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Mahawar MM, Jaroli DP. Traditional zootherapeutic studies in India: a review. J Ethnobiol Ethnomed. 2008 Jul 18;4:17. Review. PMID: 18634551

Filling a significant gap in published literature about animal-derived traditional medicines, the authors gathered data from 15 zootherapeutic studies published in India from 2000 to 2007. The resulting review article catalogs, by condition, 207 therapeutic applications of 109 animals in traditional medicine throughout India.

"In India, since times immemorial, great work was done in this field and documented in works like Ayurveda and charaka Samhita. Additionally immense knowledge has come down to modern times through folklore as various practices became a part of tradition amongst various groups. We can find that people still use various animal products and by-products for cure of various diseases. For example, honey is used as expectorant, cattle urine has been used as a therapeutic. All this knowledge has once again come to the limelight, as there has been a sort of disillusionment with the current allopathic cure, as it has got its own side effect and in fact has no cure for various diseases. Therefore people are looking for traditional remedies for the treatment of ailments. But in India this traditional knowledge is fast eroding due to modernization. Thus there is an urgent need to inventorise and record all ethnobiological information among the different ethnic communities before the traditional cultures are completely lost."

 

CAMWatch: Posts about free-access, peer-reviewed articles on aspects of complementary medicine theory, practice and policy (about the blogger). This blog is not a source for medical advice.

technorati tags: complementary and alternative medicine integrative medicine ethnobiology ayurveda

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Tilburt JC, Kaptchuk TJ. Herbal medicine research and global health: an ethical analysis. Bull World Health Organ. 2008 Aug;86(8):594-9. PMID: 18797616

Analysts from the National Institutes of Health and Harvard Medical School describe an ethical framework for research in herbal medicine. Employing an example case of Africa Flower as an investigative therapy to slow progression to AIDS, they develop a framework for ethical decision making based on key criteria of social value, scientific validity and favorable risk-benefit ratio:

"Cases like these present challenging questions related to the role of traditional herbal medicines in public health. In general, international research on traditional herbal medicines should be subject to the same ethical requirements as all research related to human subjects. An ethical framework previously outlined by Emanuel et al. and revised for international research offers a useful starting point for thinking about the ethics of international traditional herbal medicine research. This framework includes eight ethical requirements for clinical research. These ethical requirements are universal and comprehensive but must be adapted to the particular social context in which the research is implemented. Of these, fair subject selection, independent review, informed consent, and respect for enrolled subjects have been discussed previously in the literature on the ethics of global health research and raise few issues unique to international traditional herbal medicine research. However, social value, scientific validity, and favourable risk-benefit ratio raise specific challenges in international herbal medicine research that have not been adequately discussed."

CAMWatch: Posts about free-access, peer-reviewed articles on aspects of complementary medicine theory, practice and policy (about the blogger). This blog is not a source for medical advice.

technorati tags: complementary and alternative medicine integrative medicine

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My new favorite yoga instructor had our class run through our hatha series blindfolded, which led me to think about the faculties of proprioception and kinesthesia - our sense of our bodies in space.

First, from Michael Roizen and Mehmet Oz’s You: The Owner’s Manual:

"Try this self-test: Stand on one leg and close your eyes. The longer you can stand without falling, the younger your brain (fifteen seconds is very good if you are forty-five or older). That balancing act is just one sign of your brain strength. To develop better balance, you should use free weights - that is, dumbbells and barbells - because exercising with them works your proprioception (your ability to balance). Weight machines don’t have the same effect because the weights are attached to a fixed surface, so you don’t develop your balancing abilities as you lift them."

The peer-reviewed literature about yoga and proprioception is very limited. I could find only one open-access article (actually a letter):

Krishnamurthy M, Telles S. Effects of Yoga and an Ayurveda preparation on gait, balance and mobility in older persons. Med Sci Monit. 2007 Dec;13(12):LE19-20. PMID: 18049442

So what else is available? PubMed currently lists 67 open-access review articles on proprioception, including one very intriguing paper:

Brown S, Martinez MJ, Parsons LM. The neural basis of human dance. Cereb Cortex. 2006 Aug;16(8):1157-67. Epub 2005 Oct 12. PMID: 16221923

For their study, researchers from the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio brain-scanned experienced amateur tango dancers with positron emission tomography as they performed tango steps to music. In just one of the useful aspects of their article, they provide a broad perspective on the role of dance in human development:

"Dance is a universal human behavior, one associated with group rituals (Sachs, 1937; Farnell, 1999). Although it is depicted in cave art from more than 20 000 years ago (Appenzeller, 1998), dance may be much more ancient than that. Dance may in fact be as old as the human capacities for bipedal walking and running, which date back 2–5 million years (Ward, 2002; Bramble and Lieberman, 2004)."

The article provides a detailed tour of these dancers’ brains as several areas lit up while they learned the steps (anterior cerebellar vermis), then danced to a regular, metric rhythm (right putamen, medial superior parietal lobule). Since existing PET technology requires that participants lie supine in a scanner, it isn’t clear how balance can be addressed in this research model. Still, this innovative study reflects an emerging capability to investigate physical processes that support skillfulness in movement, and certain aspects of the model may be applied to kinetic and proprioceptive functions of yoga practice.

