Episode 63: The Science of Acupuncture for Whole Body Health with Heidi Most, L.Ac

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Full Transcript:

Heidi Most:

Acupuncture, it helps the energy moves smoothly through body, mind, and spirit. So it definitely addresses psycho emotional, or spiritual issues. And that includes what we would call depression, anxiety. Even things like PTSD, spiritual crises, again, because acupuncture recognizes that the spirit is absolutely linked to the body. And so by placing a needle in an acupuncture point, we are not only affecting the body, we are affecting the mind and the spirit as well. And in an acupuncture treatment, again, it’s not only the needles, but the explanation of the philosophy, that’s part of the treatment. I’ll give you an example of somebody who has gone through a divorce and who is in tremendous pain from their divorce. In Chinese medicine, what we understand is a divorce is like having your heart ripped apart, right? That your heart was joined with your partner, and a divorce, rips the heart apart. And so there’s an actual, physical aspect to this pain that you’re feeling. And by explaining that to a patient, it’s like, you know, oh, yeah, that’s exactly what I’m feeling like my heart has been ripped apart. So is the philosophy, the needles, you know, everything is really is tremendously helpful.

Dr. Andrew Wong:

Acupuncture is an ancient practice that began over 3000 years ago in China. Today, it continues to be used as a vital healing modality, including at our clinic, where we are lucky to have two incredible acupuncturist. While we know its inherent value, how exactly does acupuncture work? What conditions Is it best for? And is there any research on its effectiveness? Today’s conversation with Professor Heidi Most: is all about how acupuncture works, and the current research on how it benefits a myriad of conditions. Heidi is an acupuncturist with more than 20 years of experience in the acupuncture field, including as a teacher at the university university level, as an acupuncture researcher and a private practitioner. She has a deep love and admiration for East Asian medicine, and how it can prove the medical system in United States and the health of all people worldwide. I am Dr. Andrew Huang, co founder of capital Integrative Health. This is a podcast dedicated to transforming consciousness around what it means to be healthy, and understanding the root causes of both disease and wellness. Please enjoy this insightful conversation with Heidi on the incredible research behind acupuncturist effectiveness and how acupuncture can benefit your healing journey. All right, we’d like to welcome Heidi Most: who has a doctorate of acupuncture from Maryland University of Integrative Health. Thank you so much, Heidi, for coming on today to our podcasts. And thank you for having so as you know, you’re an expert in research and acupuncture, you’re an practitioner yourself as well. First, Heidi, let’s talk about kind of what drew you to become an acupuncturist?

Heidi Most:

Well, it’s kind of a funny story. I had, really all my life been interested in eastern philosophy, and I read a lot about it in high school and in college. But I embarked on a career as an urban planner and worked in that career for 20 years, and eventually ended up at the American cities building in Columbia, Maryland. And while working there on the sixth floor, I noticed that everybody who got onto the elevator at the first floor looked very happy. And I wondered what is going on on the first floor. So I investigated and I found that there was an acupuncture school there. And I really knew nothing about acupuncture. They put out a magazine at that point at that time. And I started reading the magazine and I felt that that Whoever was writing the magazine had a lot of wisdom. And it really resonated with me. And my love of Eastern philosophy. So I explored it more. And I ended up quitting my job as an urban planner, and going to acupuncture school at the age of 40. Fives. So

Dr. Andrew Wong:

nice. And let’s talk about how you would describe how acupuncture works to someone who is new to that,

Heidi Most:

right. So my elevator speech is that very basically, acupuncture helps our energy flow more smoothly. When our energy doesn’t flow smoothly, pain or disease in the mind, body or spirit can result. Therefore, acupuncture can address many, many different conditions, just by helping our energy move more smoothly, where it’s supposed to go when it’s supposed to go.

Dr. Andrew Wong:

Are we talking about chi or is that that’s something else when when you’re talking about energy? Yes.

Heidi Most:

So she is one way to is a word that we use to describe energy in the body. Absolutely. Yeah.

Dr. Andrew Wong:

Well, let’s talk about a listener that maybe hasn’t, hasn’t had acupuncture before is kind of wondering, you know, where are they putting the needles, you know, things like that, what does it like to experience acupuncture.

