EARTH ALMANAC

Why do dogs and cats eat grass? Probably to purge themselves of tainted food. Likewise, wild animals medicate themselves with certain plants of the world's rain forests. And such behavior is leading scientists to study the same plants, partly because this natural pharmacopoeia may also benefit mankind - if destruction of rain forests can be slowed.

In Tanzania a chimpanzee seeks out a plant of the spiderwort family. Instead of chewing the leaves, it swallows them whole. Harvard University anthropologist Richard Wrangham suspects the purpose to be medicinal, because chimps eat another plant, Aspilia, the same way. Aspilia contains a red oil called thiarubrine-A, which is very potent against bacteria, fungi, and parasites, according to Eloy Rodriquez of the University of California at Irvine. He believes that swallowing the leaves without chewing allows most of the medication to be released in the intestines where the parasites are found.

Chimps select such plants, even though they provide few nutrients. But other animals get food along with a taste of their own medicine, researchers are finding. In Ethiopia baboons eat a fruit containing an agent that attacks parasites. In Brazil the fertility of muriqui monkeys may be linked to the plants they eat at certain times of the year. And in Costa Rica howler monkeys even eat different plants that may determine the sex of their offspring.

Source : National Geographic.

ACUPUNCTURE : HEALING WITH PIN PRICKS

Acupuncture is a technique of inserting and manipulating fine filiform needles into specific points on the body to relieve pain on the body to relieve pain or for therapeutic purposes. The word acupuncture comes from the Latin acus, “needle”, and pungere, “to prick”.

In the 1970’s, acupuncture became better known in the United States after an article appeared in The New York Times by James Reston, who underwent an emergency appendectomy while visiting China.

While standard anesthesia was used for the actual surgery, Reston was treated with acupuncture for post-operative discomfort. The National Acupuncture Association (NAA), the first national association of acupuncture in the US, introduced acupuncture to the West through seminars and research presentations. The NAA created and staffed the UCLA Acupuncture Pain clinic in 1972.

According to Wikipedia, the online dictionary, this was the first legal clinic in a medical school setting in the US. The first acupuncture clinic in the US is claimed to have been opened by Dr Yao Wu Lee in Washington, DC on July 9^th, 1972.

The Internal Revenue Service allowed acupuncture to be deducted as a medical expense beginning in 1973. The World Health Organisation, the National Centre for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NC-CAM) of the National Institutes of Health (NH), the American Medical Association (AMA) and various government reports have studied and commented on the efficacy of acupuncture.

There is general agreement that acupuncture is safe when administered by well-trained practitioners using sterile needles, and that further research is appropriate. From November 3 to 5, 1997, an independent panel of experts of the NH Consensus Development Conference stated that “promising results have emerged showing efficacy of acupuncture in adult postoperative and chemotherapy nausea and vomiting and in post-operative dental pain”.

“There are other situations, such as addiction, stroke rehabilitation, headache, menstrual cramps, tennis elbow, fibromyalgia, myofascial pain, osteo-arthritis, low back pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, and asthma, in which acupuncture may be useful as an adjunct treatment or an acceptable alternative or be included in a comprehensive management program”.

The conclusion of the NIH Consensus Statement was, “There is sufficient evidence of acupuncture’s value to expand its use into conventional medicine and to encourage further studies of its physiology and clinical value.”

That was a major break through for acupuncture. There to be no looking back after that. This ancient art of healing had come a long way. Indeed, even in the eighties when I was studying pharmacy, the joke amongst us was “oh acupuncture, when you have a headache, stick a needle in your toes”!

Today, acupuncture is also taught at the capital of organized modern medicine – Harvard Medical School. Today, it is also big business. More and more third party insurance companies and worker safety insurance boards are recognizing the effectiveness of acupuncture, enabling patient treatments to be billable under most health and wellness plans.

You think of acupuncture as a current “fad”. It is not. In China, the practice of acupuncture can perhaps be traced as far back as the Stone Age, with the Bian shi, or sharpened stones. Stone acupuncture needles dating back to 3000 B.C. have been found by archeologists in Inner Mongolia.

Clearer evidence exists from the first millennium, and archeological evidence has been identified with the period of the Han dynasty (202 BC-220 AD). It has gained recognition within Western medicine for its vast healing properties only in the early part of the last century.

Acupuncture is increasingly popular as it:

• Is not as invasive as most medical procedures
• Has a faster recovery time
• Has very minimal side effects

That is a big plus in a world where the pendulum is definitely swinging away from modern medicine and its drugs as well as procedures. During acupunctures, a series of thin, solid needles are inserted at different points into the body. There are more than two thousand of these points that run along what are called meridians or pathways. There are fourteen pathways within the body that keep the body’s energy, or Qi (pronounced chee), flowing.

It is believed that when these meridians become blocked, then illness occurs. After insertions, the needles are then manipulated by various means, and the patient is left to relax for a period of time.

Once that time has expired, the needles are removed. It often takes several visits to work on a painful problem, so instantaneous relief should not be expected. Like all traditional medicine, acupuncture works slowly and gently.

Indeed, the medical profession is increasingly taking it more seriously. Medical doctors like anesthesiologists, physicians, neurologists are becoming trained practitioners in the field of acupuncture treatments. This treatment works by generating the effects through the nervous system.

Acupuncture may reduce the brain chemistry by controlling the release of the neuro-hormones and neurotransmitters thus controlling the nervous system which is directly related to the involuntary body functions, sensation that normalize the blood functions, sensation that normalize the blood flow, blood temperature and the blood pressure. - NST.