Category Archives: Integrative Medicine

Your immune system works hard to fight off forein invaders like infections and germs to keep you healthy and it never gets a break. It works around the clock everyday to protect you, so helping your immune system stay strong is vital to your overall well-being. So how can you help strengthen your immunity? Eat This, Not That! Health spoke with Dr. Michael Hirt, a Board Certified Nutrition from Harvard University and Board Certified in Internal Medicine and is with The Center for Integrative Medicine in Tarzana California who shares what to know about your immune system, signs it's too weak and how to help boost it. As always, please speak with your physician for medical advice. Read onand to ensure your health and the health of others, don't miss these Sure Signs You've Already Had COVID.

Dr. Hirt tells us, "You know exercise can make your heart stronger. You know puzzles can make your brain smarter. However, even after two years of pandemic health lessons, people are still puzzled as to how to reliably make their immune system stronger. Like your cardiovascular and nervous systems, the immune system is subject to the same lifestyle choices that affect the rest of your body. Eat too much sugar, drink too much liquor, shorten your sleep hours, and you should not be surprised that you are going to wake up with your heart pounding, brain fogged in, and the start of a sore throat. You are the sum of your choices, and a robust immune system is no exception to your cumulative health investments (or lack thereof)."

"The innate programming of your immune system is only to attack microbial threats and coordinate repairs ranging from skin scrapes to broken bones," says Dr. Hirt. "Under the influence of environmental toxins, intestinal imbalances (from diet and bacteria), and genetic tendencies, some parts of your immune system can go 'rogue' and attack the body it was sworn to only defend. This is called an auto-immune condition because the immune system is attacking parts of self like joints, skin, or internal organs. This is never supposed to happen, serves no evolutionary benefit, and requires major lifestyle changes, detoxification, and medical interventions to stop the attack and remove the triggers of self-attack. Without a coordinated healing effort, the immune system will likely continue to attack itself and require strong, immune-suppressive measures."

Dr. Hirt shares, "If you're thinking of trying to boost your immune system, consider how you would boost the effectiveness of your nation's defense forces. To have a stronger, more effective military, you would feed them healthy food, ensure they are well rested, avoid unnecessary stress, house them on clean bases, provide cutting edge equipment, and have plenty of munitions so they never run out of bullets and missiles. Same with your immune system. Eat the healthiest food you can, in the cleanest environment you can, under the least stress you can, having had the most restful sleep you can, and taking the best vitamins you can including zinc, vitamin C, and vitamin D. Just like our military, your immune system never gets to take a collective break from defending you from all threats, both foreign and domestic."6254a4d1642c605c54bf1cab17d50f1e

Dr. Hirt states, "Most adults get a cold or flu 2 3 times yearly. If you're calling in sick on a monthly basis, you could have a more significant immune deficiency that needs testing and treatments."

"When you cut your self, superficial wounds typically take seven days to heal," Dr. Hirt tells us. "If you are watching your skin take weeks to heal, then your immune system may be compromised."

According to Dr. Hirt, "When you get an upper respiratory infection, most people with healthy immune systems can fully recover in ten days. If your symptoms go on for most of the month, then there may be issues with the strength of your immune responsiveness."

"There are many reasons to be tired," Dr. Hirt says. "Many people are surprised to learn that one of them is a weak immune system, or low white blood cell count. If you are experiencing unusual fatigue, make sure your healthcare provider includes a screening test for your immune system."

Heather Newgen

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Sure Signs Your Immune System Isn't as Strong as it Should Be Eat This Not That - Eat This, Not That

While the ideal amount of water varies for each person depending on your geographic location, body type, and more, according to Dana Cohen, M.D., integrative medicine physician and co-author of Quench, you should aim to drink about half of your body weight in ounces of water each day to ensure youre staying adequately hydrated.

However, while it would take a lot to reach the point of "overhydrating," it is, in fact, possible to drink too much water. "In overhydration an excess of water dilutes the electrolyte concentrations in the blood, causing imbalance throughout the body's many systems," physician Catherine Waldrop, M.D., previously told mbg.

In fact, drinking too much water can even lead to an electrolyte imbalance called hyponatremia, that can have some fairly gnarly side effects on the body. "Mild hyponatremia is characterized by gastrointestinal tract symptoms, nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite," one study revealed. In short, hyponatremia is essentially low sodium in the blood.

