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Lowering Blood Pressure Using Acupuncture
Acupuncture is here for long time. Its authenticity is still a debatable issue. But the recent study that the acupuncture can dramatically lower blood pressure. According to this study, when low level of electrical stimulation was given at specific points on the front legs of rats lower the elevation in blood pressure. This study provides a setting stage for large-scale trails on humans and another option for healthcare practitioner treating high blood pressure patients. This study proves that acupuncture can be an excellent complements to other medical treatments, especially those treating high blood pressure problems.
This study cans convince the so far unconvinced Weston world that acupuncture can also lower blood pressure. This research will ultimately integrate acupuncture healing into medical treatments for lowering the blood pressure. Team of researchers performed both manual and electro acupuncture. All the activities in both manual and electro acupuncture were performed. They used all the methods available and also changed the variables. Results of both manual and electro acupuncture showed immediate and prolonged lowering of cardiovascular blood pressure. However blood pressure remains lower for 10 minutes longer with electro acupuncture. Results in electro acupuncture are achieved normally with lower frequency. Result ranges between 44 and 39 % respectively. Combined stimulation of both the sets has caused no extra additive effect on the lowering of blood pressure.
Acupuncture is available with many variable techniques; therefore this study provides a greater opportunity to understand the different type of acupuncture techniques. Acupuncture treatment is found to successful on only patients with hypertension (high blood pressure) and has no effect on the healthy patient. Goal of this study is to establish a standard of acupuncture treatment that can benefit everyone, who has high blood pressure and other cardiac ailments.
Therefore acupuncture has established itself for being able to lower blood pressure. Thus acupuncture provides a big hope in the treatment of patients with cardiac disorders.
Author Info: This medical article has been written by Groshan Fabiola. She is a professional writer since 1990, writing many article on various domain from agriculture finance to web development or web research, but now aiming only on health related articles. So if you want to find more about how to lower blood pressure please visit this web site
It is not unusual to have high cholesterol level in your blood. It happens even to the best of us. But if you suddenly find out that you have high cholesterol you must immediately take action. This is called ‘Cholesterol Management’. It may seem a pretentious notion, but it keeps you away from heart problems. Cholesterol management involves few simple rules for lowering your cholesterol level: eat low fat (it doesn’t matter if it is saturated fat or total fat, they are wrong nonetheless) foods; lose weight; eat fruits and vegetables; grill your food instead of frying it; and start being more physically active.
Aside from these basic rules, there are some factors that can help you with your cholesterol management action. Research has shown that nature is providing us with all the necessary elements for a healthy life. In this case, plants help reducing cholesterol. You don’t have to eat the entire garden; you just need to keep in mind 3 herbs that are essential to cholesterol management.
1. Garlic Bulb
Garlic’s curing properties have been known for centuries as it was used for treating different illness. Garlic has a highly concentrated content of organosulfur substances that can be also found in vegetables like cauliflower, onion and broccoli. But garlic’s sulfur concentration is four times higher than other vegetables’. Why is garlic good for managing your cholesterol? Well, sulphur lowers the serum cholesterol level (LDL or bad cholesterol) and raises HDL or good cholesterol. It does this by decreasing the clotting effects that are causing plaque formation in blood vessels and arteries which are responsible for the occurrence of heart disease and strokes. In other words, garlic is providing a good, healthy blood circulation.
2. Alfalfa Herb
Latest research has shown that saponins in alfalfa seeds are blocking the formation of atherosclerotic plaque which is being caused by the accumulation on cholesterol in the blood vessels. Alfalfa seeds are attacking the low-density lipoprotein (LDL), removing it from the blood and replacing it with high-density lipoprotein (HDL) which is good for the human body. However, you must pay attention to the amount of alfalfa seeds you would be using as consuming them in excess may cause damage to the red blood cells.
3. Capsicum Fruit
Everybody has eaten capsicum for at least once in his/her lifetime as it is a spicy herb used for making salsa and chilli. It has been proven that the extract of this plant stimulates the blood flow. This means that capsicum extract is making the slow and toxins-loaded circulation faster, determining the blood to reach the far parts of the body that need oxygen and nutrients. It has the same favorable effect as garlic.
These are the most important herbs to be used in cholesterol management, but if you want to add some ‘spice’ in your life, you can use: Ginseng, Turmeric, Cayenne, Aloe Vera, Saffron, Dandelion, Burdock root, Red Clover blooms or Echinacea root.
But remember consuming these herbs in excess can cause you side effects so always consult a doctor before using them.
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John Sampson, M.D., inserts four catheters into Meredith Hanson's skull and prepares to infuse an experimental drug into the cavity where her deadly brain tumor once sat. Just a few errant cancer cells lurking amidst her healthy brain tissue could quickly re-grow the tumor which he recently removed.
