Archive for the ‘doing new things,’ Category

Acupuncture DOES work – but it’s benefits are all in the mind, says study

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 3:27 PM on 21st January 2009

Acupuncture has been found to prevent headaches and migraines but the benefits of the technique are mostly in the mind, according to researchers.

They found faked treatments when needles were inserted away from traditional pressure points appeared to work nearly as well as the proper procedure.

Those who had needles incorrectly inserted benefited nearly as much as those who had proper acupuncture

Study author Klaus Linde, who led the analysis said: ‘Much of the clinical benefit of acupuncture might be due to non-specific needling effects and powerful placebo effects, meaning selection of specific needle points may be less important than many practitioners have traditionally argued.’

Acupressure and acupuncture are based on the theory of lines of energy running through the body. With acupressure, a fingertip or a bead is used to press a specific pressure point, while needles are used in acupuncture.

Several studies have shown both treatments may stimulate the release of hormones known as endorphins, which can relieve stress, pain and nausea.

Mr Linde, a complementary medicine researcher at the Technical University in Munich led two reviews of the technique. They included 33 studies of nearly 7,000 men and women to see whether the technique was effective at preventing headaches and migraines.

Overall, they found that over eight weeks people treated with acupuncture suffered fewer headaches compared to men and women given only pain killers.

When it came to migraines, the needles beat drugs but faked treatments worked too, the researchers said. For less severe headaches, acupuncture worked just slightly better than sticking the needles randomly, the researchers said.

‘Doctors need to know how long improvements associated with acupuncture will last and whether better trained acupuncturists really achieve better results than those with basic training only,’ Mr Linde said.

The findings have been published in the Cochrane Review journal.

Searching, finding, and then reading this article will make you smarter. That’s not because I’m a member of MENSA and about to share unique insights into the string theory of theoretical physics. Rather, researchers at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) released a study suggesting that searching online could be beneficial for the brain.

The UCLA team put 24 volunteers in MRI machines to measure their brain activity while conducting online searches. This way they found that searching the Web with search engines such as Google or Yahoo, stimulates centers in the brain that control decision-making and complex reasoning. Also, the researchers say that searching the Web could help counter the brain slowing down, as we get older.

Better than reading

Even though reading is said to help our brain, the UCLA study revealed that searching the Web could be more beneficial for our brains, especially if you for experienced Web users. For newcomers, the brain activity of searching the Web is similar to searching the Web.

In the illustration above you can see the brain activity while reading (left) stimulates less areas of the brain than searching for things online (right).

The UCLA researchers said that in comparison with reading, the multitude of choices on the Internet require people to make quick decisions about what to click on so that they can get the information they were looking for, this way further stimulating the brain.

However, the study was done on people aged 55 to 78 years old, so the results are less relevant for the younger generation who is growing up with the Internet and search engines.



Statistics tell us that there are approximately 1-2 million wheelchair users in the USA and approximately 1-2 million wheelchair users in Europe. This means that approximately 1 in every 200 people in Western countries are in wheelchairs. That number may seem high to you. Where are they?


Walk along any street, any shopping area, any recreational area and look around. When you see 200 people, do you see 1 wheelchair? Almost certainly the answer is NO. And it is more likely to be NO in some states than others and in some countries than in others.

Why? It is hard to be in a wheelchair, and the reason for this is not due to the wheelchair. In fact, wheelchairs, wheelchair ramps, wheelchair lifts and other wheelchair accessories have been improving remarkably over the past two decades. As will be discussed below wheelchairs are lighter, faster and easier to use than just 20 years ago. But unfortunately society has not been advancing at the same rate. The reason you do not see so many wheelchairs has to do with accessibility and culture.

Accessibility

In some places, buildings, public transport, streets and sidewalks are slowly becoming more accessible to wheelchair users as wheelchair ramps are becoming more common. But in many places, if you are in a wheelchair you will not be able to move. Steps, curbs, broken sidewalks and inadequate public transportation provide barriers to wheelchair users. Wheelchair users are simply excluded.

Culture

There is discrimination against wheelchair users just like there is discrimination against people of different races. Maybe it is not openly discussed or recognized, but it is true everywhere and this discrimination is stronger in some societies than in others. At the minimum, wheelchair users are stared at and made to feel different and uncomfortable. In some cultures families feel shame and denial and wheelchair users are all but locked away.

The problems of accessibility and culture make it very hard for wheelchair users. It is difficult enough just to be in a wheelchair. But add to that the problems of accessibility and culture and it is easy to understand why wheelchair users often give up and stay at home. And it is easy to understand why you can not find 1 wheelchair for every 200 people you see.