Heidi Most:

So it’s different for each person. But basic acupuncture treatment uses very fine solid acupuncture needles. In specific acupuncture points in the body, these are not hypodermic needles that you would see in a western medical office are very, very fine needles. And when inserted, people may feel a pinch or a vibration, or maybe even slight pain, but it’s very momentary. Some people can actually feel the energy move in the body after the needle is put in and can even trace that energy along a specified meridian. It’s pretty miraculous actually, other people might not feel anything or or be able to trace the energy. So some people and and with some conditions will feel immediate relief after the acupuncture treatment. And for other people, it might take several treatments for them to feel some kind of difference. It’s something is happening.

Dr. Andrew Wong:

Now, acupuncture needles from my understanding, used to be kind of reused after after being cleaned, you know, decades ago, but now nowadays, we use sterile single use needles, correct? Yeah, absolutely. Right. Yes. And for those watching on YouTube, I got the some needles here, just a little show and tell. But, yes. Any any thoughts about that? I know, some people are wondering about needles, because, you know, people have different things that pop up in their brain when they when they hear the word needle. Right.

Heidi Most:

Right. Right. So all acupuncturists in the United States are licensed and we have to abide by certain rules and regulations. One of them is that we must use sterile single use needles, and we must use clean needle technique, which means that our whole procedure is done very carefully under very clean and antiseptic conditions. So, yes,

Dr. Andrew Wong:

yes, I think that’s, that’s great. Thank you. And let’s talk about the history for a sec. So how long has acupuncture been around? I know, I’ve seen some cartoons with like, someone you know, these like funny cartoons of people putting needles in woolly mammoths and stuff, but just

Heidi Most:

Yes, I like those cartoons. I think humor is a wonderful form of medicine. Yes. But in terms of the history of acupuncture, you know, whole books have been written on this, but I can summarize it in a few sentences. It developed approximately 3000 years ago in China, and the practices were eventually We’ve written down in one of our first classics called the yellow Emperor’s classic of Internal Medicine and Chinese, it’s called the one dean aging. And so that really codified this practice that had been going on for a couple of 1000 years before that, that book was written approximately 100 BC. And that book codified the energy pathways called meridians in the body, and points along these meridians that could be used to affect the energy in the body. And it talked about the basic physiology of Chinese medicine, as well as the basic philosophy of this medicine, which is really that body, mind and spirit are linked, and one will affect the health of the other. And that as human beings, we are linked to our environment, and to the universe, really, so that we are all connected. And we are all interconnected. So that philosophy is really important in the art of this medicine.

Dr. Andrew Wong:

Yeah, so it’s so beautiful. And I think sometimes in the West, we lose sight of the fact that we’re connected and interconnected. And this idea of acupuncture, traditional Chinese medicine, kind of teaching or re teaching us that we are connected, and you know, our bodies are, you know, our, our body has connections even within itself, you know, through these meridians, let’s say, I think that one thing when I was doing some training and medical acupuncture anyway was how this idea of you can actually affect different parts of the body that are distant from the acupuncture points, you know, through through those, you know, activation that meridians, for instance, something like large intestine for which is on the hand for say headache or pain or something, right? It’s sort of like, how would that affect the the head but it does, you know, somehow affects it. So, kind of want to get into a little bit now. Just Just before we get into, like research, which I think is the main point here to kind of discuss with people, but I’m talking about pulse reading, because I think people might have a question about how, you know, in the in the West, of course, there’s sort of like, it’s usually just a mono mono pulse. It’s just like, did someone have a pulse? Or not, you know, or like, how fast is the pulse? You know, things like that? Or is it irregular, irregular or regular or irregular? How does pulse reading work and traditional Chinese medicine? How would you use it as an acupuncturist?

Heidi Most:

