New: Tart Cherry Juice as a relief for Arthritis.

Tart cherries' juice has natural anti-inflammatory properties; but the actual chemical detail is unknown.  

From the Oregonian

May 30--The study was small but the results appear appetizing for arthritis sufferers and others with debilitating joint pain: Tart cherries seem to do a great job fighting inflammation.

Dr. Kerry Kuehl of Oregon Health & Science University led a study of 20 women age 40 to 70, each of whom has inflammatory osteoarthritis, the most common form of arthritis. Results showed that those who drank tart cherry juice twice daily for three weeks had significantly lower inflammation markers.

"With millions of Americans looking for ways to naturally manage pain," Kuehl says in a news release, "it's promising that tart cherries can help, without the possible side effects often associated with arthritis medications."

The findings were presented Wednesday at the American College of Sports Medicine Conference in San Francisco.

In a previous study, Kuehl found that those who drank tart cherry juice while training for a long-distance run reported less pain afterward than runners who didn't drink the juice.

QiGong Massage Benefits Children With Autism.

A recent randomized controlled trial of a dual parent and trainer-delivered qigong massage intervention for young children with autism "resulted in improvement of measures of autism as well as improvement of abnormal sensory responses and self-regulation," according to an abstract published on www.pubmed.gov.

Forty-seven children were randomly assigned to treatment and wait-list control groups. Treatment group children received the parent-delivered program for four months, according to the abstract.

"Trained therapists provided parent training and support," the abstract noted. "Improvement was evaluated in two settings--preschool and home—by teachers (blind to group) and parents.

"Results showed that the parent-delivered program was effective in improving measures of autism (medium effect size) and sensory and self-regulatory responses (large effect size)," the abstract continued. "Teacher data on measures of autism were confirmed by parent data. Results indicate that the parent-delivered component of the program provided effective early intervention for autism that was suitable for delivery at home.

Results of the study, "Early intervention for autism with a parent-delivered Qigong massage program: a randomized controlled trial" were published in theAmerican Journal of Occupational Therapy.