See more here:
Can You Really Drink Too Much Water? We Investigated - mindbodygreen

In a recently published report, Northwestern Health Sciences University (NWHSU) has identified seven domains of knowledge, skills, and behaviors that clinicians need to provide the best integrative care.

Integrative care has many elements. At NWHSU, the concept of integrative care extends beyond multi-disciplinary care, including team-based and holistic care, interprofessional collaboration, and partnerships between patients and communities. Integrative care also includes interdependent considerations such as genetics, social determinants of health, community support and resources, and beliefs and habits that influence health.

Domain 1, values, ethics, culture, and diversity: In integrative care, clinicians work with colleagues in other professions in a climate of mutual respect and shared values, with the recognition that there is diversity in and between disciplines as well as diversity in patient populations.

Values, ethics, culture, and diversity are the connective tissue of integrative care and a transdisciplinary approach to healthcare, says Michele Renee, DC, director of integrative care at NWHSU. "It is the shared mindset that unifies diverse paradigms of healing, creating a dynamic approach in which each point of view is honored and yet not sufficient in and of itself. We are also acknowledging the importance of social factors, from socio-economic status to religion to cultural norms, and professional diversity, from indigenous healing to mainstream medicine to complementary and integrative healthcare approaches. All these differences are important considerations in providing robust, multifaceted, and individualized approaches to care."

Domain 2, patient-centered care: Clinicians should seek out, integrate, and value contributions and engagement of the patient, family, and community in designing and providing care.

Patient-centered care acknowledges the pivotal role of patients in their care, Renee says. "Patient-centered care calls out the importance of acknowledging the bio-psycho-social-spiritual nature of whole person care. It is vital that healthcare providers are not doing to the patient, but rather with the patient. Our patients are active participants in care and the most important person in a healthcare team."

Domain 3, roles and responsibilities: Clinicians should use knowledge of their role and the role of other professions to identify and address the healthcare needs of patients, families, and communities.

"For team-based care to work, we must each understand the part we play, the unique skills others bring, and how we all fit into the larger picture. This is a dynamic process, created uniquely for each person we serve. These skills are essential to ensure care is complete and wraps around our patients and communities," Renee says.

Domain 4, interprofessional communication: Clinicians should be responsive and responsible in their communication with patients, families, communities, and other healthcare professionals, which helps establishing a team approach to health and the treatment of disease.

Communication is often where healthcare fails, so shared communication competencies are essential, Renee says. "This includes understanding ourselves, acknowledging biases, identifying and resolving conflict when it arises, and documenting care in a way that is universally understood. Multilayered communication is key to building trusting relationships."

Domain 5, team and teamwork: Clinicians should practice relationship-building values and embrace team dynamics to perform effectively in different team roles to plan, deliver, and evaluate patient-centered care that is safe, timely, efficient, effective, and equitable.

Patients and communities rely upon their healthcare teams knowing how to evaluate, plan, and deliver care, Renee says. "This involves designing and implementing evidence-informed systems that support effective teamwork, and creating accountability for each care team member to focus on all aspects of patient and population focused problem solving. Team-based care goes beyond what happens in the treatment room or hospital to include social determinants of health and health equity."

Domain 6, collaborative leadership: Clinicians should foster shared leadership and collaborative practice of care.

Healthcare professionals need to cultivate the skill of passing the baton as needed, Renee says. "One provider may be providing the primary intervention at one moment in time and complementary care at another. The needs of the patient change over time and the care team needs to be prepared to collaborate and share leadership accordingly, leaning on one another's unique insights and expertise as needed."

Domain 7, well-being and resilience: Clinicians need to recognize that the health of an individual has positive and negative effects on their ability to make change around them and adopt sustainable strategies to address challenges, while remaining committed to their sense of purpose.

Building a resilient healthcare system starts with the well-being of healthcare professionals, Renee says. "Health creation begins with prioritizing self-care, which in turn reduces burnout and improves job performance and satisfaction. Learning the skills to identify one's circle of influence, develop a growth mindset, and cultivate grit prepare providers to better support patients in their own health creation by putting the focus on well-being and resilience instead of disease management."

Christopher Cheney is the senior clinical care editor at HealthLeaders.