Right? Well, first, I want to step back and say that post reading is part of the four inspections in Chinese medicine. So the four inspections are our diagnostic tools. And they include seeing or looking at the patient, and that might include looking at their posture, how they present themselves, how they move, and especially looking at their tongue. So that’s all part of looking at their skin, you know, looking at the general condition of their body. So looking is the first of the four inspections, then smelling and hearing. So listening to the sound of the patient, and actually discerning body odors, that’s also part of the foreign inspections. The third is asking, So asking questions of the patient, and the fourth is palpation. So palpating, the body palpating, the meridians palpating the organs as well as palpating or feeling the pulses. So the foreign inspections are our diet agnostic tools. We don’t rely on fMRI ‘s or X ray machines or blood tests or really expensive tests. We use our own senses to discern information from the patient. Have specifically well many people say that tongue diagnosis and post diagnosis are too have the most important parts of the four inspections, and they have been developed to a really high art. So specifically with pulses, there are six pulse positions on each wrist 12, and all. And those 12 relate to what we call the 12. Officials, or the 12 organs in the body. Slightly different, but related to the Western named organs. And by reading the pulses, and as you said, not just the rate of the pulses, but the shape of the pulses, are they thin? Or are they wiry? Or are they strongly pulsating? Are they wide? Are they narrow? Where do you feel them on the wrist? How fast are they how slow that’s rate. But all of these things allow us to discern not only the health of the chi and the body, but the health of the other substances in the body, which include blood and body fluids, and the health of the organs themselves. So putting this information together, then all of the information from the foreign inspections allows me as an acupuncturist to diagnose my patient, and to come up with a treatment strategy. And then a treatment plan for that treatment. So and I’ll just add that this process is undertaken at the beginning of every visit. Because we as people are not static, we change. And we change in all kinds of ways in relationship to our environment, in relationship to what we eat, and how that affects our our bodies. So what we’re constantly changing, and therefore an acupuncturist will do go through this process at the beginning of every treatment in order to discern where are you at now, and what treatment will help you the most.

Dr. Andrew Wong:

I want to repeat that point, I think it’s so important that people are not static, that their dynamic energy is changing into the the flow of the chi or energy is kind of kind of moving through the body and changing at different points. I know even for me just personally, when I see my acupuncturist and you know, mid treatment, he might check the pulse and it might change and then he might, he might sort of midstream, you know, change what points he’ll take and stuff like that. Is that is that kind of a common thing there?

Heidi Most:

Absolutely. Thank you for saying that, that we don’t just take the pulses at the beginning, we can take them in the middle of treatment to see what the result, you know, of our needling is and then we always take them at the end to determine did my treatments help?

Dr. Andrew Wong:

So let’s talk about some some research now. Because I know a lot of people have heard of acupuncture, the maybe even even tried it a bunch of times. But what are some of the primary conditions that that you found clinically that acupuncture is helpful for? And maybe you can kind of get into introduce us to a little bit about acupuncture research as well.

Heidi Most:

Right. So there’s a huge body of acupuncture research, let me just say that we’re very lucky as a complementary medicine, because we’re probably one of the best researched of all the complementary medicine modalities. That research started it in the, you know, really, very early history of acupuncture through case studies that were written, you know, in 300 400 BC, AD. So, case histories were our first research on acupuncture. Clinically I have seen acupuncture help with an absolutely huge variety of conditions. So I’ll talk about it more from a research perspective. There is very strong evidence for the light 12 conditions which include allergic rhinitis, soy allergies, stuffy nose, stuffy face, stuffy sinuses, chemo induced nausea and vomiting, chronic low back pain, headache, which can be either tension type or chronic headaches, knee osteoarthritis, migraine prevention, post operative nausea and vomiting, and post operative pain. And that comes from the acupuncture evidence project, which reviewed acupuncture for over 14 clinical areas, they found evidence for 117 conditions. And the conditions I listed are just the ones that have the strongest evidence. But, you know, as I said, acupuncture can be used for just about any sign and symptom because it has to do with balancing energy. So, yeah, it doesn’t work on every one for every thing. But it can be very helpful in a huge number of conditions. Yeah, I

Dr. Andrew Wong:

must think in terms of at least just to distill it down, you know, more conventional medicine is about, you know, doing something externally to the body in a way, and a lot of integrative modalities, which I would say acupuncture would be in that category helped to, you know, the body to kind of balance itself. Would that be an accurate statement?

Heidi Most:

Yes, that’s a very accurate statement. Yeah. Yeah. We often talk about the patient practitioner relationship as being very important. And of course, it’s true in any encounter with a patient and a doctor that the relationship is so important. And, you know, that has been shown in western medicine as well, that how the patient and the practitioner relate to each other absolutely affects the outcome of the treatment. And you can call that placebo effect if you want. But whatever it is, you want to promote healing for the patient in whatever way you can. And developing a relationship is certainly part of that process

Dr. Andrew Wong:

that’s so important that that energy flow right between the practitioner and patient is part of what what were the healing, you know, happens enough. All that? Yeah.

Heidi Most:

I just have to mention that there’s some fabulous research done by Vitaly, Nappa Tao you using fMRI machines, and they actually put a patient in one FMRI machine and a practitioner in the other FMRI machine, and they knew each other hand, and you can see through their brain activity, how the patient was impacted by the practitioner, really fun.

