Study looks at the exact mechanisms of acupuncture in reducing cognitive impairment among Alzheimer’s patients

( Natural News ) Acupuncture is one of the most commonly recommended alternative therapies for patients who are suffering from mild cognitive impairment (MCI) or Alzheimer’s disease. However, the exact means by which this traditional Chinese medicine improves the brain activity has remained obscure. So researchers took great pains to map out the areas of the brain of a patient that were activated by the Siguan (four gate) acupuncture treatment . There has been a great wealth of research regarding the neuronal pathways used by acupuncture. However, most studies used healthy individuals instead of people with Alzheimer’s or impaired cognition. Furthermore, these studies restricted themselves to stimulating just one acupuncture point at a time. This went against actual clinical use of acupuncture, where multiple points need to be stimulated. A research team from the Capital Medical University (CMU) chose to amend these shortcomings in the scientific literature with their new study. They applied multi-point Siguan acupuncture treatment to patients with Alzheimer’s disease and MCI, and then mapped out the resulting changes in brain activity. Afterwards, they compared the differences between the brain activity of Alzheimer’s patients and that of patients with mild cognitive impairment. Furthermore, they also came up with visual evidence of the neuronal specificity of true clinical acupuncture. (Related: Acupuncture improves cognitive function of Alzheimer’s patients .) Mapping the brain areas activated by multi-point acupuncture treatment For their experiment, the CMU researchers gathered 49 participants. Fourteen healthy individuals served as the controls of the study. The rest were made up of 21 patients with Alzheimer’s disease and 14 patients with minor cognitive impairment. Mother Nature’s micronutrient secret : Organic Broccoli Sprout Capsules now available, delivering 280mg of high-density nutrition, including the extraordinary "sulforaphane" and "glucosinolate" nutrients found only in cruciferous healing foods. Every lot laboratory tested. See […]

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