Health Alliance Plan (HAP) is adding acupuncture and chiropractic services to its Flexible Health Options Benefit for Medicare Advantage members beginning January 1, 2009. HAP's growing list of services to promote wellness encourages Medicare beneficiaries to choose activities and services they want, while putting money back in their wallets.

read more

Acupuncture is more effective than medication in reducing the severity and frequency of chronic headaches, according to a new analysis conducted by Duke University Medical Center researchers.

The National Institutes of Health recommended acupuncture as a viable treatment for chronic headaches a decade ago and, while research in this field has increased, there have been conflicting reports about its efficacy.

read more

The release of a nationwide government survey on trends and demographic use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) among both adults and children in the United States. The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Center for Health Statistics of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will hold a telephone briefing to discuss the findings of the 2007 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS).

read more

TAT2, used in Chinese herbal therapy, prolongs killer T-cells' ability to divide. This can be a new breakthrough in HIV treatment research.

Like other kinds of cells, immune cells lose the ability to divide as they age because a part of their chromosomes known as a telomere becomes progressively shorter with cell division. As a result, the cell changes in many ways, and its disease fighting ability is compromised.

read more

The Department of Kinesiology in the College of Education at LSU is conducting three clinical trials for Neuragen, a non-prescriptive homeopathic drug used to relieve nerve pain, produced by Origin BioMed Inc.

The trials test the efficacy of Neuragen for limb pain caused by a condition called peripheral neuropathy, or PN, a degenerative disease causing significant nerve damage in the extremities, resulting in pain and numbness in the hands and feet, often caused by diabetic nerve damage.

read more

Let's face it: Because of the economy, typical expenses -- from dining out to gym memberships -- are becoming luxuries. Today's budget trimmers who regularly attend a yoga studio, or even yoga beginners, could be inspired to make a small investment in a home yoga practice and a large investment in their health. Natural Solutions: Vibrant Health, Balanced Living magazine's November issue, now on newsstands, features "The Om Advantage," which details how to set up a home practice and offers step-by-steps for 11 basic yoga poses designed by longtime yoga teachers Rodney Yee and Colleen Saidman.

read more

Two newly published studies (1,2) show that the conclusions of a review published in The Lancet about the effectiveness of homeopathy (3) were seriously flawed.

read more

Everyone feels great after a well done therapeutic massage. Massage has been documented back to 2700 BC and found in many ancient cultures. For example, it is documented that the Chinese, Egyptians, Indians, Greeks, and Romans all benefited from therapeutic massage. In fact, Hippocrates wrote of the benefits of massage in the 5th century BC. However, even with widespread awareness and rich history, few people realize how many health benefits there are to getting a massage and why it has such profound effects.

read more

Hypnosis can induce "synesthetic" experiences ? where one sense triggers the involuntary use of another ? within an average brain, according to a new study in the journal Psychological Science, the premiere publication of the Association for Psychological Society.

The findings suggests that people with synesthesia, contrary to popular belief, do not necessarily have extra connections in their brain; rather, their brains may simply do more 'cross talking' which can be induced by changing inhibitory processes in the average brain.

read more

A newly published book, Yoga in the Classroom (ISBN: 978-0-9817955-0-8), authored by Gail Bentley Walsh, CEO of Yoga Mountain, Inc. is a step-by-step manual for school teachers, K-12.

Yoga practice helps to improve mental and physical well-being on many levels. This new book, Yoga in the Classroom, is designed to help students focus, relax and prepare for exams. Yoga creates a calm environment for learning and is a natural step in working to improve test scores.

read more