{"id":112136,"date":"2009-12-29T16:59:15","date_gmt":"2009-12-29T21:59:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.blisstree.com\/?p=137328"},"modified":"2009-12-29T16:59:15","modified_gmt":"2009-12-29T21:59:15","slug":"acupuncture-for-breast-cancer-patients","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/112136","title":{"rendered":"Acupuncture for Breast Cancer Patients"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Not only has acupuncture been shown to be effective at reducing hot flashes in breast cancer patients, but it may also improve their sex drive and sense of well-being. Researchers at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.henryfordhealth.org\/\">Henry Ford Hospital<\/a> compared acupuncture with drug therapy for reducing hot flashes in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.blisstree.com\/articles\/health-bits-soy-benefits-exercise-intent\/\">breast cancer<\/a> patients.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-137360\" src=\"http:\/\/images1.blisstree.com\/files\/2009\/12\/acupuncture-treatment.jpg\" alt=\"acupuncture-treatment\" width=\"500\" height=\"270\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The study, published in the <em><a href=\"http:\/\/jco.ascopubs.org\/\">Journal of Oncology<\/a><\/em>, is the first randomly controlled trial to compare acupuncture and drug therapy for hot flash treatment.<\/p>\n<p>Many <a href=\"http:\/\/www.blisstree.com\/articles\/alcohol-tied-to-breast-cancer-recurrence\/\">breast cancer<\/a> patients receive chemotherapy and five years of hormone therapy. Side effects of the hormone therapy include <a href=\"http:\/\/www.blisstree.com\/articles\/tamoxifen-for-breast-cancer-prevention\/\">hot flashes<\/a> and night sweats. The drug often used to manage the effects of hormone therapy is venlafaxine, but that drug has its own side effects: dry mouth, decreased appetite, nausea and constipation.<\/p>\n<p>Researchers compared acupuncture and drug treatment with 50 patients from oncology clinics at Henry Ford Hospital. Obviously, a study involving <strong>acupuncture versus drugs<\/strong> can&#8217;t be blind, but patients were randomly assigned to receive either acupuncture or venlafaxine treatment for 12 weeks. While the group taking drugs received 37.5mg orally each night for the first week and then 75mg for the remaining 11 weeks, the acupuncture group received treatments twice each week for the first four weeks, then once each week for the last eight weeks.<\/p>\n<p>After 12 weeks, patients in both groups stopped therapy. They were followed for one year, and the patients kept a diary to track hot flash frequency and severity. They also completed surveys for mental and overall health.<\/p>\n<p>The study findings revealed that both groups experienced an initial 50% decline in hot flashes and depressive symptoms, showing that <strong>acupuncture is as effective as drug therapy<\/strong>. Yet, two weeks post-treatment, differences emerged.<\/p>\n<p>In the absence of treatment, the drug group experienced a significant increase in hot flashes while the acupuncture group still had minimal hot flashes. Patients who received acupuncture didn&#8217;t feel an increase in hot flashes until three months after acupuncture treatment had stopped.<\/p>\n<p>(Image via flickr\/<a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/thunderchild5\/343004057\/sizes\/l\/\">thunderchild<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p>Post from: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.blisstree.com\">Blisstree<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.blisstree.com\/articles\/acupuncture-for-breast-cancer-patients\/\">Acupuncture for Breast Cancer Patients<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Not only has acupuncture been shown to be effective at reducing hot flashes in breast cancer patients, but it may also improve their sex drive and sense of well-being. Researchers at Henry Ford Hospital compared acupuncture with drug therapy for reducing hot flashes in breast cancer patients. The study, published in the Journal of Oncology, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-112136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112136\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}