Dr. Andrew Wong:

That’s cool. I have them for people and their dogs, too, don’t they? I think they have, they might have something like that. They could I don’t know. I want to talk about some of the conditions we see, you know, very commonly besides the the more evident ones that that have a lot of research behind them. We see a lot of people with with gut issues, say let’s say April bowel syndrome or something or bloating, can acupuncture be helpful for gut issues?

Heidi Most:

Oh, yes, absolutely. But I want to say first of all, in the United States, acupuncturist cannot treat Western diseases. So I cannot hang out a shingle you know, or advertise that I treat irritable bowel syndrome, okay. So acupuncture is cannot treat Western diseases, however, we can treat the signs and symptoms that patients suffer from. So, if somebody comes to us and says, you know, I’ve got a lot of pain in my stomach and my God, I’ve got alternating diarrhea and constipation. I have a tremendous amount of gas. I can’t eat certain foods. We that can be a number of what we call patterns in Chinese medicine. So disharmony is in the organs are the substances and by going through our foreign inspections, we will determine what pattern it is and treat Are those signs and symptoms?

Dr. Andrew Wong:

That’s a really good point. Let’s let’s actually kind of drill down on that a bit Heidi. So it sounds like similar to functional medicine, there’s a root cause of root disharmony to various pathologies. So something we might label, you know, in western medicine as IBS, it might actually be a variety of different, you know, overactive energy or chi or deficient or different areas, right. It sounds like, Oh, God, yeah. Okay.

Heidi Most:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, as I said, She is part of is one of the five substances in the body. So, there’s gene, which is our essence, kind of what we grew from body fluids, which helped moisten the body blood, which is similar to our Western conception of blood, but blood also contains the spirit. So it’s a little different chi, and then Shan, which is our spirit. And so and as I said, the 12 organs. So when we die, and the 12, meridians or channels, so when we diagnose a condition like, you know, alternating diarrhea and constipation and pain in the gut, we are diagnosing something like this heart, while some kind of disharmony in the substances in New York and send in the channels,

Dr. Andrew Wong:

not just to give some perspective and in China and elsewhere, is it is it true that that an acupuncturist, who are a TCM doctor say in China will be able to treat quote unquote, pathology? Right. I mean, it’s is it more of a legal thing in the US? Yeah. Okay. It

Heidi Most:

is more of a legal thing. Yeah. Okay. Okay.

Dr. Andrew Wong:

Got it. Got it. Yeah. And what about how would you describe some of the mental health conditions we’re seeing a lot more, right now, during this pandemic here, like things like anxiety or depression, or just like, oh, you know, overabundance of stress? How does acupuncture fit in? How can acupuncture help those type of, you know, disharmonies,

Heidi Most:

right. Acupuncture, because it helps. It helps the energy moves smoothly through body, mind, and spirit. So it definitely addresses psycho emotional, or spiritual issues. And that includes what we would call depression, anxiety. Even things like PTSD, spiritual crises, even because acupuncture recognizes that the spirit is absolutely linked to the body. And so by placing a needle in an acupuncture point, we are not only affecting the body, we are affecting the mind and the spirit as well. And in an acupuncture treatment, again, it’s not only the needles, but the, the explanation of the philosophy, that’s part of the treatment. I’ll give you an example. Somebody who has gone through a divorce and who is in tremendous pain, from the divorce. In Chinese medicine, what we understand is a divorce is like having your heart ripped apart, right? That your heart was joined with your partner, and a divorce, rips the heart apart. And so there’s an actual, physical aspect to this pain that you’re feeling. And by explaining that to a patient, it’s like, you know, oh, yeah, that’s exactly what I’m feeling like, my heart has been ripped apart. So is the philosophy, the needles, you know, everything is? It really is tremendously helpful in treating

Dr. Andrew Wong:

Yeah, so it’s physical, but sounds like also mental, emotional, spiritual, like even the Shan and everything gets affected by something traumatic like that. It’s all

Heidi Most:

connected. Yeah. You know,

Dr. Andrew Wong:

so I do have we do have two rabbit pandemic pets at home. So I like to go down these rabbit holes. If you don’t mind. Thought about this while you’re talking about PTSD. Do you ever find or do you ever you know, see people use kind of some of those dragon As treatments for PTSD, I think the internal and external dragons, right? That’s right, right.

