Alternative treatments for fertility; boosting fertility naturally.

Infertility, defined as the inability to conceive after a year or more of trying, affects about 10 percent of couples — 6.1 percent of women between the ages of 15-44 according to the CDC. While many TV shows have covered it as of late, mainstream media can have many people thinking that the only options could be IVF Surrogates due to high profile celebrity practices in the public eye. 

There are many ways couples can boost their fertility naturally including acupuncture, Chinese medicine, supplements, fertility yoga and others. Most couples like to explore some of these options before venturing into more expensive — and invasive — treatments. Here, we look at a few of the top natural fertility boosters:

From MNN

Acupuncture

In regard to fertility, the Eastern perspective looks for energetic imbalances, where energy is blocked and how to get energy to flow more freely. From a Western perspective, acupuncture improves fertility by increasing blood flow to the uterus, and that in turn can thicken the endometrial lining, which makes implantation easier. “There is definitely a balancing and regulating affect on hormones that can regulate ovulation and can relax the uterus and decrease uterine contractions that interfere with implantation,” says LeGendre.

 

Acupuncture releases beta-endorphins, and in addition to having a stress relieving affect, it has been show to improve all of your reproductive hormonal functions. So, not only does it soothe the sympathetic nervous system, but it has an effect on the entire nervous system.

Chinese medicine

In addition to needling, most acupuncturists also prescribe Chinese herbs in correlation with regulating hormones and balancing your menstrual cycle. Different formulas are given depending on what each woman’s specific issues are.

 

A study in the journal Complementary Therapies in Medicine found women receiving Chinese herbal treatments were twice as likely to get pregnant within a four-month period as those receiving conventional Western medical fertility drug treatment or IVF. LeGendre says it usually takes about three months of once weekly treatments and she often sees a pregnancy in the three- to six-month window.

 

LeGendre also recommends women’s male partners have treatment, as acupuncture and Chinese medicine can improve both sperm count and quality.

 

Fertility yoga

“We all know what it’s like when shoulders and neck get tight, so imagine all the structures in your body doing that because of the stress of trying to conceive,” says Jennifer Colletti, a master yoga teacher and Ayurveda yoga specialist at Fertile Grounding Yoga in Minneapolis.

 

Stress really hardens the body, so fertility yoga works on opening up the body with a lot of flow movements and breath work that can open the heart and uterus, or the low  belly area — the musculature and ligaments there. Colletti explains that when we stress, we round in and crunch into the fetal position, and so the heart and uterus are shutting those areas of the body off. The idea is to soften and open those areas with gentle poses. Of course, yoga is a relaxing, stress-relieving and restorative treatment, too.

 

Some of Colletti’s clients are undergoing ART (artificial reproductive therapy), and some aren’t. “The way I look at it is if we want children in our lives, we have to make space for them and when our lives are overwrought with stress, there is no space for babies, so I teach them to find space in their lives so they can invite babies in.” Fertility yoga opens up that space in both your mind and body. Colletti said she doesn’t boast the successes, but she sees many, many pregnancies.

 

Fertility-friendly lifestyle

Researchers have found that 83 percent of couples living a fertility-friendly lifestyle got pregnant within one year.  That includes:

• Stop smoking
• Avoid environmental toxins
• Get plenty of sleep
• Avoid alcohol
• Skip recreational drugs
• Eat healthy

“We tell men not to sit in a hot tub, not to work outdoors in prolonged warm temperatures, avoid tight undergarments, and avoid biking for long time periods, as warm temperatures can affect the production of sperm,” says Maher Abdallah, M.D. FACOG, an OB-GYN at American Reproductive Center in Costa Mesa, Calif.

 

Being overweight can also greatly reduce fertility, so diet and exercise is crucial.

 

Other natural treatment approaches

Other natural fertility treatments include chiropractic adjustments, hypnosis, and colored glasses that control melatonin production and may increase fertility by simulating approaching winter, the time of maximum fertility.

original article here: http://www.mnn.com/health/fitness-well-being/stories/alternative-therapies-for-fertility

Food Giant Nestle set to develop new drug(s) based upon Chinese Herbal Medicine

Food Giant Nestle in works to develop new drugs based upon Chinese Herbal Ingredients and TCM. 

From: South China Post 

Hutchison Whampoa's pharmaceutical unit has joined forces with Swiss food giant Nestle to develop a new drug, which they said had the potential to be the first Chinese herbal-ingredient-based drug candidate to conduct a large-scale clinical trial for registration in a major disease area.

London's Alternative Investment Market-listed Hutchison China Meditech (Chi-Med), 70.4 per cent owned by Hutchison Whampoa, formed an equally owned joint venture in November last year with Nestle's wholly owned Nestle Health Science to develop nutritional and medicinal products derived from botanical plants.

