camwatch

Barnes PM, Bloom B, Nahin RL. Complementary and alternative medicine use among adults and children: United States, 2007. National health statistics reports; no 12. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. 2008. [Read the report.]

This nationwide survey of CAM practices in the United States, developed by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, was undertaken within the latest National Health Interview Survey.

The study, published in December 2008, includes questions on 36 types of CAM medical and health care systems, practices, and products such as herbal supplements, meditation, chiropractic, and acupuncture used in the previous year.

The authors give their definition of CAM in the Introduction:

"Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) covers a heterogeneous spectrum of ancient to new-age approaches that purport to prevent or treat disease. By definition, CAM practices are not part of conventional medicine because there is insufficient proof that they are safe and effective. Complementary interventions are used together with conventional treatments, whereas alternative interventions are used instead of conventional medicine."

The survey found that the most commonly used CAM therapies among adults were:

• Nonvitamin, nonmineral, natural products (17.7%)
• Deep breathing exercises (12.7%)
• Meditation (9.4%)
• Chiropractic or osteopathic manipulation (8.6%)
• Massage (8.3%)
• Yoga (6.1%)

This is the first national study in the U.S. to measure CAM use by children. Reported CAM use in children was substantially less than in adults. The most common practices among children were nonvitamin, nonmineral, natural products (3.9%), chiropractic or osteopathic manipulation (2.8%), deep breathing exercises (2.2%), yoga (2.1%), and homeopathic treatment (1.3%).

The report includes a brief discussion of systematic reviews of CAM therapies published between 2002 and 2007, identifying 10 that "found sufficient evidence to conclude that a given CAM therapy was effective for a given condition," including acupuncture and yoga for back pain, and acupuncture for knee pain (including osteoarthritis), insomnia, and nausea or vomiting (in pregnancy, following surgery, and induced by chemotherapy).

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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Cohen D, Townsend RR. Yoga and hypertension. J Clin Hypertens (Greenwich). 2007 Oct;9(10):800-1. PMID: 17917509

A concise review of yoga (focusing on Iyengar yoga) and research in treatment of hypertension, by researchers a the University of Pennsylvania. From the conclusion:

We have recently completed a pilot study at the University of Pennsylvania assessing the effects of Iyengar yoga vs enhanced dietary intervention on BP showing comparable BP reductions in prehypertensive and stage 1 hypertensive patients. Given the general acceptance of yoga therapies and their high tolerability, we hope to see more randomized studies to elucidate how well the antihypertensive effects of yoga can be generalized to patients with stage 1 hypertension and, in particular, to those with prehypertension, for whom therapeutic goals are mostly rooted in lifestyle interventions.

More articles about yoga.

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 hypertension

Comments and Links Appreciated!