RIP:TAKI...your kindness and miso live on

Whenever I have a client just getting a cold or on the brink of the flu I tell them to head to Taki's on the corner of Colfax and Logan for some of his famous Miso soup. Taki's miso soup is THE best and is so inexpensive. I was first introduced to Taki's by my husband who lived in capitol hill when we first started dating.. oh so many years ago. From the outside, I questioned his choice in dining but I was a starving student at the time and Taki's was...and is...cheap....(and good!). I remember I was coming down with a cold and right away this kind man came out from the back and handed me some edamame for free as well as some lemon tea with a piece of fresh cut ginger in it. I think the worn tissue and red eyes were a dead giveaway that I was not feeling too great. Then came the soup I had heard so much about. This giant bowl of great brothed miso soup with fresh cut vegetables and tofu. From then on, I was hooked. And I have been sending people there as often as I can, for the cuisine, and for a glimpse of kindness from this great little man...Mr. Taki.
I was disheartened to hear he had passed away last month of natural causes. Here is the denver post's tribute to Taki...it is very touching. I can just hope his restaurant stays open and that his kindness spreads. We need more of that now in times like these than ever before.

Do Not Defund the NCCAM!

There is a poll on alternative medicine that has been snuck on to
President Obama's new citizen/feedback initiative, Citizen's Briefing Book.

There is one proposal that's already received lots of votes, a proposal to defund NCCAM. NCCAM stands for the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. NCCAM is a government body, part of the National Institutes of Health to research complementary and alternative medicine

You can find information about NCCAM on this link to their website


NCCAM has encouraged good evidence based research to determine which CAM practices are efficacious and which are not. This is valuable!!


The support for eliminating NCCAM in the Citizen's Briefing Book discussion is heavy and volatile. It is being pushed by those who think all alternative medicine is a scam.

I urge you all to take a moment and go to this site and help vote the proposition down:

http://citizensbriefingbook.change.gov/ideas/viewIdea.apexp?id=087800000004y2f


The positions that receive the most votes will catch the attention of Obama's cabinet members. Please take a moment, this is so important!!

The Office will be closed from Wed. Dec.10th- Sunday Dec.14th.

I will be out of town from Wednesday Dec 10th through Sunday Dec 14th, and unable to fill supplement orders or return any phone calls during that time. I will gladly return all phone messages and fill all supplement orders when I return to the office on Monday Dec 15th. Thank you for your cooperation.


Take Good care...

Yours in Health,
Michelle

WORLD AIDS DAY

It is amazing to think that is was 20 years ago that I went to the first funeral of a friend of mine who passed away from AIDS. Back then it was much scarier and unknown and anyone who had the "gay cancer" as it was naively referred to back then, was sure they were going to die very soon. That is just not the case. People who are HIV+and/or living with AIDS have full lives and the stigmatism that was once there which spawned movies, such as "Longtime Companion' and 'And the Band Played On', luckily make those same movies seem very trivial and outdated now. But the epidemic is still around and the funding, unfortunately, is not. It has been cut drastically and every year I see less and less PR about the local AIDS walk, and more and more about the cancer walk. I am hoping there is room in everyones busy schedules and pocketbooks for both. I do not know anyone who has not been touched by HIV/AIDS in some way by now. 25 years after the first case was documented we have no cure, and millions have died. Drugs have kept some people living longer but they are also not the answer. We still need the education and funding for it. Let's hope the cure is out there, so that the statistics below do not keep growing at the rate they continue to...it is an epidemic, and with funding being cut, it will only get worse. It may not be the disease de jour anymore, but it has not gone away. Below are some facts. They are horrifying. I did not know that AIDS is the leading cause of death for african american women aged 25 to 34 in the US.

GLOBALLY:
-33.2 million people now live with HIV or AIDS.
-In 2007, approximately 2.5 million people were infected with HIV.
-Every day, over 6800 people become infected with HIV - almost five people per minute.
-5700 people die from AIDS every day.
-One child dies every minute.
-15 million children around the world have been orphaned by AIDS, losing one or both parents to the disease.
-Every fifteen seconds, another person age 15-24 becomes infected with HIV/AIDS.

