FDA Orders Antibacterials Removed From Consumer Soaps

"Consumers may think antibacterial washes are more effective at preventing the spread of germs, but we have no scientific evidence that they are any better than plain soap and water," said Dr. Janet Woodcock, director of the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research.

Photo by Gabriele Ritz / EyeEm / Getty Images/EyeEm. Image sourced from NBC News. Available at: https://media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com/image/upload/t_fit-1240w,f_auto,q_auto:best/newscms/2016_34/1683101/160824-bar-soap-mbe-456p.jpg

Slow Medicine in Fast Times

Non-biomedical health systems and various forms of traditional medicine remain a crucial avenue through which many Nepalis seek care for chronic and acute illness, including mental health and responses to trauma.

A Nepali amchi diagnosing a patient through pulse analysis. Photo credit: Joan Halifax. Image sourced from Asian Medicine Zone. Available at: https://www.asianmedicinezone.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/AMCHI-1024x824.jpg

'America's Other Drug Problem': Copious Prescriptions for Hospitalized Elderly

“This is America’s other drug problem — polypharmacy,” said Dr. Maristela Garcia, director of the inpatient geriatric unit at UCLA Medical Center in Santa Monica. “And the problem is huge.”

Harriet Diamond at the UCLA Medical Center in Santa Monica, Calif., in May. Photo by Heidi de Marco/KHN. Image sourced from Medscape. Available at: https://img.medscapestatic.com/thumbnail_library/khn_160830_elderly_patient_hospital_medication_250x188.jpg

Mongolian Traditional Medicine

Medicinal herbs, the limbs of animals, and minerals are used as natural forms of medical treatment. They are sometimes used individually and sometimes used together for
medicinal purposes. Mongolians combine medicine with psychological therapy and use sayings, such as mantras, shamanic charms, and prophecy. There are certain influences of Buddhism in Mongolian medical treatment, such as the use of spells and the stating of one’s requests and mantra expressions.

Image sourced from Asian Medicine Zone. Available at: https://www.asianmedicinezone.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/P5170431-640x372.jpg

The Hermeneutics of a song Dynasty Case Record

A common feature of Xu’s cases is the attention he pays to his arguments with other physicians present. Well-off families frequently consulted more than one healer and often made use of more than one healing modality. Even a very elite physician like Xu had to argue down the other physicians present in order to win the confidence of the patient’s family, but unlike some of Xu’s other case records, the emphasis here is not on the ignorance of his opponents so much as it is on content of Xu’s resolution of the “doubts” surrounding this case.

Yes, America Has A Working Tea Plantation.

Rather than planting tea seeds, the Charleston Tea Plantation grows cuttings in a nursery for four years. The fledgling bushes are descendants of the same Camellia sinensis plants that were first brought to the Carolinas in the 1700s by French botanist Andre Michaux. 

An employee holds dried tea leaves at the Charleston Tea Plantation on Wadmalaw Island, S.C. Photo by Ariana Lindquist/Bloomberg via Getty Images. Image sourced from NPR. Available at: https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2016/08/05/188-chastea1_custom-209b681e8736e3aa5bf3362c1a2dc819253731e6.jpg?s=800&c=85&f=webp

5,000-Year-Old Chinese Beer Recipe Revealed

The recipe included a mix of fermented grains: broomcorn millet, barley and Job's tears, a chewy Asian grain also known as Chinese pearl barley. The recipe also called for tubers, the starchy and sugary parts of plants, which were added to sweeten and flavor the beer, the researchers write.

Chinese and other Asian beer brands on display at a supermarket. An ancient brewery discovered in China's Central Plain shows the Chinese were making barley beer with fairly advanced techniques some 5,000 years ago. Photo by Chris/Flickr. Image sourced from NPR. Available at: https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2016/05/23/chinesebeer_custom-2cd63a4f487dee3bf7419579d92cdf31d7dbe702.jpg?s=800&c=85&f=webp

Banxia (Pinellia ternata)

Banxia’s traditional indications of coughing and vomiting, however, are best understood as symbolic clues that point to the herb’s clinical potential in modern times, offering unique solutions for common problems such as insomnia, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, cancer, and brain chemistry (seratonin/dopamine) dysregulation.

Freshly harvested Banxia (Pinellia ternata) tubers. Image sourced from Classical Chinese Medicine. Available at: https://classicalchinesemedicine.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/single-banxia_web.jpg

Guizhi and Rougui (Cinnamomum loureirii bark and twig)

Modern herbal curricula have come to categorize Guizhi as an herb for the common (external) cold and Rougui as a key material for the treatment of (internal) yang deficiency, thereby greatly limiting the wide range of applications ascribed to cinnamon in ancient times.

