There have been several studies over the past few years that suggest taking fish oil during pregnancy is a must.   Any acupuncture or nutrition patient I see that is pregnant or thinking of getting pregnant I always suggest that they get a good fish oil supplement.    Now another study was just released that began in 1990 with 533 pregnant women at week 30 who were assigned to 3 groups. (more…)

A just published acupuncture research article concluded that acupuncture improves osteoarthritic knee pain symptoms above ’sham’ acupuncture.    Granted the research group was small, only 34 active acupuncture subjects and there is no such thing as true ’sham’ acupuncture, but the methodologies of this pilot study were sound as they used pain as the endpoint measurement which showed significant difference. (more…)

Another recent acupuncture research article demonstrated that acupuncture can be effective for people whose salivary glands are damaged by radiation or chemotherapy.  In this study the acupuncture point Large Intestine 2 (LI 2 on the index finger just distal to the knuckle) was stimulated (the only point that was used!) to determine if it increased saliva production over ’sham’ acupuncture. (more…)

An interesting article was just published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association suggesting that farm raised tilapia may have more detrimental effects than health promoting effects in terms of cardiovascular health.   The study out of Wake Forest looked at 30 samples of farm raised fish from supermarkets and wholesalers.  The fish they examined were catfish, Atlantic salmon, trout and tilapia.   (more…)

Shiitake and Reishi mushrooms are two of the more common mushrooms known to support the immune system, but there have been a couple of publications recently that show you don’t have to spend $20/lb to get benefit.   (In fact at Whole Foods the other day I saw a $59.99/lb mushroom.  Can it be that good…15 times as good as a $3.99/lb mushroom? ) (more…)