Question

The benefit of acupuncture (CAM) as it related to holistic wellness

Answer 1

Acupuncture has been effectively used for the treatment of back pain, headache, migraine, and sports injuries. However, acupuncture provides more than pain relief. It is helpful in treating anxiety, insomnia, digestive problems, menstrual problems, weight control, infertility and much more.

Although acupuncture has become widely accepted and available in North America in the last 40 years, it had already been endorsed a century earlier by the renowned Canadian physician, Sir William Osler , widely referred to as the “Father of Modern Medicine”:

Its benifits -

• Increasing peripheral circulation
• Augmenting skin and muscle blood flow
• Decreasing heart rate and reducing elevated blood pressure
• Regulating autonomic nervous system
• Normalizing gastro-intestinal motility
• Boosting immune function
• Balancing reproductive hormones

Complementary and Alternative (also called CAM) therapies include any approach that is considered to be outside the mainstream of traditional healthcare. Many therapies are "holistic," which means the whole person is considered for health and healing. This includes therapies that have physical, mental, emotional and spiritual aspects.

Complementary is different from alternative medicine. While complementary medicine is used with traditional medicine techniques, alternative medicine is used in place of traditional approaches. While some alterative therapies have helped patients feel better, others can be harmful. It is important to note that medical and surgical treatments are studied carefully and tested extensively prior to being used in large numbers of patients. Alternative techniques do not go through the same type of scrutiny, therefore there are questions about the legitimacy and safety of some of these techniques.