Lingzhi slows progress of Alzheimer’s
CM NEWS - The legendary lingzhi mushroom has been shown to have another potential therapeutic function: to slow the progress of Alzheimer’s disease. Read more
UK pharm has high hope in new TCM dementia drug
CM NEWS - A group of Chinese scientists has finished pre-clinical research for its new anti-dementia drug, dubbed NJS, which is derived from traditional Chinese medicine substances. NJS has just become the first TCM drug that its patent licence is being sold to a UK pharmaceutical firm. Read more
Acupressure eases Alzheimer’s agitation
Reuters - The ancient practice of acupressure may be able to calm the aggressive behaviour that often results from dementia, a small study suggests.
One of the most common symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia is agitation. It’s expressed in any number of ways. Some people with dementia yell at or physically attack other people, while others habitually undress themselves or wander.
Agitation not only puts dementia patients at risk of injury, but also makes their overall care even more challenging.
In the new pilot study, Taiwanese researchers looked at whether acupressure could offer a relatively simple way to address the problem.
Long used in traditional Chinese medicine, acupressure is based on the same principles as acupuncture, but employs touch rather than needles. According to traditional theory, stimulating particular points on the skin helps balance the flow of energy, or “chi,” throughout the body.
With acupressure, practitioners use their fingers to stimulate these “acupoints,” making it a form of massage, said study co-author Dr Li-Chan Lin of National Yang-Ming University in Taipei.
Dr Lin’s team tested the technique among 31 dementia patients at one nursing home. For four weeks, each patient received a 15-minute acupressure treatment twice a day, five days a week.
As a comparison therapy, the researchers spent another four weeks visiting the patients each day for a 15-minute talk. Twenty of the 31 patients were able to complete the study.
Overall, Dr Lin’s team found, acupressure eased patients’ agitation far better than the talking approach. What’s more, the therapy seemed to calm patients’ behaviour immediately and reduce their episodes of aggression over the four-week treatment period.
This suggests that acupressure could be used to ease patients’ symptoms and also to prevent symptoms from occurring in the first place, the researchers said.
A recent research review found evidence that various forms of touch therapy, such as gentle massage, can calm dementia patients’ anxiety and agitation.
The authors speculated that it’s the simple act of human contact that might explain the benefit. For people whose ability to communicate has been taken away by dementia, physical touch may be the easiest or only way for them to connect with others.
With its more than 2000-year history in Chinese medicine, acupressure is a widely accepted form of touch therapy in Taiwan, Dr Lin said.
Because of its similarity to massage, the researcher added, acupressure might also be readily accepted as a dementia therapy in Western cultures as well.
acupunctureNew drugs awaiting discovery in Chinese herbs?
The first large-scale computer screenings of Chinese herbs — commonly used in traditional Chinese medicine — has revealed a wide variety of compounds with potential for use in treating HIV/AIDS, cancer, Alzheimer’s Disease, arthritis and other diseases, according to scientists in London.
In an article scheduled for the March 26 issue of the ACS’ Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling, a bi-monthly publication, David J. Barlow and colleagues note that such in silico research is becoming increasingly effective in identifying promising compounds that could be candidates for drug development. In silico (”in silicon”) means research done on computers or via computer simulation and has joined the in vivo and in vitro experiments traditionally used in the life sciences.
The researchers screened a database of chemical structures of Chinese herbal constituents from 240 species of plants for possible activity against various diseases. About 62% of the species were found to contain chemicals with characteristics required for activity against at least one disease and 53% against two or more diseases.
The study also describes corroborative evidence from the scientific literature that supported many of the computer predictions. In a companion article in the journal, the researchers describe the herbal databases.
ARTICLE #2
“Virtual Screening of Chinese Herbs with Random Forest”
“Phytochemical Databases of Chinese Herbal Constituents and Bioactive Plant Compounds with Known Target Specificities”
CONTACT:
David J. Barlow, Ph.D.
King’s College London
London, United Kingdom
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The American Chemical Society — the world’s largest scientific society — is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress and a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.
Contact: Michael Woods
American Chemical Society
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