The British Acupuncture Council was formed twenty years ago in 1995. It resulted from the merger of five previously established registers, which were themselves all tied to an individual acupuncture college in this country. These organisations were the Register of Traditional Chinese Medicine, the Traditional Acupuncture Society (whose members gave me my first acupuncture treatments),… Continue reading →

New muscle cells can be produced from the stroma or from the parenchyma. Cells produced from the parenchyma provide perfect or near-perfect tissue reconstruction. However, stromal fibroblasts produce replacement tissue that will be scar/fibrous tissue (fibrosis), not specialised to perform the function of the surrounding parenchymal tissue with impairment resulting.

Therefore, the ability… Continue reading →

Postoperative nausea and vomiting (PONV) affects 30% of general surgery patients and can occur in rates of up to 80% in those patients classified as high-risk. It is the leading cause of failed discharge and readmission. It has been quoted by patients as a worse experience than postoperative pain¹. Preventing PONV has been… Continue reading →

Until quite recently, the very word would strike alarm with generations of people who had experienced relatives struck down by TB or ‘consumption’, as it was known. One only needs to look through the works of Thomas Hardy or Dickens to have some idea of how prevalent it was. The industrial revolution encouraged the spread… Continue reading →

One hundred and fifty years later, Florence Nightingale’s work still stands as a wonderful example for all healthcare workers, conventional and complementary, of empathy and professionalism. It’s great that we have such a well-remembered national hero.

Florence came from a liberal family, and her father had been active in the abolition movement. Nevertheless, when she… Continue reading →

“Compassion is a marvel of human nature, a precious inner resource, and the foundation of our well-being and the harmony of our societies.”

Dalai Lama

I was lucky enough to go to see the Dalia Lama at a large open-air event down in Hampshire earlier this week. It was the day after his appearance at… Continue reading →

In the human body, the skeleton has five main functions:

1. SUPPORT FRAMEWORK: it literally stops us from flopping to the ground, supporting and anchoring the soft organs. The legs support the trunk when we stand, and the rib cage supports the thoracic wall.

2. PROTECTION: of soft organs eg brain, spinal cord, and the thoracic organs.… Continue reading →

Each skeletal muscles is made up of hundreds of long cells called fibres. Each fibre is filled with tiny protein threads. There are two types – thick filaments called myosin and thin filaments called actin. They are both contractible proteins, capable of shortening.

These actin & myosin filaments are arranged lengthwise in units… Continue reading →

A guest post from Reiki master and teacher, Robin Sheldrake

Reiki

What is Reiki? Reiki is an oriental method of working with energy that you can use for your own benefit and for the benefit of other people. In its original Japanese form in the 1900s Reiki was very much about working on yourself: it… Continue reading →

There are three different types of muscle in the body. The cell composition of all muscle enables it to convert energy from chemical reactions into mechanical energy, which facilitates its major function of contraction. This contraction produces movement or force.

The three types of muscle in the body are:

1. Skeletal: voluntary muscle… Continue reading →