Alternative Medicine and Therapy

Author: holisticguidance

Alternative health is based predominantly on the ‘natural healing model’ which uses herbal medicine, diet therapy, orthomolecular medicine, exercise, indigenous therapies, and energy healing to promote health. Alternative therapies may also include anything from aromatherapy, yoga, reiki, hydrotherapy, magnetic therapy, meditation, acupuncture, and many other techniques used by others for thousands of years. Many modern sciences continue to use alternative treatments to complement modern medical treatments. People around the world still use these alternative treatments because they work and have been a cultural tradition.

There is a growing form of Western medicine called Integrated Medicine. This new way of thinking is a great combination of traditional and modern energy healing, and western medicine.

Why is it Called Complementary and Alternative Medicine?

Alternative therapies were the only known treatments prior to the discovery of antibiotics, and other modern medical treatments. Alternative Medicine is the original safe and proven medicine. They provide treatment for people who are dealing with chronic pain and illness.

Some Alternative Medical Systems

Biologically Based Therapies

Biologically based therapies involve supplementing a person’s diet with additional extracts, nutrients, herbs and/or certain foods. Alternative therapies are non-conventional practices that treat patients using supplements, acupuncture, hypnosis, and many other techniques. Biologically based therapies generally use supplements that include botanicals, minerals, vitamins, fatty acids, proteins and probiotics. There have been studies in which scientist are constantly proving that foods, vitamins, and minerals are useful in combating disease such as the broccoli cancer connection or the wine heart attack connection. Also, improved quality and acceptable pricing caused millions of people to turn to biologically based therapies to help them with their health problems.

Mind-Body Based Therapies

Mind-body therapies are a set of interventions that focus on the interplay between emotional, mental, social, spiritual, and behavioral factors and their influence on health. Examples of some of the therapies used include tai chi, reiki, hypnosis, art, movement sound, and music therapy, meditation, and yoga. These therapies utilize various techniques aimed to enhance the mind’s capacity to stimulate natural healing, affect bodily functions, and ease symptoms.

Manipulative Body-Based Techniques

Manipulative body-based practices are considered alternative therapies. These techniques include Alexander Technique, Rolfing or Structural Integration, Cranial Sacral, and Chiropractic. These therapies generally focus on the structures and systems of the body, including the bones and joints, the soft tissues, and the circulatory and lymphatic systems.

Do you want more information?

There are a plethora of websites that lists the name, contact information and other basic and detailed descriptions of holistic practitioners in each practice area.

This article is for informational purposes only and should not be considered a recommendation or referral to alternative medicine practices. Please make sure to evaluate your practitioner before selecting to ensure they are in the field that is right for you.

Holistic Guidance is a Alternative Health Treatments and social community of individuals interested in self-discovery and healing including healthy living, environmental awareness and constructive spirituality from all around the globe, offering Alternative Medicine Practitioners listing and share information about Benefits of Alternative Medicine and How it helps to cure many diseases.

Article Source: http://www.articlealley.com/article_1778403_17.html

Knowing More about Rabies

Have you ever wondered what rabies really all about? Most people just think that it can make dogs become angry and foam from the mouth. It is a viral disease which causes minor encephalitis, and can affect animals and humans. How's that!

It tends to stick with warm blooded carnivores as its prey, but don't think it can only get at dogs! Any animal on the planet is susceptible to the infection. Its devastating power is not well known among the human population. It is incurable! "Till death do us part" as they say. Once it has found its way into a humans system, it almost invariably kills. The only thing you can do to stop it is prevent it. Early vaccination against it will sometimes lead to the rabies elimination instead of the victim succumbing to death, but don't rely on it.

The virus is transmitted through the saliva of infected mammals. It only generally jumps from one host to the next through biting. For the most part, if you are bitten by a rabid animal, you will die unless treated quickly, and that is where it stops. Occasionally virus is transmitted to another person through kisses, but for the most part, it tends to stay out of the way. But however, be careful!

Looking For An Effective Athlete's Foot Cure

Athlete's foot is a skin disorder caused by a fungus called Trichophyton. Trichophyton is the culprit of other skin diseases such as ringworm and jock itch. Athlete's foot begins when the feet stay warm, moist and irritated for some time. It is commonly spread through wearing of socks and clothes worn or floors walked on by the infected person. "Athlete's foot" the name given to this skin disease because often athletes are the ones easily infected because of sweaty socks while in the game. The best way to prevent fungal infection from spreading is to replace socks after each practice or game and to avoid walking bare-footed towards the shower room or when taking a shower. The first step before searching for an effective athlete's foot cure is to practice good hygiene.

