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Research Archive

Welcome to our Chinese medicine and acupuncture research news pages. We add to the content of these pages continuously as more research news comes in. Browse through the complete archive below or use the category links on the right.

Please note that the most twenty recent research archive items are free to view but access to the thousands of items in the archive require a journal subscription.

Breast milk gives infants intestines a protective coat

Categories: Lifestyle research

A large part of human milk consists of complex sugars that are undigestible by babies, but American scientists have worked out that its purpose is instead to influence the composition of bacteria in the infant's gut. The researchers have found that strains of the bacterium Bifidobacterium longum infantis, commonly found in the faeces of breast-fed infants, possesses genes that enable it to thrive ...

Antibiotics on verge of being useless

Categories: Lifestyle research

A sobering paper in the prestigious journal Lancet Infectious Diseases predicts a disastrous near future in which antibiotics are no longer effective against infectious diseases. The article explains how a new gene called NDM 1 discovered last year by the paper's author Professor Tim Walsh, can pass easily between enterobacteriaceae such as Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae, making them r ...

Mind-body therapies beneficial for menopause symptoms

Categories: Lifestyle research

A systematic review by American authors suggests that mind-body therapies may be beneficial for alleviating specific menopausal symptoms. Eighteen clinical trials, involving a total of 882 women, met their inclusion criteria. Interventions included yoga and/or meditation programs, tai chi and relaxation practices. Eight of the nine studies of yoga, tai chi, and meditation-based programs reported i ...

Beer may cut prostate cancer risk

Categories: Lifestyle research

A German study has found that xanthohumol, a compound found in hops, can block the stimulating effect of testosterone on prostate cancer cells, raising hopes that it may one day be used in cancer prevention. The researchers found that xanthohumol binds directly to androgen receptors on the cancer cell's surface, preventing the receptor from translocating to the cell nucleus, and thus inhibiting it ...

Drinkers exercise more

Categories: Lifestyle research

According to an American study people who regularly drink alcohol are more likely to exercise than teetotalers, and the more they drink, the more likely they are to work out. The authors of the study analysed data from a phone survey of 230,000 Americans, and found a strong association between alcohol use and moderate to vigorous exercise. The authors suggest that people who consume alcohol recogn ...

Official: Whiskey hangover worse than vodka

Categories: Lifestyle research

A US study confirms - as drinkers have long maintained - that drinking whisky results in a worse hangover than vodka. However, the study also found that drinking vodka all night instead of whisky did not improve performance the next day. Ninety-five volunteers, all healthy heavy alcohol users, had one 'acclimatisation' night, before drinking either whisky or vodka the following night (enough to pu ...

Big bum protects against heart disease and diabetes

Categories: Lifestyle research

Unlike abdominal fat, which is known to be harmful, it appears that fat stored on the thighs actively protects against heart disease and diabetes. UK authors have reviewed the evidence and potential mechanisms for a protective role of gluteofemoral body fat on metabolic health. Recent publications have reported that gluteofemoral fat and a larger hip circumference have been shown to promote health ...

Exercise can overcome genetic obesity

Categories: Lifestyle research

A study by Swedish researchers has revealed that with regular exercise, teenagers genetically predisposed towards obesity can lose weight and keep it off. The study was carried out in ten European countries over 14 months and involved 753 teenagers. The A allele of a gene called FTO (fat mass and obesity associated gene) is known to be linked with high body mass index (BMI), such that possession o ...

Being good or bad increases physical endurance

Categories: Lifestyle research

Two US studies suggest that performing actions that have a moral implication, whether good or bad, may increase people’s capacity for willpower and physical endurance. In the first study, participants were given a dollar which they could either keep or donate to charity. They were then asked to hold up a 5lb weight for as long as possible. Those who donated to charity held up the weigh ...

Clean smells promote clean living

Categories: Lifestyle research

A US study has revealed that people behave in a more ethical manner in an environment that smells clean. The study was designed to test levels of honesty and charity in a group of volunteers who were exposed to citrus-scented window cleaner, compared with a group that was not. All the volunteers were asked to perform the same variety of tasks; some were in rooms sprayed with the cleaning product, ...

