Budget Beauty: Manicured Without Getting Clipped - Frugal Traveler Blog - NYTimes.com

Image by NYCTCM via FlickrBudget Beauty: Manicured Without Getting Clipped - Frugal Traveler Blog - NYTimes.com
Matt Gross, NY Times Blogger for "Frugal Traveler" writes about his visit to NYCTCM Acupuncture Clinic in Manhattan.
"As the needle went into my skin, somewhere between the two biggest toes on my left foot, I felt an almost electrical jolt—my metatarsal bones pulsed with energy, like a muscle cramp but completely painless. It was as if my entire foot were a neon sign that had never been switched on before.
“Wow,” I think I said, and the four people in white lab coats observing me hurried to ask if I was okay. Was it a burning pain? No. Was it subsiding? Um, maybe a little. Okay, then everything was fine.
Then they stuck more needles in me.
For aficionados of acupuncture, this is old hat. According to the tenets of Chinese medicine, tapping skinny needles into your pressure points is an age-old way of rebalancing the body and restoring, or ensuring, general health.
The first stop, at 10:30 a.m., was the New York College of Traditional Chinese Medicine (13 East 37th Street; 212-685-0888, nyctcm.edu), an accredited school with three- and four-year degree programs in acupuncture and Chinese herbology. It is located on the fourth floor of one of those anonymous office buildings in the East 30s, just north of Murray Hill. Inside, the school felt like a regular doctor’s office, with forms to fill out detailing medical history and current problems, and lots of people in white lab coats...
After answering some intimate questions about my gastrointestinal workings, I was escorted into the treatment room, where I undressed, put on a paper hospital gown and lay down on a table. The needles went in, most of them painlessly, but every once in a while — like when they went into my foot or lower back — the feeling was incredible. I don’t know how much store I put in Chinese medicine, but those pressure points are definitely connected to deep systems in the human body."
Visit New York College of Traditional Chinese Medicine Acupuncture Clinic
New York College of Traditional Chinese Medicine (NYCTCM)'s Teaching Clinic offers affordably priced Acupuncture and Chinese Healing Arts to the community while providing our advanced students with a clinical internship.
Our interns are senior-level students who have passed a series of qualifying exams that allow them to diagnose and prescribe therapies for the patients who come to our clinic. Licensed Acupuncturists and Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioners supervise our interns. Many of our supervisors have M.D. degrees from China, and all have considerable clinical and teaching experience.
Traditional Chinese Medicine or TCM encompasses both acupuncture and Chinese Herbal Medicine. While acupuncture is perhaps the most widely recognized area of TCM, Chinese Herbal Medicine is also very important in your treatment. Chinese Herbal Medicine administers natural herbal formulas specifically designed to correct imbalances in the body, aiding in the treatment of disease. Our clinic provides Acupuncture Therapy, Herbal Prescriptions, Nutrition Counseling and Massage Therapy.

Antioxidant activity of 45 Chinese herbs

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Antioxidant activity of 45 Chinese herbs and the relationship with their TCM characteristics
Here, 45 Chinese herbs that regulate blood circulation were analyzed for antioxidant activity using the oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC) assay. A recent publication by Ou et al. identified a close relationship between in vitro antioxidant activity and classification of Chinese herbs as yin or yang.

The 45 Chinese herbs in this study could be assigned the traditional characteristics of natures (cold, cool, hot and warm), flavors (pungent, sweet, sour, bitter and salty) and functions (arresting bleeding, promoting blood flow to relieve stasis, nourishing blood and clearing away heat from blood). These characteristics are generalized according to the theory of yin and yang. We identified a broad range, 40–1990 µmol Trolox Equivalent/g herbs, of antioxidant activity in water extracts. There was no significant correlation between ORAC values and natures or functions of the herbs. There was a significant relationship between flavors and ORAC values. Bitter and/or sour herbs had the highest ORAC values, pungent and/or sweet herbs the lowest. Other flavors had intermediate values.

Flavors also correspond with the yin/yang relationship and our results are supportive of the earlier publication.

We reported for the first time antioxidant properties of many Chinese herbs. High antioxidant herbs were identified as Spatholobus suberectus vine (1990 µmol TE/g), Sanguisorba officinalis root (1940 µmol TE/g), Agrimonia pilosa herb (1440 µmol TE/g), Artemisia anomala herb (1400 µmol TE/g), Salvia miltiorrhiza root (1320 µmol TE/g) and Nelembo nucifera leaf (1300 µmol TE/g). Antioxidant capacity appears to correlate with the flavors of herbs identified within the formal TCM classification system and may be a useful guide in describing their utility and biochemical mechanism of action.

Keywords: flavor – function – herbs – nature – oxygen radical absorbance capacity (orac) – traditional Chinese medicine
Hui Liao, Linda K. Banbury and David N. Leach
Centre for Phytochemistry and Pharmacology, Southern Cross University, Lismore, NSW 2480, Australia and 2Shanxi Provincial People's Hospital, Taiyuan, Shanxi 030012, China
http://ecam.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/nem054v1#B2

Following the Mother Nature Dao (Tao)

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Five Yuns and Six Qis

Through observation, ancient Chinese learned that every thing in universe including the universe itself could be described by using five elements, which are called Mental, Water, Wood, Fire, and Earth. These five elements constitute the universe and they interact to each other. The relationships between these five elements form the Five Elements Theory. These five elements are also called five Yuns in the Constitution Theory of the Traditional Chinese Medicines (TCM). Yun in Chinese means changing, moving, and continuing.

Land is part of the universe. Besides constitutes by the five Yuns, the land is also influenced by six climates, which are called Tai Yin, Shao Yin, Jue Yin, Yang Ming, Tai Yang, and Shao Yang. These six climates are related to the temperature changes on the land due to the influence of the universe. These six climates are called six Qis in the Constitution Theory.

Since people live on the land, all the influences to the universe and the land are also affected to the people. From the philosophy of Five Yuns and Six Qis, the theory of Heaven Stems and Earth Branches has been developed to describe the health of people and to predict the future of people.

Read complete article at Steve Chang's Yong Kong Blog

reBlog from nyctcm.edu: Acupuncture Needle Techniques: Tonifing and Reducing CE

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NYCTCM presents the Continuing Education Course for Acupuncturists - Acupuncture Needle Techniques
Speaker: Grand Master Dr. Yongjiang Xi
When: 2:00 PM - 5:00 PM, Sun., 05/23/2010
(NCCAOM PDA Points: 3)

Dr. Xi will discuss needle quality and evaluation of acupuncture manipulations related to tonification and reduction, the relationships between strength of needle manipulation and tonification/reduction, differences between puncturing Qi points and puncturing muscle knots. He will also demonstrate needle techniques for some muscle-skeleton disorders, as well as needle techniques of hot-tonification/cold-reduction in both simple way and complicated ways. His son, Dr. Depei Xi will assist his teaching.nyctcm.edu, Acupuncture Needle Techniques: Tonifing and Reducing CE, Mar 2010

You should read the whole article.