Last week, the venture said the first patient had been enrolled to begin treatment in a phase-three clinical trial for a botanical-ingredient-based oral drug aimed at treating patients with moderate ulcerative colitis, a disease of the large intestine. The trial is expected to take 24 months.

Chi-Med chief executive Christian Hogg said the firm had spent 13 years identifying 15,000 "molecular level" substances by breaking down some 1,300 herbs, and come up with a "library" of data. The substances are being screened for medical efficacy.

"Back in the early 2000s, there was a lot of talk in Asia about bringing traditional Chinese medicine to the world, but it has taken this long to do it in a scientific and methodical manner," Hogg said. "It is only now that all this effort is reaching the final stages of registration trial."

Chi-Med started discovery work in 2003 and won approval from the United States Food and Drug Administration in 2005 to go into clinical trial for the oral drug, Hogg said last week.

He would not disclose the amount of money spent so far but said the drug's efficacy and safety had been demonstrated in more than 400 patients. He also declined to divulge the budget for the stage-three trial, which will enrol more than 2,500 patients, mainly in the US and Europe.

http://www.scmp.com/business/companies/article/1225520/hutchison-develop-herbal-drug-nestle

Time Magazine: Acupuncture works to relieve stress.

Mainstream media is jumping on board with all the latest research that has proven the effectiveness of Acupuncture. 

From Time Magazine: 

Reporting in the Journal of Endocrinology, researchers led by Ladan Eshkevari, assistant program director of the nurse anesthesia program at Georgetown University School of Nursing and Health Studies, mimicked chronic stress in a rat model and documented how stimulating certain body points with acupuncture can alter stress hormones.

The body’s stress response is triggered by two main pathways, one of which involves the HPA axis, or hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis, in which these areas of the brain are activated to release peptides and proteins such as corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH). They, in turn, launch the production of other hormones such as cortisol and norepinephrine that rev up the anxiety meter. Once activated, the system causes the heart to beat faster and the senses to go on alert. It also diverts the body’s energy away from background operations such as digestion to prime and fuel the muscles into a state of readiness.

Read more: http://healthland.time.com/2013/03/15/needle-this-study-hints-at-how-acupuncture-works-to-relieve-stress/#ixzz2Rrq2KsZj

New Study: Eating Walnuts can help curb Type 2 Diabetes risks.

Eating walnuts may reduce the risk for Type 2 diabetes in women, a large new study concludes.

Previous studies have suggested an inverse relationship between tree nut consumption and diabetes. Though the findings are correlational, walnuts are uniquely high in omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, which may be of particular value in Type 2 diabetes prevention.

The scientists, writing in the April issue of The Journal of Nutrition, used dietary and health data on 138,000 women participating in a large continuing study of women’s health. Beginning in 1999 they collected data on walnut consumption, and followed the women for the next 10 years. They found 5,930 cases of Type 2 diabetes.

Women who ate walnuts tended to weigh less, consume more fish and exercise more than those who did not. But researchers controlled for these and many other factors, and found that compared with women who ate no walnuts, those who consumed 8 ounces of walnuts or more a month reduced their risk for Type 2 diabetes by 24 percent.

Read more here: 

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/08/walnuts-for-diabetes/?ref=health

New Study: How Acupuncture Reduces Stress Levels

Good news, acupuncture fans: It really does help relieve stress. And now, a new study is giving a closer look at why.

The new study explores the biological mechanisms involved in acupuncture's stress-relieving abilities, something science has yet to fully understand.

The researchers discovered that stress hormones were lower in rats that had received electronic acupuncture. Results were published in the Journal of Endocrinology.

"Many practitioners of acupuncture have observed that this ancient practice can reduce stress in their patients, but there is a lack of biological proof of how or why this happens. We're starting to understand what's going on at the molecular level that helps explain acupuncture's benefit,” study researcher Dr. Ladan Eshkevari, an associate professor of nursing at Georgetown University School of Nursing and Health Studies, said in a statement.

For the study, Eshkevari and colleagues designed a series of tests with electronic acupuncture to ensure that each rat received the exact same dose of pressure. Eshkevari targeted the spot below the knee, or the “Zusanli” point, with the needle. This area is the same in rats and humans and it is reported that stimulating it can alleviate stress and other conditions.

For the 10-day experiment, researchers split the rats into four groups. One group was a control group with no added stress and no acupuncture; one group was made to be stressed out for an hour each day but didn't receive acupuncture; one group was made to feel stressed for an hour each day but received "sham" acupuncture by their tails; and one group was made to feel stressed and received the genuine acupuncture treatment at the Zusanli area.