Liver yang rising? Anger causes blood to rush to the head

Categories: Lifestyle research, Hypertension

The popular belief that anger provokes a rush of blood to the head has been proved by new research. Experiments in an American lab showed that blood flow to the brain increased significantly in people experiencing mental stress. Fifty-eight volunteers, half healthy and half suffering from high blood pressure, were put through a series of tasks designed to cause mental strain, including recalling m ...

We knew we were right all along and now they finally believe us! western link between ear and bone conditions

Categories: Lifestyle research

Chinese medicine links the health of the bones and the ear via the Kidney organ system. Now Western medicine is making this link. Sufferers of osteoporosis (low bone density) and its preceding condition, osteopaenia, are more likely to also develop vertigo, according to new Korean research. Benign positional vertigo (BPV) can result from ear surgery or head trauma and can be caused by crystals of ...

Gene links physical pain and social rejection

Categories: Lifestyle research

Psychology researchers have determined that a gene linked with physical pain is also associated with sensitivity to social rejection. The US study indicates that variation in the mu-opioid receptor gene (OPRM1), associated with response to physical pain, is related to how much pain a person feels in response to social rejection. People with a rare form of the gene, who were shown in previous work ...

Breastfeeding prevents heart disease and diabetes

Categories: Lifestyle research

Breastfeeding a baby can significantly reduce a woman's chances of developing metabolic syndrome, a cluster of risk factors that makes heart disease and diabetes more likely in later life. Previous research has shown that lactating women have improved blood glucose and triglyceride levels shortly after giving birth. The new study suggests that the beneficial effects of breastfeeding are long-lasti ...

Divorce is bad for your health & getting remarried doesn't help

Categories: Lifestyle research

People who get divorced or who are widowed are more likely to suffer chronic health problems, even if they go on to remarry. According to an American study of 8,652 people aged between 51 and 61, divorced people have 20% more chronic health conditions, such as heart disease, diabetes or cancer than married people. They are also 23% more likely to suffer from mobility problems. Previous studies hav ...

Coffee doesn't sober you up

Categories: Lifestyle research

Drinking coffee when you're drunk won't sober you up. In fact a cup of coffee may make it harder for people to realise they're drunk and therefore more likely to feel competent enough to try potentially dangerous things such as driving while intoxicated. An American laboratory study investigated how alcohol, caffeine or a combination of both affected the ability of mice to negotiate a maze and lea ...

Chemical found in shampoo and toys could lead to low birth weight

Categories: Lifestyle research

Exposure to phthalate, a toxic chemical used as a plasticiser in a wide variety of personal care products and children's toys might contribute to low birth weight in babies. Low birth weight is the leading cause of death in children under five and is a risk factor for cardiovascular and metabolic disease in adulthood. Phthalate exposure can begin while the foetus is in the womb and has been associ ...

Meditation builds grey matter

Categories: Lifestyle research

A team of American scientists has reported that regions of the brain involved in emotional regulation are larger in long-term meditators than in non-meditators. The group used high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to scan the brains of 22 participants, all of whom had extensively practiced meditation. They compared the scans with those of age-matched controls. Those who meditated had be ...

Anxious people prone to asthma

Categories: Psychological / emotional, Lifestyle research

People who are prone to anxiety are more likely to develop asthma, according to German investigators. The team used a questionnaire to evaluate tendencies to hysteria, anxiety and depression in 4010 adults without asthma. When they reassessed participants nine years later, they found that those who had high levels of neurosis were three times as likely to have developed asthma as those with low sc ...

Exercise as addictive as heroin

Categories: Lifestyle research

Excessive exercise can be as addictive as heroin, according to US scientists, and stopping can lead to withdrawal symptoms. The scientists believe that extreme exercise causes increases in endogenous opioid peptides (endorphins), which act in the brain a manner similar to chronic administration of opiate drugs. The psychologists observed a group of rats, some of which exercised excessively on a wh ...