The cause of polycystic ovary syndrome or PCOS has not yet been agreed upon by scientists. And now there is another possible scenario of pathogenesis, which looks very viable.
Apart from the well-known insulin resistance and hormone imbalance, there is one more process happening in the PCOS women’s bodies. The name of it is high sympathetic nerve activity, which, studies show, is present with PCOS patients.
Sympathetic nervous system innervates and regulates almost all of the internal organs, including hormone glands. It also innervates ovaries.
The interesting bit is that scientists believe, that sympathetic hyperactivity could develop before the hormone imbalance, and therefore be the root cause of PCOS.
The reason this is on my blog is that acupuncture has been researched to normalise the sympathetic nervous system. It can restore regular ovulation especially in patients with less androgenic hormonal profile and a less pronounced metabolic disturbance.
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Listen to Scientific American posdcast on the subject:
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I have stumbled upon an article on the mechanism of acupuncture in the latest issue of journal of Nature.
A team of scientist from University of Rochester, New York found acupuncture triggered an increase in neurotransmitter adenosine an incredible 24-fold at the punctured area. The study is important, because it explains one of the mechanisms how acupuncture works.
More details in Nature Neuroscience.
Update: there was a substantial media coverage of this study including scientific journals like Scientific American and mainstream media including New Zealand Herald. I’ve inserted a scanned image of the story in NZ Herald forwarded to me by one of my colleagues.
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What you see on the photo on the left IS acupuncture meridian. Korean scientists discovered a way to make pictures of acupuncture meridians to help visualise them.
What is Acupuncture meridian?
If you have read anything about acupuncture you would have heard about acupuncture meridians. Acupuncture meridians are the lines which connect the acupuncture points with each other as well as with internal organs. Physiologically these are the lines that the acupuncture sensation travels when acupuncture points are stimulated.
How did scientists make a photo of an acupuncture meridian?
Korean researchers found a way to reveal the anatomy of these meridians and to visualise them in this breakthrough study. They used fluorescent magnetic nanoparticles to detect a tissue which was not detectable using stereomicroscopes.
Reference: Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. 2007 March; 4(1): 77–82
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This study examines the effects of acupuncture in treatment of obesity.
This is mostly interesting to qualified acupuncturists, medical professionals and erudiths that are interested in the science behind acupuncture.
Cabyoglu MT, et al. Department of Physiology, Selcuk University, Faculty of Meram Medical, Konya, Turkey. tugcab@yahoo.com
The present study is an investigation of the results of the studies on the effects of acupuncture application therapy on obesity. It has been reported that acupuncture application in obesity treatment is effective in procuring weight loss. It can affect appetite, intestinal motility, and metabolism, as well as emotional factors such as stress. Increases in neural activity in the ventromedial nuclei of the hypothalamus, in tone in the smooth muscle of the stomach and in levels of enkephalin, beta endorphin, and serotonin in plasma and brain tissue have also been observed with the application of acupuncture. It has been observed that acupuncture application to obese people increases excitability of the satiety center in the ventromedial nuclei of the hypothalamus. Acupuncture stimulates the auricular branch of the vagal nerve and raises serotonin levels. Both of these activities have been shown to increase tone in the smooth muscle of the stomach, thus suppressing appetite. Among other things, serotonin enhances intestinal motility. It also controls stress and depression via endorphin and dopamine production. In addition to these effects, it is thought that the increase in plasma levels of beta endorphin after acupuncture application can contribute to the body weight loss in obese people by mobilizing the body energy depots through lipolithic effect.
Int J Neurosci. 2006 Feb;116(2):165-75.
Source: PubMed
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