"Our findings specifically elucidate for the first time the neural systems and subsystems that underlie dance. These observations imply that dance, as a universal human activity, involves a complex combination of processes related to the patterning of bipedal motion and to metric entrainment to musical rhythms. More broadly, this study brings us closer to a richer understanding of the neural and psychological bases of complex, species-specific creative and artistic behaviors. This study is part of a contemporary wave of research exploring new neuroscientific hypotheses in the context of activities such as musical performance, drawing, visual aesthetics, dance observation and the viewing of cinematic narratives (Ino et al., 2003; Kawabata and Zeki, 2003; Makuuchi et al., 2003; Cela-Conde et al., 2004; Hassan et al., 2004; Calvo-Merino et al., 2005; Parsons et al., 2005)."

 

CAMWatch: Posts about free-access, peer-reviewed articles on aspects of complementary medicine theory, practice and policy (about the blogger). This blog is not a source for medical advice.

technorati tags: complementary and alternative medicine integrative medicine yoga dance

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Devi KP, Suganthy N, Kesika P, Pandian SK. Bioprotective properties of seaweeds: in vitro evaluation of antioxidant activity and antimicrobial activity against food borne bacteria in relation to polyphenolic content. BMC Complement Altern Med. 2008 Jul 10;8:38. PMID: 18613983

With a view to developing safer food preservatives, researchers in Tamil Nadu have elucidated, for the first time, the antioxidant properties of ten edible seaweeds:

• Gelidiella acerosa (Rhodophyta)
• Gracilaria edulis (Rhodophyta)
• Turbinaria conoides (Phaeophyta)
• Padina gymnospora (Phaeophyta)
• Chondrococcus hornemanni (Rhodophyta)
• Hypnea pannosa (Rhodophyta)
• Dictyota dichotoma (Phaeophyta)
• Jania rubens (Rhodophyta)
• Sargassum wightii (Phaeophyta)
• Haligra sps.

The authors turned to the waters of the Gulf of Mannar Marine Biosphere Preserve for their study, which could be of signal scientific and commercial importance. From the Background:

"Refrigerated, ready-to-eat products, especially dairy foods, have become increasingly popular in recent years because of their convenience. Many pathogenic organisms spoil such foods, reducing their shelf life and often leading to food poisoning. It has been estimated that as many as 30% people in industrialized countries suffer from a food poisoning every year. In addition to microbial contamination, all packed and refrigerated food also undergoes gradual changes during storage, due to auto oxidation which releases reactive oxygen species (ROS) including free radicals like superoxide anion (O₂^•-) and hydroxyl radicals (OH^•) and non-free radical species like singlet oxygen (¹O₂) and hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂) into the food. These ROS induce peroxidation of lipids (polyunsaturated fatty acids) generating secondary oxidants like heptanol and hexanal, which contributes to oxidative rancidity, deteriorating the flavor of the food. These not only cause a loss in food quality but are also believed to be associated with carcinogenesis, mutagenesis, arthritis, diabetes, inflammation, cancer and genotoxicity. To overcome these problems a wide range of synthetic antimicrobial agents (sodium benzoate, calcium benzoate, sorbate) and synthetic antioxidants (butylhydroquinone, propyl gallate, butylated hydroxy toluene (BHT), butylated hydroxy anisole (BHA), have been used as food preservatives. However, these preservatives can cause liver damage and are suspected to be mutagenic and neurotoxic. Hence, most consumers prefer additive-free foods or a safer approach like the utilization of more effective antioxidants and antimicrobials of natural origin. Recently, various phytochemicals like polyphenols, which are widely distributed in plants, have been reported to act as free radical scavengers and antimicrobial agents. Marine plants, like seaweeds, also contain high amounts of polyphenols. For example, high concentrations of polyphenols such as catechin, epicatechin, epigalloctechin gallate and gallic acid are reported in the seaweed Halimada (Chlorophyceae). Since many types of seaweed have still to be investigated, we were prompted to take up this study. The Gulf of Mannar is a Marine Biosphere Reserve situated along the east coast of India and Sri Lanka, an area of about 10,500 sq. km which has a luxuriant growth of about 680 species of seaweed belonging to the Rhodophyta, Pheaophyta and Chlorophyta, in both the inter-tidal and deep water regions. Seaweed constitutes a commercially important marine renewable resource. Sargassum, Padina, Dictyota and Gracilaria sps. Are used by common people as fertilizers, food additives and animal feed. The sulphated polysaccharides of Sargassum act as a potent free radical scavenger and anticancer agent. Gelidella and Gracilaria sps are widely used for the production of agar and for the treatment of gastrointestinal disorders. The methanolic extract of brown seaweeds such as Ecklonia cava and Hizikia fusiformis exhibit potent antioxidant activity. Although seaweeds possess wide application in food and in the pharmaceutical industry, the antioxidant and antimicrobial activity of many types of seaweed in the South Indian coastal area are still unexplored. The main objective of the present study is to evaluate the antioxidant and antimicrobial activities of seaweeds obtained from the Thondi, South Coastal Area of Tamil Nadu, India."

CAMWatch: Posts about free-access, peer-reviewed articles on aspects of complementary medicine theory, practice and policy (about the blogger). This blog is not a source for medical advice.

technorati tags: complementary and alternative medicine integrative medicine

Comments and Links Appreciated!