The body secretes an assortment of hormones into the bloodstream as a reaction to stress, which the researchers were then able to measure in the rats. They assessed blood hormone levels secreted by the hypothalamus, the pituitary gland and the adrenal gland -- together these are known as the hypothalamus pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis. They also measured a peptide involved in creatures' "fight or flight" responses, called NPY.

Researchers discovered that the "...electronic acupuncture blocks the chronic, stress-induced elevations of the HPA axis hormones and the sympathetic NPY pathway,” Eshkevari said in the statement.

Since stress has been linked with detrimental health effects including heart disease and even brain shrinkage it’s important to study any measures to combat its detrimental nature.

Bitter Melon Could Hinder Survival Of Pancreatic Cancer Cells, Study Suggests

A fruit commonly consumed in Asian countries could also play an important role in fighting cancer, according to a new study in mice.

Researchers from the University of Colorado Cancer Center found that the juice of the bitter melon -- a green squash-shaped produce with a bumpy skin -- could stop pancreatic cancer cells from metabolizing glucose. This is important because cancer cells need this energy in order to survive -- and blocking off their glucose supply kills them.

"It's a very exciting finding," study researcher Rajesh Agarwal, Ph.D., who is the co-program leader of Cancer Prevention and Control at the university, said in a statement. "Many researchers are engineering new drugs to target cancer cells' ability to supply themselves with energy, and here we have a naturally-occurring compoundthat may do just that."

Researchers tested bitter melon juice's effects on pancreatic cancer cells in mice, and found that the mice that were given the juice had a 60 percent lower risk of developing pancreatic cancer compared with control mice.

The new findings are published in the journal Carcinogenesis.

In 2010, researchers from Saint Louis University found that bitter melon extract couldstop breast cancer cells from proliferating in a lab setting.

Read the original article here.

Veterans finding benefit in Qi Gong.

While many veteran's medical benefits cover medication to mask the aches and pains accumulated in years of service, they do not cover preventative maintenance and other alternative ways to prevent or ease these ailments, including PTSD. Alternative treatments such as Qi Gong are now gaining popularity. Read more: 

From the Columbia Daily Tribune 

Jerry Cupit, 65, said it was by accident that he wound up in a workshop demonstrating the traditional Chinese healing practice of qigong.

Cupit, a Vietnam War veteran, said he was at Harry S. Truman Memorial Veterans' Hospital to be treated for post-traumatic stress disorder on a recent Friday night. When he walked by the door of the auditorium, he saw a group of people gathered and was interested to find out what was going on.

What he discovered was a newfound passion for meditation and qigong, despite initial skepticism about the practice. He came back for a second workshop yesterday and plans to attend a weekly class.

"It was a sense of spirituality," he said. "I feel like there were some things in my life I needed to work on, like concentration, relaxation and the ability to heal myself."

Cupit said he has a lot of bone pain, and the qigong techniques helped ease it. By yesterday afternoon, he said his hip didn't hurt and he was able to stand up straight for the first time. Emotionally, he felt better, too. As he's aged, he said he's started to feel more sad and guilty about surviving a war when so many of his friends didn't. After some qigong, those feelings started to fade.

"I feel stronger, I feel like I'm centered. I feel balanced," he said.

read the original article here: Veterans Learn to Heal With Qigong 

Chinese, Taiwanese Scientists teaming up to find a natural treatment for Metabolic Syndrome / Obesity.

Obesity might be a very modern problem, but a team of scientists from Taiwan and China is turning to the age-old principles of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) to help fight it. Breaking research published in the Journal of Biomolecular Structure and Dynamics indicates a possible new direction for the treatment of metabolic syndrome.

TCM compounds have long been recognised as potential lead candidates in creating anti-viral, anti-tumour and anti-inflammation agents. To see whether they might also be used to design agonists targeting PPAR-a, PPAR-g, and PPAR-∂ in the fight against metabolic disease, the researchers consulted the TCM Database@Taiwan, which lists more than 30,000 small-molecule compounds of TCM origin. The team ran a series of models and simulations to virtually screen the database, establishing structure-based pharmacore models for each PPAR protein in order to identify the key actions during docking; molecular dynamics simulation and homology modelling were also performed.

Metabolic syndrome, a collective disorder characterised by obesity and multiple clinical disorders, is on the rise. Obesity itself is an endocrine disease caused by the body's inability to handle excessive energy intake. It can lead to serious chronic diseases like hypertension, osteoarthritis, cardiovascular disease, sleep apnea, stroke and type-2 diabetes.

Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors (PPARs) are key regulators of lipid and carbohydrate metabolism; they are involved in regulating many physiological functions initiated by nutrients, nutraceuticals and phytochemicals. There are three subtypes of PPARs -- PPAR-a, PPAR-g and PPAR-∂ -which all play important roles. Because of these roles, the three are also important drug targets for treating metabolic syndrome.