Heidi Most:

So the internal and external dragons are specifically a treatment under the worthley Jr Worsley five element tradition, they are not part of TCM or other traditions. So we talk about the dragon treatments. And as part of JR Worsley five element treatments, but there are similar treatments in other schools of thought and acupuncture. So there are something called the ghosts treatments, from sunset meow, who lived in 700 ad, all of these types of treatments recognize that sometimes as individuals we can become possessed. And then it can be as simple as being possessed by by an idea, even that’s a form of possession. But also a recognition that some traumatic thing can happen and take over our spirit, you know, like a traumatic event of any type, either in war, or, you know, a traumatic childhood event can happen and take over our spirit. And there are techniques in acupuncture that are used to help release that trauma from the body.

Dr. Andrew Wong:

Yes, and I believe one of our guests, Dr. French was talking about how, how 60, it’s estimated that about 60% of us have experienced one or more ACEs, adverse childhood events. So certainly very common. Let’s talk about the kids and I think different populations, is acupuncture safe for kids? Is it safe for pregnant women? Are there any sort of limitations, you know, when acupuncture shouldn’t be used things like that,

Heidi Most:

right? Acupuncture is really generally safe and effective. For pregnant women, I would recommend seeing a practitioner who is experienced working with pregnant with pregnancy, because there are some points that are actually thought to induce uterine contractions. And we don’t want that to happen prematurely. You can’t you certainly can receive acupuncture during pregnancy. For people who have bleeding disorders who were on blood thinners to acupuncture may mean that there you would be a little slightly more prone to more bleeding or bruising. But even in those cases, it’s very slight. So I wouldn’t really say that that’s a contraindication. If you have a pacemaker, you should not receive electro acupuncture, which is when you put a little electrical pulse on the needle. And so, you know, acupuncture is generally considered very safe with very few side effects, which means that you really should consider acupuncture before you consider surgery or other types of interventions that may have a lot of side effects. So

Dr. Andrew Wong:

yes, that makes a lot of sense, trying to go towards the things that that are, you know, safer with not as many side effects, you know, first and then if needed go to go to something, something else later. Certainly there’s a role for surgery, but it would be, you know, down the line, probably not first line for most conditions, I would say. We’re probably not going to rush everyone to the hour and the first first line, hopefully. So also, so you’re brought good point about about how it’s safe for everyone. What about people that are trying to get pregnant, you know, they might have infertility and things like that, or, you know, maybe we wouldn’t call it a medical diagnosis, but basically just interested in fertility. Is there any research on acupuncture to improve fertility and kind of boost those chances? Yeah.

Heidi Most:

So actually, this gets into some of the drawbacks of research. So the, the research on fertility with acupuncture kind of is fraught, because there was a protocol developed early yawn. And it was shown to be a helpful one in this one study. And then it was replicated and not shown to be particularly helpful. But then as shown to be effective once everybody started using this protocol, and it really is not a very effective protocol, but because it had evidence people were using it. So this is an area where I would say, there are problems in the research. But certainly, what acupuncture does do is, first of all, help somebody feel much more relaxed and less anxious about the whole process, which can help in fertility, it can help build the substances of the body, especially blood, which is very important in in conceiving. So there are, there are certainly strong case studies on acupuncture, helping infertility. And I have had the experience of assisting patients who have wanted to get pregnant and have had very positive results.

Dr. Andrew Wong:

Yes, I’ve also found that to be the case, when people are going to acupuncture, they often have their fertility, you know, improved or, you know, they end up delivering a healthy child and everything. So that’s so great.

Heidi Most:

I just want it Yeah, the the protocol that I was referring to specifically was for the use with IVF.

Dr. Andrew Wong:

IVF. Okay, got it. Yeah, yeah. So in terms of, let’s say, you know, someone’s laying on the table, they’ve done their the four types of analyses, and they’re about to get acupuncture, how long is the acupuncture treatment? Normally? And how often do people need to go back to see results? You know, how, what’s the duration that people would recommend? And I know, it’s kind of a loaded question. So

Heidi Most:

