Wednesday, August 17, 2016

Cupping Explained!



Cupping: What were the marks on Michael Phelps' back?

Updated 9 Aug 2016, 1:36am
Micahel Phelps with cupping bruises at Rio OlympicsPHOTO: Michael Phelps cheering on his team-mates with a visible "cupping" spot on his back and shoulder(AP: Lee Jin-man)

When US Olympian Michael Phelps jumped into the pool this week in Rio, it wasn't just his 19th gold medal that made headlines.


Phelps had large, circular bruises that covered his back and shoulders, causing some to question whether they were the result of a paintball session or perhaps falling asleep on all his medals.
But as it turns out Phelps is a fan of cupping.

What is cupping?

It is an ancient therapy, said to be used in ancient China, Greece and Egypt, where glass or plastic cups, sometimes heated, are applied to the skin.
They are usually placed on the back or arms or legs and either heated or pumped to suck the skin into the cup.
In most cases a flammable liquid is put into the cups to create suction.
Some therapists move them around on the back, other leave them on the skin untouched, before taking them off.

What does it supposedly do?

It is said to promote blood flow and bring toxins to the surface of the skin.
People undergo the treatment for a range of health issues including muscle tension, arthritis, sleep issues, fertility problems and pain relief.
However Australian Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine Association vice president Waveny Holland said the use of cupping was up to the practitioner, and not generally used for specific medical ailments.
"It's not a blanket thing like Western medicine," Mrs Holland said.
"Practitioners will treat their patients according to their specific needs.
"Cupping isn't generally used for headache or infertility ... it would be on the practitioner's diagnosis and assessment that they will choose the right treatment for that person."

What about the bruises?

Well, Mrs Holland said her training taught her not to leave any bruises after a cupping treatment.
"For me again, I use it sliding (the cup) and that's like doing a deep-tissue massage without leaving the marks," she said.
"You don't put them over broken skin at all or anything like that.
"You don't want to cause any more bleeding."

Why do athletes do it?

It is said to help improve recovery and promote blood flow.
"I'd be interested to know whether they are Chinese medicine practitioners, whether their professionally trained or whether they're just practitioners who think that cupping might be good thing to do," Mrs Holland said.
A woman putting cups on the back of Michael Phelps' legsPHOTO: Michael Phelps showed his love of cupping on his Instagram account (Instagram: Michael Phelps)
US gymnast Alexander Naddour is also a fan.
He told USA Today that it was "better than any money I've spent on anything else".

What does science tell us?

Not much, according to Australian Medical Association vice president Dr Tony Bartone.
"What I can say is that cupping has, from our perspective, no medical benefit whatsoever," Dr Bartone said.
"There is no evidence to suggest — not proven evidence — to suggest that it has a role to play."

Is it dangerous?

Well, it can be.
"Well look ... the theory is it is using a suction to draw ... toxins out of the blood to the surface [and] the pressure, that creates bruising beneath the skin," Dr Bartone said.
"You're breaking ... capillaries... that bruising or bleeding may be extensive and may create deep bruising within muscle which may, in really bad cases, could create some deep scaring or nodules.
"Because some practitioners use heat ... burns are not an uncommon consequence of cupping, not to mention the impressive bruises that are visible for all to see."

So, should you avoid Chinese medicine?

Not necessarily. Dr Bartone said cupping was "one of the more extreme ends" of Chinese medicine.
"Acupuncture has got a role to play," he said.
"It's used by many leading pain management clinics.
"[Cupping] just unfortunately doesn't stand up to the same rigour of scrutiny."
Mrs Holland said it was important to seek out professionals with proper qualifications.
"There's a lot of controversy going around Chinese medicine," she said.
"Chinese medical practitioners have to have a minimum of a four-year bachelor degree [in] Chinese medicine to be registered and practice and we've got to maintain our professional development every year to maintain that registration to practice.
"The national law is supposed to protect [the public] from people who are not properly trained."

Saturday, August 6, 2016

Acupuncture May Slow Memory Loss


Image: Acupuncture May Slow Memory Loss

Acupuncture may benefit people who have memory loss, but don't yet have dementia, suggests a review by Chinese researchers of five earlier studies.

Nothing has yet been proven to halt the progression to dementia in those who are destined to progress. But, acupuncture used alone or along with another treatment, such as the medication nimodipine, might help retain some memory function, the researchers said.

But several doctors not involved with the review said it was too soon to say that acupuncture might be effective against dementia.

For the study, Min Deng and Xu-Feng Wang, from Wuhan University in China, reviewed five previously published studies done in 2012 and 2013.

The trials included nearly 600 people with mild cognitive impairment, a type of memory loss that's considered pre-dementia. About 5 percent to 10 percent of people with mild cognitive impairment develop dementia each year, the study authors noted.

The researchers concentrated on people who had a specific form of mild cognitive impairment called amnestic. People with this type of impairment are even more likely to develop dementia, the review authors said.

The studies compared the benefit of acupuncture alone versus nimodipine. Or, looked at the two treatments together compared to nimodipine alone.

Patients received treatment three to five times a week for eight weeks in four trials. The fifth trial lasted for three months.

The combined data from all five trials showed that those receiving acupuncture did better than those on nimodipine alone.

The acupuncture patients scored better on two tests of memory and dementia: the mini-mental state exam (a 30-point questionnaire that measures mental impairment), and picture recognition.

In addition, the combination of acupuncture and nimodipine improved scores on the mini-mental state exam compared with nimodipine alone, the researchers found.

Three trials reported side effects, which for acupuncture included fainting during treatment and slow bleeding at the needle sites. Side effects reported for nimodipine included nausea, constipation and mild headache, according to the report.

Dr. Remy Coeytaux is an associate professor in community and family medicine and an acupuncture researcher at Duke University in Durham, N.C. He was one of the experts reluctant to embrace the review's findings.

"The studies suggest that acupuncture is effective, but my degree of confidence in this finding is low, [but] it's not zero," Coeytaux said.

The problem is that "the quality of the studies really was poor, so that puts a damper on the findings, because it's hard to trust the data from the original studies," explained Coeytaux.

"There is high risk of bias in all the studies," he added.

Coeytaux suggested that some of the benefit seen from acupuncture might be a placebo effect. But, it's impossible from this review to know how much, if any, was a placebo effect, he explained.

What is known is encouraging, but there is need for a larger, better designed trial to really see if acupuncture can help, he said.

However, because there aren't any really effective treatments for memory loss, trying acupuncture is something patients can do -- it may not help, but it won't hurt, Coeytaux noted.

Another review skeptic is Dr. Sam Gandy, director of the Center for Cognitive Health at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. "I tend to believe some holistic interventions when properly executed," he said.

For example, Gandy noted that meditation in Alzheimer's disease patients is potentially credible and promising.

"That said, I don't believe anything until it is independently replicated," he said.

"I can imagine some ways in which acupuncture might increase alertness and attention and thereby memory, but I would want to see independent replication," Gandy added.

The new report was published Aug. 4 in the journal Acupuncture in Medicine.

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