Over the next four days, Hansen chats with family and walks the hospital halls as a small pump slowly pushes the drug concoction directly into her brain. The new drug and its targeted attack provide the best possible chance of subduing Hansen's glioblastoma multiforme, a deadly brain cancer that claims its patients within a year of diagnosis.
Already, the experimental therapy has nearly doubled the expected median survival time for 24 patients enrolled in phase I and III clinical trials at the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center's Brain Tumor Center.
Reaching the tumor is no small feat, given how glioblastoma wraps itself around normal cells just beyond the primary tumor mass. The catheters bypass healthy brain tissue and deliver the drug precisely to the sites of any remaining cancer cells that have been illuminated by magnetic resonance imaging. A forceful current sweeps the drug into the tumor space using computer generated imagery that directs the surgeon's placement of each catheter.
Once in place, the drugs target only those brain cells that express the IL13 receptor, a docking site on the surface of glioblastoma cells. Normal cells have no IL13 receptor so the drug is not allowed inside, sparing healthy tissue the toxic side effects of the drug.
Such extraordinary measures ensure that the drugs reach their intended target and bypass healthy brain cells. Traditional chemotherapy, delivered intravenously, must cross several barriers that limit its entry into the brain.
"Drugs that shrink tumors in other parts of the body often fail when we apply them to brain cancer, in part because so little of the drug permeates the blood-brain barrier and in part because the drugs indiscriminately attack healthy and cancerous cells, so we're limited to lower doses," said Sampson, a neurosurgeon at the Duke Brain Tumor Center. "Directly infusing drugs into the tumor cavity allows us to blanket the area with much higher concentrations of the drug - without causing toxicity -- than we would be able to with intravenous chemotherapy."
Duke is among 50 centers nationwide testing IL13-PE38QQR or other novel drugs as targeted treatments against glioblastoma, the most common and aggressive form of primary brain tumors. Such tumors usually occur in adults between the ages of 40 and 60.
Hansen was diagnosed at the young age of 30, just a month after giving birth to her first child. Hansen said the Duke treatment presents the best odds of allowing her to see her child grow up.
"The Duke doctors said, 'we're going to try to cure you until we're proven otherwise, and that's the exact moment that hope began for us, because we'd had nothing but bad news for weeks,'" said Keith Hansen, Meredith's husband.
Aggressive treatment is critical to prolonging her survival, but current therapies have done little to stem this tumor's ferocity. Sampson is hoping this novel delivery technique, called convection-enhanced delivery, and the targeted drug it delivers will improve the odds for his patients. More than simply an influx of drug, the technique employs a forceful current that carries the drug farther and wider than would occur with drug alone.
Precision catheter placement is key to the technique's success, said Sampson. Specially-designed computer software translates data from images of the patient's brain and instructs surgeons where to place the catheters for the optimal rate and depth of infusion, fluid distribution in the affected area, and proximity to critical blood vessels. Catheters placed too close to the surface can leak, while those placed too deep or remote from the tumor cavity can fail to reach their target.
We take MRI images of the patient's brain, and a novel software program extracts data from these images that specifies the placement of each catheter," said Sampson, who helped develop and test the software at Duke. "The most difficult aspect of the treatment is placing catheters in precise locations throughout the brain to achieve complete coverage, similar to placing sprinklers across a lawn to ensure there are no dry spots."
Sampson said previous attempts to directly infuse drugs in the brain have failed because the drugs simply leaked out of the brain. The new software was developed specifically to treat brain tumors, and it has dramatically improved surgeons' ability to ensure that the drug being delivered is actually reaching the tumor tissue, he said.
The drugs themselves are highly selective in that they target only the cancer cells. IL13-PE38QQR contains a tumor-targeting molecule called IL-13 that docks on the surface of cancer cells. Then the drug releases a toxin (Pseudomonas Exotoxin or PE) inside the cell. The toxin interferes with the cancer cell's protein production and immediately causes its demise.
Both drugs have shown promise in extending survival far beyond the usual eight to twelve months, said Sampson. The Duke patients who received IL13-PE38QQR have survived 44 weeks compared to just 26 weeks for patients who did not receive the drug, Sampson reported in November, 2004, at The Society for Neuro-Oncology meeting in Toronto.
"There are a number of remarkable success stories with the experimental compounds," said Sampson. "Some patients have lived up to five times longer than expected."
If the experimental therapy continues to show benefit, additional clinical trials will be conducted in larger populations of patients at Duke and nationwide. The study is being funded by Neopharm, Inc., maker of IL13-PE38QQR. BrainLAB developed the software for the image-guided surgical placement of catheters. Sampson has served as a paid consultant for Neopharm, Inc., and BrainLAB. - DURHAM, N.C.