I depends on the condition. So acute conditions, say, if I have a sprain, or I pulled my back out to or, or I have a cold, that’s an acute condition and came on quickly, doesn’t have a history. Generally, acupuncture is done more frequently in those cases. So you know, if you can see a patient once a day for three, three days, and kind of knock it out of the body. So that would be for an acute condition more frequently. More frequent treatments. And generally, an acupuncture session lasts about an hour. It could be shorter, if you’re doing like three treatments in a row, in a row. For more acute conditions, it’s generally once a week, and generally we say about six weeks. And what I tell my patients is, at the end of six weeks, we will review your progress together. And it’s up to you to see if you are satisfied you the patient to see if you’re satisfied with treatment. So by the end of six weeks, we will come to a decision about do we continue this? Do we start stretching out the treatments, perhaps, you know, it’s a decision that is made between the patient and that practitioner,

Dr. Andrew Wong:

I love how how acupuncture as a holistic modality puts the patient at the center of their care, right? They’re really the CEO of their own health. And we’re partnering with them as clinicians, but I really love that about about acupuncture. And yeah, so I think we’ve kind of provided a broad overview here, and you’ve done it, thank you so much for kind of talking about the research about, you know, acupuncture in general. You know, it’s definitely something where I think a lot more people are, you know, trying acupuncture, I think it is one of the most widely used modalities here in terms of complementary medicine or integrative health, that that, you know, certainly we see in our clinic, but I think statistically to I think the NCH has some statistics on acupuncture is definitely one of the most widely used treatments. How does acupuncture fit in with say, like moxibustion or herbs or other parts of TCM like, can you just give give us an overview of some of your

Heidi Most:

Yeah, Acupuncture is really only one part of what we’re now calling East Asian medicine. So, acupuncture itself has different techniques. I’ve mentioned electro acupuncture, we might use an herb on the skin to warm the point that’s called moxibustion. We can use something called wash Shah, where it’s a kind of miss, massage, but a way of bodywork to help release stagnation. So there are many different techniques that we can use within acupuncture itself. But East Asian medicine includes much more than acupuncture. It includes herbal medicine, or it can include herbal medicine always includes dietary advice. Chinese dietary therapy is very specific and can treat the same patterns that we diagnose. We use acupuncture to treat those patterns and dietary therapy. And also, Chinese massage called twee Na is part of East Asian medicine and movement therapy. So things like tai chi or Qi Gong, which are meditative movement practices. So actually all of that is part of an acupuncture treatment. When somebody comes to see me, I will do acupuncture, I’ll use several different techniques. I’ll give dietary advice. I might prescribe herbs. I will often prescribe specific movement movements that are part of Qigong that they can do at home to help move their energy. I’m not trained in tweener, so I don’t do tweener. But I do other forms of physical body work.

Dr. Andrew Wong:

That’s awesome. I love how you kind of really laid out beautifully there how acupuncture is part of that tree of East Asian medicine and it’s a lot there’s a big you know, all these roots and all these branches and everything and it’s it’s definitely something where we should ask you about nutrition a little like, I don’t know if you want to get into general generalities here, but we do have a lot of nutritionists are here right at ch that are chained via Mun, ah, what kind of nutrition do you typically recommend, as the East Asian medicine practitioner just just kind of give us maybe one or two basic concepts of, of nutrition from you know your perspective. It’s very

Heidi Most:

hard for me to boil it down to what

Dr. Andrew Wong:

I just did a cocktail and a little herbal tea. Yes, please. Thank you.

Heidi Most:

In addition to teaching research, I also teach our Chinese nutrition course.

Dr. Andrew Wong:

Okay, well, there you go. You have some you have some credentials for this. Yeah,

Heidi Most:

um, what else say Chinese nutrition is different from Western nutrition. So your nutritionists have been trained in western nutrition. When I talk about Chinese nutrition therapy, first of all, it includes all of the basic advice that your that any nutritionist will give to any patient which is eat whole foods don’t over eat, reduce your intake of refined sugar. I think I said don’t over eat but you know your basic

Dr. Andrew Wong:

good so you’re saying buffets with a lot of carbs are not a good thing.