There are lots of effective treatments for athlete's foot. Cure can be an OTC ointment or cream, herbal oil or the cheap, tried and tested home remedy. Most popular brand names of OTC creams include Lamisil and Lotrimin. Tea tree oil can also be an effective herbal treatment though some find it stings, mixing it with an olive oil or a vegetable oil will do the trick to neutralize the sting. There are also remedies that can be found in the kitchen at home such as vinegar and corn starch. Vinegar is an effective way of the killing fungus while cornstarch is good in absorbing moisture to keep the feet dry thus avoiding the fungus to thrive.

Short-Term Overeating May Cause Long-Term Weight Loss Difficult

Our notion that extra weight and piled-up fats gained through a few weeks of sluggish behavior and over indulgence in high-calorie food can be easily eliminated at the gym, might be wrong.

A new Swedish research reveals that even a month of unhealthy living can have a long-term effect on your body's physiology according to Dr. Torbjorn Lindstrom, a co-author of this study. Lindstrom recommended that very high food-intake should be avoided during shorter periods in normal life.

For one month, Dr. Lindstrom and his colleagues placed the 18 normal-weight healthy participants (12 men and 6 women with an average age of 26 years old) in a restricted physical activity routine that involved the equivalent of no more than 5,000 steps per day. The team noted that five thousand steps is the threshold for an "inactive" lifestyle while "active" lifestyle involved ten thousand steps or more.

Aside from their daily physical activity participants' daily caloric intake were increased to 70 percent. The additional calories were mainly sourced from fast food which contains about 5,750 calories. The research also included a comparison group who did not change their diet/activity.

After the month-long experiment, the feasting group gained an average of 14 pounds. Their fat-mass increases from 20 percent to 24 percent of the total body weight.

That new weight gained by the participants was eliminated (more than 10 pounds) after six months. However, one year after the study's end, researcher noticed that there is an evident gain in fat mass (of about 3 pounds on average) compared with their pre-study status. This fat stuck around stubbornly despite the participants' calorie intake was back to normal and active routines.

Two and a half years after the study, the researchers found that fat mass continue to increase (just under 7 pounds on the average) on the feasting participants. Long-term physiological change was not found on the control group who had remained to their usual diet.

Based on the findings, researchers concluded that short-term overeating coupled with sedentary lifestyle may change body composition and lead to a significant boost in body fat levels. The changes appear to continue, despite resuming to a healthy and active behavior.

However, study author Asa Ernersson, said that there's a possibility that age may have an effect in losing body weight after a short-term overindulgence in high-calorie foods. "But from this study we cannot draw any such conclusions, since most of the participants were between 20 and 30 years old."

via News.Yahoo.com

thank God it's not cancer, just a pea sprout!

And now, for some humor in the news...

I thought I should share this because I really found it funny just thinking about how a pea ended up sprouting in a man's lung. After reading and listening to the news about this pea sprouting in the lung story, my wife and I talked about it and we both agreed in an amused kind of way with the wife in the video who thought that God had the sense of humor to actually allow a pea to grow in her husband's lung.

The link and full details to the story can be found here.

Personally, I think God must have not allowed the cancer diagnosis to happen and instead turned it into a sprouting pea. What do you think? Well, we just had to smile at the story and say Thank God, it's not cancer, just a pea sprout! :-)

HPV Vaccine Prevents More Than Just Cervical Cancer

Recent study reveals that the HPV (human papillomavirus) vaccine not only prevents the transmission of the virus that causes cervical cancer, but also helps in deterring genital warts and low-grade cervical growths. The recent findings gave the health official of the United States more reasons to promote HPV vaccination especially to young women and girls.


The virus causes an estimated 500,000 cases of cervical cancer each year worldwide. Genital warts and low-grade cervical growths are estimated to have affected 30 million people annually.

Researchers conducted randomized control trial to 17,622 women, which had been given the vaccine or a placebo over a six-month period. The women were from 24 countries and territories, with age ranges from 16 to 26.

Malmo University in Sweden, Lund University, Joakim Dillner from the department of microbiology and colleagues discovered that the vaccine provided major protection against the warts and tumors in women. Researchers noted that 168 of 7,632 women who have taken the placebo developed cervical growths while the 7,629 vaccinated women only 7 of them have the cervical growths.

Based on the results of the study the researchers were able to conclude that the vaccine gave strong and continuous protection against the different types of warts and low-grade female cervical growth for four years.