IN THE US:
-Roughly one million people living with HIV/AIDS in the United States.
-Since the start of the AIDS epidemic, 1.5 million Americans have been infected with HIV and more than 524,000 have died of AIDS.
-At least 40,000 people are infected each year.
-African Americans account for 48% of new HIV infections.
-AIDS is the leading cause of death for African American women aged 25 to 34 and HIV rates among Hispanic women are increasing.
-The number of women living with HIV has tripled in the last two decades.
-At least half of all new infections are among people under the age of 25.
-Washington, DC has the highest HIV/AIDS prevalence rates in the United States - one in 20 people are living with HIV or AIDS.

What can we all do?

Get the Facts, Get Involved, Get Tested

Local #'s are:

Colorado AIDS Project/Denver: 303-837-0166

Boulder County AIDS Project : 303-444-6121

The Office Has Moved!!

I am delighted to announce that starting October 1st, 2008, the acupuncture clinic will be at a new location, still very centrally located near I25 and Colorado Blvd.

The official address is 1780 South Bellaire Street. Suite 695 Denver, Colorado 80222. The Phone # is the same, 303-921-6263, and office hours are Monday- Friday with evening hours offered on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. I look forward to welcoming you all to the new space. The whole building seems very holisitic with many other massage therapists, chiropractors and acupuncturists throughout...as well as psychotherapists, medical equipment specialists and of course, mortgage companies and investment firms.....those seem to be everywhere, don't they?. A new website is also in the works...a little more high tech and up to date than this blog, to try and catch me up to the latest online abilities fusing with my field and practice.

So, will I finally keep with my horribly broken 2008 New Years resolution and start to write more? Well, believe it or not, a blog entry is coming soon.... And many more may be sprinkled with health tidbits and facts.....some pretending to be facts... found along the way. Some funny, some thoughtprovoking, some controversial, some ridiculous.

Glad to be back. And hope to see you soon. Check back when you can.

Yours in Health,

Michelle

Riches and Resolutions

I have not updated this website/blog in quite awhile.....I believe that will be one of my New Years Resolutions, that hopefully I can keep. In the meantime, I came across this wonderfully written essay in Newsweek that I wanted to share with you. May we all be so rich!

Much Peace, Joy and Good Health to you in the New Year,

Michelle

Even Little Things Matter

I think at times the crisis the planet is facing as far as the environment goes can seem overwhelming. But even doing little things can make a big difference. Turning off the computer instead of leaving it on with a screen saver at night, unplugging your chargers when not in use, inflating your tires so you don't use as much gas, using less paper napkins at those summer BBQ's. Here are the top ten things we can try to do to help save the environment.

http://www.earthday.net/resources/2006materials/Top10.aspx

Death Sentence for Guilty party in tainted food cases from China

Just saw this headline regarding the tainted food, antibiotics and pet food that came from China killing so many beloved pets recently and sickening many adults and children.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070529/ap_on_re_as/china_tainted_food

If it Sounds Too Good to be True.....

When I first started my practice I joined a fellow acupuncturist who had been in practice for almost 10 years. He, like myself, was trained in Traditional Chinese Medicine but had incorporated the world of nutritional pharmaceutical grade supplementation into his already very successful practice. At first I was reluctant to even look into it because the amount of information was intimidating and there was a great deal of western medicine and pharmaceutical knowledge one needed to know to really be good at it. Most of my patients, as with most of the western world, are on some sort of prescription drugs, so I wanted to make sure I knew as much as I could regarding various interactions. That is a lifelong education. But as I got more into the nutritional aspect I started to see how much bogus information and companies there were out there too. Companies that were in it just to make money, people who were in it just for the money, and people distributing supplements with basically no nutritional background or education. It started to really bother me seeing people come through my door with 10 bottles of supplements, monthly bills of $100's of dollars and them not knowing how they ended up on so many and still having the symptoms that prompted them to seek out alternative nutritional help in the first place. Dead giveaways of sketchy companies and reps/distributors are phrases like "this cured me", or "I have never seen anything like this" or "I want to let you in on the good news". Well the old saying really is the best to go by when sifting through the BS of many of these: If it sounds too good to be true, then it is. If great health were one simple pill, juice or powder away there would be no need for western medicine or eastern medicine, we would all be taking that pill, using that company. If we all answered those ads that said "you too can make 6 figures your first year", then we would all not be worrying about the cost of gas and late night TV would have no ads. Health is a process. A good practitioner knows when to refer and makes a great network of like minded ethical practitoners who can help find all the pieces of the puzzle.