Heidi Most:

That’s very general advice, but very specifically, Chinese nutritional therapy actually developed even before herbal medicine and one of our great Chinese one of our ancestors in Chinese medicine sons, Samia Tao, who lived in 700 ad said treat the body first with food. Only after that you move on to noodles you all you know and and of course we now understand that proper nutrition is preventive medicine, you know we eat properly, we really reduce our chances of getting sick. So Chinese nutritional therapy though is based not on macro and micro nutrients. It’s based on the side tastes that are in food, it’s based on the temperature, how the food makes you feel in terms of temperature, does it heat you up or cool you down, it’s based on how the food makes your energy move in the body, and how each particular food has an affinity for a particular organ. So it’s a whole art and it and you ih we are at the all the acupuncturist are trained in Chinese dietary therapy,

Dr. Andrew Wong:

that’s great to know, I might have to check crack a joke here, it might be that food might be epigenetically needling our DNA to say that, and yeah, so we have the food, we have the acupuncture. And I think, you know, I think we can kind of just say that overall, acupuncture has been found to be safe and effective, like you said, for a wide variety of research conditions, but also these case studies and these kind of complex cases that may not fit in in a neat, you know, nice, neat tidy box, right? It’s kind of like we have to look at this in a more complex and more nuanced way and I think acupuncture can really play a great role there as well. One last thing I want to talk about your acupuncture because I know that there’s some people that are just like I don’t want to needles on my body but you know, maybe I am okay with your regular acupuncture. What is the role for say auricular acupuncture and maybe if you want to talk about the the the NADA protocol a little bit too? Yeah,

Heidi Most:

sure. So I’m actually a year acupuncture or auricular acupuncture is only one of the micro systems in the body so when East Asian medicine, they you can treat the entire body through just treating points on the year. So your body through points on the hands and points on the feet, you can treat the entire body through the on the scale.

Dr. Andrew Wong:

Why is that? What’s the what’s the kind of reasoning behind that?

Heidi Most:

Because the meridians travel in this circular fashion throughout our whole body reach every core muscle in our body. And the these micro systems ears hands feet scalp, it has been found that points on these places because of the meridians and how they travel really can affect all parts of the body.

Dr. Andrew Wong:

Yeah, yeah, that’s, that’s amazing.

Heidi Most:

So me Yeah. So is the the year in particular, very interesting kind of history on auricular acupuncture, it was discovered accidentally, through by a Hong Kong surgeon when he was doing surgery for an entirely different condition and using I might be getting this slightly wrong but but using acupuncture. As anesthesia, he discovered that the patient was cured of his addiction is drug addiction. And so that developed into the NADA protocol, which is the it’s called stands for the National Association detoxification, national acupuncture detoxification Association. And it is a protocol of using five points on the year to help in addiction, withdrawal of drugs or alcohol. Then, and the wonderful thing about this, it can be done in a group setting. It can be done by trained nada protocol practitioners doesn’t so it’s less expensive. So the NADA protocol is an extremely wonderful protocol that can be used in net and it can help it actually helps for many other things besides addiction. Those similar same points are very similar are used in something called battlefield acupuncture, which is used by our armed services to help soldiers in the field and of course, in the fact of the VA hospitals also use battlefield acupuncture. You know, and this helps with pain that can come from injury from battle and surgeries subsequent to injuries. So battlefield acupuncture is an Another very useful protocol.

Dr. Andrew Wong:

Thank you so much Heidi again. So, so great. This is such a great overview here of acupuncture and all the different kind of wonderful areas that you know, we can kind of branch out and kind of, you know, people can really see see results and kind of get some movement of their energy here. What is one thing you wish everyone knew everyone listening here knew about acupuncture.

Heidi Most:

safe and effective treats many, many conditions of body, mind and spirit, and you should consider it for really, anything that you are feeling is not going well for you and body, mind and spirit. And it can also be a wonderful way of maintaining health.

Dr. Andrew Wong:

Yeah, thanks. Is there a is there a website or websites plural where you can find someone who’s credentialed and how do you find acupuncturist?

Heidi Most:

So the NCCA lm.org is our national organization that does certification. So, all the acupuncturists that you will find on that website are board certified, nationally board certified. Okay. And we’ll also just mention that MUFG h.edu, if you click on Find a practitioner, you can go to our students clinic, and fight and receive really, really excellent acupuncture services from our highly trained and well supervise students.

Dr. Andrew Wong:

We love you ah, M eh, acupuncturists are amazing. And I think also, like you said, everyone I’ve met from the MOH has a smile on their face, so it must be doing something right. Thank you so much, Heidi, for coming on today. We really appreciate it. And thank you so much. We’ll talk soon.

Heidi Most:

Okay, my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.

Dr. Andrew Wong:

Thank you for taking the time to listen to us today. If you enjoyed this conversation, please take a moment to leave us a review. It helps our podcasts to reach more listeners. Don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss our next episodes and conversations. And thank you so much again for being with us.