The research was made possible through Merck Research Laboratories, a division of Merck & Company, manufacturer of the HPV vaccine Gardasil.

According to Dr. Crumpacker, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston, said in an interview that the research provides useful information because it shows the vaccine can do more than just thwart the virus from spreading.
 
via healthfinder.gov

We All Could Use Some Stress Test

One way of knowing how much your heart can get to work is by taking a stress test, also called an exercise test, or more simply known as the treadmill test. A person undergoing this test should be monitored and supervised by a medical professional. He or she will be asked to walk through the treadmill at a gradual but increasing pace with his or her heart rate being monitored with cardio equipment and blood pressure monitor attached to the heart while performing the test. Healthy people should not have any trouble performing the test. However, those who will have a really hard and tired time with the stress test should be subject to further cardio-related tests.

Beating Daily Stress and Anxiety

We can't deny it that stress is part in our modern society. The common factors that promote stress are the following-pressure in jobs, daily commute to work, someone you're in a relationship with, finances and family. Stress is a natural body reaction from any kind of demand from the outside world. Stress can trigger the body to release some chemicals and hormones, including adrenaline and cortisol, to increase its preparedness by giving an instantaneous boost of energy and strength. Too much of this hormones and chemicals in our body are detrimental to our health.

Another threat to our health which is also brought by modern society is anxiety. Anxiety is characterized as a feeling of uncertainties, uneasiness, nervousness or fear, which can add up to a person's depression. Anxiety and stress should therefore be given utmost attention before any serious health conditions happen.

Obese Young Adult Increases the Risk of Having Psoriatic Arthritis

Image Source: Wikipedia

Recent study reveals that people suffering from psoriasis who are obese at age of 18 have a big chance of developing psoriatic arthritis earlier than normal-weight people with psoriasis.

This type of arthritis affects 6 to 42 percent of people with psoriasis, a skin disorder that is characterized by itchiness or painful reddish patches on the skin.

The new study conducted from 2002 to 2008, were participated by 943 patients with psoriasis in the Utah Psoriasis Initiative. Twenty-six and one-half (26.5) percent of those patients were suffering from psoriatic arthritis. Factors that can tell the possibility that a patient has a psoriatic arthritis includes body mass index (BMI) at age 18, suffered from psoriasis at a young age, being female and psoriasis has affected a larger surface of the body.

Twenty percent of those obese and overweight eighteen-year old participants, developed psoriatic arthritis by age 35, while twenty percent of normal-weight participants developed psoriatic arthritis by age 48.

Dr. Razieh Soltani-Arabshahi and his colleagues announced that patients who are susceptible to psoriatic arthritis will benefit from more frequent and thorough screening procedures for early detection and treatment of psoriatic arthritis, to avoid the development of irreversible damage to joint.

Vinegar As Remedy For Acne and Pimples on Your Face And Skin - Say Hello To This Sour Stuff

Who doesn't want a glowing, smooth and acne-free face? Acne is a familiar skin disorder that affects teenagers and adults. Acne breakout occurs during adolescence due to hormonal changes. Anybody affected with acne will try every option from natural remedy to over-the-counter cream and pill just to eliminate the problem. One solution is to use vinegar for acne. Such substance has been used as one of the natural remedies to different human health woes throughout the ages. A lot of people who used vinegar for acne have proven that it is an effective and safe antidote against the skin problem.

You might wonder how does a lowly vinegar eliminate acne. Skin pore becomes clogged because of too much sebum produced by the sebaceous glands, dead skin cells and other harmful elements. Clogged skin pore will become the breeding place for the acne-causing bacteria. Now, vinegar works by lowering the pH of the skin pores. A low pH is an undesirable place for the bacteria to live, therefore applying vinegar for acne-troubled skin helps eliminate the problem by fighting at the root cause.

Since, vinegar is rich in alpha-hydroxy acids, it helps in unclogging the skin pores. Alpha-hydroxy acids controls sebaceous glands in the production of sebum and helps the exfoliation of dead skin cells. Controlling the sebum production and removing of dead skin cells are the combined ways of vinegar to control the acne problem.

Vinegar can also be used as moisturizer because of its ability to help regulate the skin's pH balance. Depending on the skin type, regular and moderate application of vinegar will prevent skin dryness and allows absorption of other vitamins and minerals.

Why not give a try at this inexpensive treatment for acne and pimples? You might be one of those who can attest to the efficacy of this humble kitchen condiment.