograms in the absence of additional indications.

For example, a 2012 study in The New England Journal of Medicine¹ found breast cancer has been overdiagnosed with the advent of mammograms. Researchers note, "Our estimate of overdiagnosed cancers attributable to mammography over the past 30 years involved more than 1 million women." In the study, the authors question the current value of mammograms:

"Our study raises serious questions about the value of screening mammography. It clarifies that the benefit of mortality reduction is probably smaller, and the harm of overdiagnosis probably larger, than has been previously recognized. And although no one can say with certainty which women have cancers that are overdiagnosed, there is certainty about what happens to them: they undergo surgery, radiation therapy, hormonal therapy for 5 years or more, chemotherapy, or (usually) a combination of these treatments for abnormalities that otherwise would not have caused illness."

A new study published in Health Affairs² presents even more information on the issue of unnecessary and harmful care provided to women who are victims of "false-positives" within a given year:

• "The cumulative probability of a false-positive recall after ten years of screening mammography for an individual woman has been estimated to be 61 percent."³
• "Breast cancer overdiagnosis, defined as the diagnosis of lesions that are unlikely to become clinically evident during the lifetime of a patient, exposes patients to the harm of overtreatment. A recent randomized controlled trial of screening mammography in Canada reported an overdiagnosis rate of 22 percent for all screen detected invasive breast cancer."⁴
• "The US rate of overdiagnosis has been estimated to be 22-31 percent of all breast cancers diagnosed.¹
• "False-positive mammography results are more common among women ages 40-49 than among older women."
• "A total of 77,729 women (11.1 percent) received a false-positive mammogram that led to further diagnostic workup and breast-related procedures."
• "When we used the estimated false-positive rate of 11 percent shown in our data, we found that 3.2 million women would receive a false-positive mammogram. This translates to a national cost of $2.8 billion per year."
• "If we assume a false-positive rate of 11 percent and overdiagnosis rates of 22 percent and 86 percent for invasive breast cancer and DCIS (the most common form of non-invasive breast cancer), respectively, the national cost of false-positive mammography results and breast cancer overdiagnoses among women ages 40–59 is about $4 billion each year."
• "Ultimately, the decision to undergo breast cancer screening must be based on a careful consideration of the trade-off between the benefits and harms of screening."

In short, we have a medical system that is raking in $4 billion per year solely from false-positives and overdiagnosis. As a result, every year millions of women unwittingly become physically and emotionally scarred by their unnecessary actions. The two take-home messages here are simple:

Arm Your Patients – Provide this information to your patients so they can make better-informed choices about when to have a mammogram and how to react to positive results. It doesn't mean they should skip the procedure; it means they should talk to their doctor about its annual necessity as part of a larger discussion about risk factors.

Honor the Oath – The Hippocratic Oath maintains the fundamental principle that it may be better to do nothing than to do something more harmful than the illness itself (or lack thereof). The medical profession has apparently forgotten this; chiropractic must not. By putting our patients' health first, doctors of chiropractic will continue to be the providers people trust.

References

1. 1 Bleyer A, Welch HG. Effect of three decades of screening mammography on breast-cancer incidence. N Engl J Med, 2012;367:1998-2005.
2. 2 National expenditure for false-positive mammograms and breast cancer overdiagnoses estimated at $4 billion a year. Health Affairs, April 201534:4576-583.
3. 3 Hubbard RA, Kerlikowske K, Flowers CL, et al. Cumulative probability of false-positive recall or biopsy recommendation after 10 years of screening mammography: a cohort study. Ann Intern Med, 2011;155(8):481-92.
4. 4 Miller AB, Wall C, Baines CJ, et al. Twenty five year follow-up for breast cancer incidence and mortality of the Canadian National Breast Screening Study: randomised screening trial. Brit Med J, 2014;348:g366.

Read more findings on the author's blog: http://blog.toyourhealth.com/wrblog/. You can also visit him on Facebook.

Click here for more information about Donald M. Petersen Jr., BS, HCD(hc), FICC(h), Publisher.

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