Don't get me wrong, I give out nutritional supplements because I do think they work well. But I also think there needs to be some regulation or standard so that if the patient has any bad interactions there is accountability. Just like someone off the street isn't able to buy acupuncture needles and set up shop after reading a book on acupuncture, so should a person not be able to sell supplements after just reading some companies pamphlets. Those of us living in Colorado are blessed because we have many great ND's. MD's. L.Ac's. etc, etc. but given the populations openness to 'alternative' therapies, we also have a lot who hold no real credentials.

The chinese medicine commuity saw the dangers of the wrong herb in the wrong hands when the FDA banned Ephedra. The fact that ephedra was misused as a weight loss supplement and stimulant when its main purpose was for asthma is criminal. And the fact that it is illegal now for chinese practitioners to give out such a popular bronchodialator is ridiculous. So the fact that people with no nutritional knowledge are selling these supplements and then not being held accountable is very scary. Basically pharmceutical grade high quality nutritional supplement companies can only sell to those with licenses. These companies adhere by strict quality control regulations and cannot sell to patients directly. This is for the patients protection as well as the companies. And the cost to the patient is always less than it if it was a MLM, who are known for having trace amounts in bottles and high prices to make up for distribution costs.

Just ask yourself this question, if you had children, would you send them to someone unregulated, uninsured, with no real knowledge about child development?

So why would you do the same thing to your mind and body?

Mind and Body

Just a quick FYI: In case you don't get TIME magazine, or even if you do, but just don't read it, I highly recommend the latest edition dated Jan.29th. It covers many facets of brain science and the study of the mind, including my practice favorite.... how stress affects the brain.

Happy New Year and Synergy for all!

I had a patient ask me why taking B6 with 5HTP makes it work better, and ironically just received this condensed reader friendly explanation of why from a nutraceutical company...so here it is. May 2007 find all your neurotransmitters working synergistically.

Serotonin production is tightly regulated in the body. Serotonin taken orally does not pass into the serotonergic pathways of the central nervous system because it does not cross the blood-brain barrier. However, 5-Hydroxytryptophan (5-HTP), from which serotonin is synthesized, can and does cross the blood-brain barrier. Production of serotonin from 5 HTP requires a decarboxylase enzyme that is dependent on vitamin B6. One product of serotonin breakdown is 5-Hydroxyindoleacetic acid (5 HIAA) which is excreted in the urine. Serotonin and 5 HIAA are sometimes produced in excess amounts by certain tumors or cancers. Certain drugs are capable of leading to overproduction of serotonin such as ecstasy. Click here for neurotransmitter chart.

Weighing in on Bacteria

"Weight May Be Linked to Type of Bacteria"

http://www.comcast.net/news/health/index.jsp?cat=HEALTHWELLNESS&fn=/2006/12/20/545868.html&cvqh=itn_bacteria

Due to a Death in the Family, the office will be closed from Nov.27th-Dec.2nd. Thank you for your understanding.

FDA: Tamiflu Patients Need Monitoring

FDA: Tamiflu Patients Need Monitoring
BY ANDREW BRIDGES, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Patients who take Tamiflu should be closely monitored for signs of abnormal behavior, health officials said Monday in announcing an updated label for the flu drug.
The added precaution comes after reports of more than 100 new cases of delirium, hallucinations and other unusual psychiatric behavior in children treated with the drug. Most were Japanese children.