More:
Qualities Clinicians Need to Have to Deliver Integrative Care - HealthLeaders Media

Summary: DKT, a Japanese herbal remedy containing ginger, pepper, ginseng, and maltose, reduced symptoms of colitis in mice, a new study reports.

Source: RIKEN

Zhengzheng Shi and colleagues at the RIKEN Center for Integrative Medical Sciences (IMS) in Japan report the effects of a common herbal remedy on colitis, one of two conditions that comprise inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).

Published inFrontiers in Immunology, the study shows that DKTa standard formula containing ginger, pepper, ginseng, and maltosereduced the severity of colitis in lab mice by preventing the characteristic imbalance in gut microbes and by increasing levels of immune cells in the colon that fight inflammation.

Colitis is a chronic inflammation of the colon, characterized by an imbalance ingut bacteriaand an abnormal immune response. Prevalence has doubled over the last 20 years, and its currently a global health concern, particularly in Europe and North America. Although treatments are numerous, they are only partially effective.

This has led some researchers to take a closer look at traditional herbal medicines that originated in China, and are now commonly used in Japan and other Asian countries.

Daikenchuto (DKT) is a formula containing specific amounts of ginger, pepper, ginseng, and maltose, and is one of 148herbal medicinescalled Kampo, which have been developed in Japan and are often prescribed by doctors to treat a variety of illnesses.

Previous research has hinted that DKT might be useful for treating colitis, but evidence, particularly at themolecular level, has been lacking. Thus, Shi and the team of researchers at RIKEN IMS led by Naoko Satoh-Takayama conducted a detailed examination of its effects on a mouse model of colitis.

Colitis was induced in mice using dextran sodium sulfate, which is toxic to the cells that line the colon. When these mice were given DKT, their body weights remained normal, and they had lower clinical scores for colitis. Additional analysis revealed much less damage to the cells lining the colon.

Having thus shown that DKT does indeed help protect against colitis, the researchers proceeded to analyze the gut microbiome of the mice and expression levels of anti-inflammatory immune cells.

Gut microbiomes contain numerous bacteria and fungi that aid in digestion and help the immune system.

Colitis is associated with an imbalance in thesegut microbiota, and analysis showed that a family of lactic acid bacteria were depleted in the colitic mice of this study. Also depleted was one of their metabolites, a short-chain fatty acid called propionate.

Treating the model mice with DKT restored much of these missing bacteriaparticularly those from the genus Lactobacillusand levels of propionate were normal.

Colitis is also associated with an abnormal immune response that causes the characteristic intestinal inflammation.

When the team looked at innate intestinal immune cells, they found that levels of a type called ILC3 were lower in the untreated colitic mice than in the DKT-treated colonic mice, and that mice engineered to lack ILC3 suffered more and could not benefit from DKT treatment.

This means that ILC3s are critical for protecting against colitis and that DKT works by interacting with them. Lastly, qPCR analysis indicated that these important immune cells had receptors for propionate, called GPR43, on their surface.

Daikenchuto is commonly prescribed to prevent and treat gastrointestinal diseases, as well as for reducingintestinal obstructionafter colorectal cancer surgery, says Satoh-Takayama.

Here we have shown that it can also alleviate intestinal diseases likecolitisby rebalancing Lactobacillus levels in the gut microbiome. This likely helps reduce inflammatory immune responses by promoting the activity of type 3 innate lymphoid cells.

Author: Press OfficeSource: RIKENContact: Press Office RIKENImage: The image is in the public domain

Original Research: Open access.A Japanese Herbal Formula, Daikenchuto, Alleviates Experimental Colitis by Reshaping Microbial Profiles and Enhancing Group 3 Innate Lymphoid Cells by Zhengzheng Shi et al. Frontiers in Immunology

Abstract

A Japanese Herbal Formula, Daikenchuto, Alleviates Experimental Colitis by Reshaping Microbial Profiles and Enhancing Group 3 Innate Lymphoid Cells

Daikenchuto (DKT) is one of the most widely used Japanese herbal formulae for various gastrointestinal disorders. It consists ofZanthoxylum Fructus(Japanese pepper),Zingiberis Siccatum Rhizoma(processed ginger),Ginseng radix, and maltose powder. However, the use of DKT in clinical settings is still controversial due to the limited molecular evidence and largely unknown therapeutic effects.