Stacked Rougui from 20-30 Year Old Trees in Hekou, Yunnan. Image sourced from Classical Chinese Medicine. Available at: https://classicalchinesemedicine.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/guizhi-rougui23-500x333.jpg

A comparison study of metformin only therapy and metformin combined with Chinese medicine jianyutangkang therapy in patients with type 2 diabetes

A randomized placebo-controlled double-blind study

Photo by Shutterstock 55439542. Image of a Chinese traditional medical ingredient sourced from Shutterstock. Available at: https://www.shutterstock.com/es/image-photo/chinese-traditional-medical-ingredient-55439542

What humans need to flourish

Plug “wellness” into a search engine and you’ll get 405 million hits — and a lot of advice. Everyone, from genuine experts to click-bait writers, has an opinion about what’s good for us.

Illustration by Christopher Silas Neal. Image sourced from Stanford Medicine. Available at: https://stanmed.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/well_now_portrait-banner-768x915.jpg

Want to prevent thousands of deaths a year? Make doctors and nurses meditate.

Research shows mindfulness could cut down on the spread of hospital-acquired infections.

Photo by The Washington Post. Image sourced from The Washington Post. Available at: https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_908w/WashingtonPost/Content/Blogs/post-politics/201407/Images/wonk1211.jpg

Herbal Therapy for Benign Prostatic Hypertrophy

Chinese medical literature has been relatively silent on the problem of BPH (8). Disorders of urination have been noted since ancient times, classified as "lin" syndromes, which involve obstruction of urinary flow. In descriptions of the lin syndromes, most times the obstruction of urination is described as accompanied by symptoms that are not characteristic of BPH, such as blood in the urine or passing of stones or cloudy urine. Therefore, while BPH may have been experienced and treated as one of the lin syndromes, it is unclear whether any of the therapies were specific for BPH.

Photo by Shutterstock 290658917. Image of a variety of herbs including rosemary, parsley, and bay leaves sourced from Shutterstock. Available at: https://www.shutterstock.com/es/image-photo/herbs-variety-rosemary-parsley-bay-leaves-290658917

Triple Burner (San Jiao) with reference to treatment of Sjögren’s Syndrome

The meaning of the name triple burner, sanjiao, is unclear; “burner” gives the impression that this “organ system” generates heat, perhaps a lot of heat, but there is little evidence that it does that, rather acting as a conduit for heat transferred between other organs.   An alternative interpretation of the name has been the “three burning spaces” which is somewhat better, in the sense that the location or zone of influence of this organ system can encompass three “heat sources” without itself being the generator of the heat (e.g., kidney, spleen, and heart yang).  Even then, the term is not entirely suitable.

Sighing Found to be a Life Saving Biological Function

A sigh is a deep breath, but not a voluntary deep breath. It starts out as a normal breath, but before you exhale, you take a second breath on top of it," Feldman explained.  "When alveoli collapse, they compromise the ability of the lung to exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide. The only way to pop them open again is to sigh, which brings in twice the volume of a normal breath."

Photo by Quinn Dombrowski/Flickr. Image of lungs sourced from ScienceAlert. Available at: https://www.sciencealert.com/images/articles/processed/Lungs_web_1024.jpg

Herbal medicine research and global health: an ethical analysis

In China, traditional herbal medicine played a prominent role in the strategy to contain and treat severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).1 Eighty per cent of African populations use some form of traditional herbal medicine,2,3 and the worldwide annual market for these products approaches US$ 60 billion.2 Many hope traditional herbal medicine research will play a critical role in global health. China, India, Nigeria, the United States of America (USA) and WHO have all made substantial research investments in traditional herbal medicines.2 Industry has also invested millions of US dollars looking for promising medicinal herbs and novel chemical compounds.4,5 This is still a relatively modest investment compared to the overall pharmaceutical industry; however, it raises interesting ethical questions, some of which are not faced in more conventional drug development.

Photo by Shutterstock 190231982. Image of hands protecting a mint plant in a vegetable garden sourced from Shutterstock. Available at: https://www.shutterstock.com/es/image-photo/hands-protect-mint-plant-vegetable-garden-190231982

Get up, stand up, for your health: A little exercise offsets a lot of sitting

Can’t get in an hour or more of these types of activities per day? Just 25 minutes of moderate activity is somewhat protective, even for people who sit for eight or more hours per day. The way physical activity energy expenditure was calculated, vigorous activities count more, so less time of the most strenuous exercise is needed to be protective.

Photo by Shutterstock 2156387937. Image of a woman walking her golden retriever sourced from Dom Media Library. Available at: https://domf5oio6qrcr.cloudfront.net/medialibrary/8947/Get-up-stand-up.jpg