The Food and Drug Administration said a relationship between the drug and the behavior had not been established and that the updated label was "intended to mitigate a potential risk associated with Tamiflu." It recommends that close monitoring begin immediately after starting treatment with the drug.

FDA said it had received 103 reports, mostly from Japan, of injury and delirium among the millions of flu patients treated with Tamiflu. The changes bring the U.S. label more in line with the Japanese one, which already warned such abnormal behavior could occur. The previous FDA-approved label mentioned "seizure and confusion" seen in some patients.

Tamiflu is made by the Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche Holding AG. Roche spokesman Terence Hurley said there was no evidence the drug caused the rarely occurring adverse events.
Both Roche and the FDA also said that severe cases of the flu can spark the abnormal behavior flagged in the updated label.

The surprise change came three days before an FDA panel of outside experts was to discuss whether to recommend that the agency add the precautionary language to the Tamiflu label. In documents released Monday, FDA staff acknowledged that stopping treatment with Tamiflu could actually harm influenza patients if the virus is the cause of delirium, hallucinations and other abnormal behavior, such as aggression and suicidal thoughts.

Last year, the same advisory committee rejected making any such changes to the label. At that time, however, the committee did recommend that the FDA continue to monitor the drug's safety and return a year later with an update.

Health officials have been sensitive about taking any action that might dissuade people from taking Tamiflu, since the drug could play an important role in an outbreak of bird flu. The drug doesn't prevent flu but can reduce the length and severity of its symptoms.
Previously, Roche has cited studies from the United States and Canada that show the death rate of influenza patients who took Tamiflu was far below those who did not.
Most of the new cases of bizarre behavior are from Japan, where Tamiflu usage is the highest in the world. Between 2001 and 2005, Tamiflu was prescribed 24.5 million times in Japan, compared with just 6.5 million in the United States, which has more than twice the population, according to FDA. However, FDA believes U.S. usage could increase to Japanese levels.
The new cases occurred between Aug. 29, 2005, and July 6, 2006. The tally marks a sharp increase when compared with the 126 similar cases logged over more than five years between the drug's approval in 1999 and August 2005, the FDA said.

Even though severe cases of the flu can spark abnormal behavior, the number and nature of the newly reported cases _ along with comments from doctors who believe the behavior was associated with the drug _ keep the FDA from ruling out Tamiflu as the cause, according to agency documents.

Tamiflu is one of the few drugs believed effective in treating bird flu, which health officials fear could spark a pandemic should it mutate into a form easily passed from human to human.
According to the label, Tamiflu is for the treatment of uncomplicated acute illness due to flu in patients 1 year and older who have shown symptoms for no more than two days.

Xylitol...Great for kids, but keep it away from the Dog!

The Urbana, Illinois ASPCA’s Animal Poison Control Center wrote case descriptions of eight adult dogs who suffered from acute liver failure after eating xylitol. Xylitol is the sugar extracted from birch trees. It is very sweet tasting and has many health benefits. When used to sweeten chewing gum it lowers incidence of dental cavities and is useful at preventing recurrent earaches in kids. My 6 year old loves the taste of the peppermint flavored Xylitol gum. And it nice to know he is chewing something that is even beneficial for him.
When people eat xylitol it has little to no effect on insulin levels. But in dogs, this is completely different. Xylitol causes dogs to release large amounts of insulin and the dogs become severely hypoglycemic. A 2004 report described a Labrador retriever who became severely hypoglycemic and needed to be treated with IV sugar solutions after eating xylitol sweetened gum. There is also a recent publication describing eight separate cases where dogs became very ill after eating xylitol containing products. Only two of the dogs survived. An increasing number of food products contain xylitol, for good reason, it tastes good, and is healthy for people. My only complaint is that it doesn't really work for baking, but is a great alternative to sugar in your coffee/tea, or in freshly squeezed lemonade. But just don't let the dog get a hold of it, it can not only be unheathy, but as studies point out, it can easily be deadly.


*Big thank you to Jacob Schor N.D., who helped found the study to back up this entry. To subscribe to his newsletter, please call his office located in Denver. *