Here, we investigated the anti-inflammatory actions of DKT in the dextran sodium sulfate (DSS)-induced colitis model in mice.

We observed that DKT remarkably attenuated the severity of experimental colitis while maintaining the members of the symbiotic microbiota such as family Lactobacillaceae and increasing levels of propionate, an immunomodulatory microbial metabolite, in the colon.

DKT also protected colonic epithelial integrity by upregulating the fucosyltransferase geneFut2and the antimicrobial peptide geneReg3g. More remarkably, DKT restored the reduced colonic group 3 innate lymphoid cells (ILC3s), mainly RORthigh-ILC3s, in DSS-induced colitis. We further demonstrated that ILC3-deficient mice showed increased mortality during experimental colitis, suggesting that ILC3s play a protective function on colonic inflammation.

These findings demonstrate that DKT possesses anti-inflammatory activity, partlyviaILC3 function, to maintain the colonic microenvironment.

Our study also provides insights into the molecular basis of herbal medicine effects, promotes more profound mechanistic studies towards herbal formulae and contributes to future drug development.

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How a Japanese Herbal Medicine Protects the Gut Against Inflammatory Bowel Disease - Neuroscience News

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The Global Nutrigenomics Market is expected to grow by $ 690.14 mn during 2022-2026, accelerating at a CAGR of 12.4% during the forecast period -...

The Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT)s 10th director D. Srinivasa Reddys career reads like a fairy tale.

The Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar award winner hails from Shobhanadripuram village in Nalgonda district, studied in a Telugu medium school till his graduation, did his post-graduation from Osmania University and Ph.D. from University of Hyderabad (UoH) under the tutelage of eminent academic-scientist Prof. Goverdhan Mehta.

He is currently holding the additional charge of CSIR-Institute of Integrative Medicine (Jammu) and CSIR-Drug Research Institute (Lucknow). In this interview, Dr. Reddy talks about his life and plans for the premier chemical research institute.

a) You have been a project assistant here and have returned as the director!

A: My father was a farmer and I never thought of becoming a scientist. I came to Hyderabad for my Intermediate in Mahabub College and B.Sc (BZC) in S.P. College when I used to distribute newspapers, give home tuitions and worked in a timber depot loading logs to earn money. With a lot of difficulty I joined as a project associate in IICT. Later, I cleared my CSIR-NET exam and joined Prof. Mehta. From then on, it has been growing upwards though hard work and perseverance.

b) How did your switch from private sector to research in public labs happen?

A: After my post-doctoral studies in United States and seriously considering settling there, I was offered a job with Dr. Reddys Labs. Later, I moved to Advinus Therapeutics (Pune) after which I joined CSIR-National Chemical Laboratory (Pune) as I wanted to pursue my passion for organic chemistry research, taking a huge pay cut. My wife, Vidya Ramdas, has been my co-researcher from UoH days and she continues to work in the pharma field. We have done some great work at NCL and I continue to have my lab with six research students. Soon, I will have a lab here and take in student researchers.

c) What are the areas of research you have been working on?

A: We developed the Silicon-switch approach for developing drug strategies for diseases affecting the central nervous system as most patents do not claim silicon derivatives. This has huge potential in discovering drugs in a short time. Our group has identified a few novel compounds that can protect from vector spreading diseases like dengue or zika virus and also kill the mosquitoes. We have filed a patent and talks are on with a private firm to develop this further for daily use. We have collaborated with different labs including CSIR-CCMB to authenticate the anti-cancer drug for use in Sickle Cell Anaemia.

d) What will be the areas of focus here in IICT?

A: We will be actively involved in the Anti-Virus Mission in association with other CSIR labs studying available molecules and re-purposing of existing anti-viral drugs to deal with SARS-COVID, Monkey Pox and several other viruses. We will soon have a BSL-3 facility here. We are actively assisting pharma and vaccine companies in their research. Our aim is to make the country self-reliant in APIs active pharmaceutical ingredients, KSMs- key starting materials and others with public, private partnerships. I am still trying to understand the various projects here.

Read more from the original source:
IICT to be involved in anti-virus mission & public, private partnerships for developing APIs - The Hindu