camclub News - May 2014
Nationwide Massage Teachathon 12 – 16th May 2014
National Massage Day – 16th May 2014
The Alternative - meet the people at the cutting edge of complementary health
Diet drinks associated with increased heart disease in women
Mums don’t trust food and drink firms says Organix boss
Professor Rupert Hangretinger lectures earlier last month at the Biobran International Workshop 2014
Five-a-day should stay
DEFRA green-lights GM plant trial
Nationwide Massage Teachathon 12 – 16th May 2014
Gill Tree is the founder of Essentials for Health the UK’s leading massage school, a respected thought leader in the massage industry and the author of the Manifesto for a Pro-Touch Society. Gill has launched a major initiative to boost the massage industry in the UK and encourage the UK to become a more Pro-Touch Society.
During the week of 12th to 16th May Gill’s team will be running a Nationwide Massage Teachathon roadshow in five cities.
Edinburgh 12th May
Bristol 13th May
Manchester 14th May
Loughborough 15th May
London 16th May
The aim is to make the public aware of the importance of positive touch in our society. The Massage Teachathon is aimed at supporting our carers. People who give their time daily to care for someone else, maybe a disabled child, a terminally ill parent, or just someone they feel needs their help. Gill’s team are working with the regional Carer Associations to offer them an opportunity to learn effective massage techniques.
Simple massage learnt by Carers can raise the quality of life for both giver and receiver and provide a medium for connecting in what can otherwise often be a demanding task.
“After dad had his stroke, massage was a wonderful way to connect with him. It helped him to feel human and accepted whilst living in an alien body and I was able to ease out the tension and strictures that stroke imposes” - Gill Tree
Carers from these cities are invited to come to both give and receive some simple effective massage techniques given in a chair and over clothes under the professional tuition of the Essentials for Health Team and volunteer assistants.
Gill has written the Pro-Touch Society Manifesto and conducted research into benefits of encouraging appropriate touch for individuals and society as a whole.
For more information
Liz Harwood
EHC
07775 683832
National Massage Day – 16th May 2014
Gill Tree is the founder of Essentials for Health the UK’s leading massage school, a respected thought leader in the massage industry and the author of the Manifesto for a Pro-Touch Society. Gill has launched a major initiative to boost the massage industry in the UK and encourage the UK to become a more Pro-Touch Society.
National Massage Day is aimed at helping our society understand the positive effects of touch and massage. Touch is instinctive and natural. It is part of human nature and yet we as a society remain inhibited. We also perceive massage as a luxury rather than a necessary treatment for a healthy lifestyle.
So what are the likely consequences if on a national scale our institutions advise against it? With media impressing on us almost daily the negative effect of inappropriate touch we are failing to recognise the negative effects of not touching.
Gill Tree is founder of the UK’s leading massage school Essentials for Health, and this year launched her Manifesto for a Pro-Touch Society. The stories of inappropriate touch in the media are prevalent and the manifesto aims to create an awareness that not all touch is inappropriate and to redress the balance in healing establishments, schools and workplaces.
On National Massage Day, Friday 16 May 2014 at 1500 hours, Westminster Bridge, London, Gill Tree is inviting the public to form a conga line of people from St Thomas’ Hospital to The Houses of Parliament to bring awareness that touch is not something to be feared, not a luxury but a necessary part of preventative health care.
For those living outside London, Gill and her team would be delighted if you organise your own conga event.
Contact [email protected] to let them know your plans so they can help you promote them.
For further information about Gill’s manifesto for a Pro-Touch Society and how you can get involved just visit the official National Massage Day website.
For more information
Liz Harwood
EHC
07775 683832
The Alternative
Meet the people at the cutting edge of complementary health
A visit to a so-called Qi Master may sound a rather esoteric enterprise, to say the least But the people who file through the doors of Master Oh come with a range of far from esoteric complaints, from back pain to depression, by way of every condition you can think of. Often they are desperate, at the end of the road. ”In Western terms ‘qi’ means vital energy;’ says the 49-year-old Master Oh, who came to Britain from Korea 12 years ’People develop problems because their energy system isn’t working. I make energy circulate freely’ ago. “In my patients I see three different qi problems - a shortage, a blockage and an imbalance. You are born with a certain level of qi. It is like your car battery. And when this energy becomes low, it creates problems, physical and emotional. I recharge people’s battery:’ Qi (or chi) lies at the heart of Chinese medicine. Master Oh works within the Korean branch, and undertook a rigorous training - involving sleep and food deprivation – in order to learn how to “channel energy from the universe”. “I use and share vital energy, very clear light, to release toxins, stress, blockages:’ In practical terms his work takes the form of the world’s oddest massage. Master Oh manipulates your body, releasing your toxins through his own body in what can only be described as burps, then draws qi into your body with loud sucking noises. All rather baffling. Until you realise how transformed you feel; how long-standing issues, physical and emotional, have dematerialised. “People develop problems because their energy system isn’t working properly. I let the energy circulate freely so the body gets what it needs, so mind and body become one:’
What Is it?
Qi, according to Chinese medicine, is vital energy or life force, the animating force of every living thing. ‘We have 12 energy express ways in our body. If they are working you are basically OK.’ In fact our qi - given to us at conception - is often lessened or blocked by patterns inherited from our parents, then further depleted over the years by the challenges of life, and through physical or emotional habits of behaviour or response.
What Is It good for?
Master Oh works on whatever is blocking or depleting your qi in order restore the levels within your body. Increased qi brings you back into hysical and emotional balance. “There are hundreds of different reasons for one symptom. A headache, say, could be a weakness in the heart, kidneys, stomach. Modern medicine treats the symptom without knowing its origin. We work on the origin. I can see the energy, and how it works:
How did It start?
Qi-related practices developed in the East 6,000 years ago as ‘a way of living’. Master Oh also teaches chanting, breathing exercises, meditation and movement to help people improve and maintain their own qi flow. Who’s a believer? Master Oh works with verton Football Club, as well as charities for children, veterans, the homeless and the mentally ill in Britain and abroad. 0 £180 per hour; qiwellness.org
Diet drinks associated with increased heart disease in women
A new study, presented to the American College of Cardiology, has found that post-menopausal women who consume two or more soft drinks daily are 30% more likely to suffer a ‘cardiovascular event’ and 50% more likely to die from heart disease.
In Diet Drink Consumption and the Risk of Cardiovascular Events: A Report from the Women’s Health Initiative, the diet drink consumption of 60,000 female participants over three months was analysed.
After an average follow-up of nine years, the scientists found that 8.5% of women who drank two or more diet drinks a day experienced heart problems including coronary heart disease, heart attack and cardiovascular death, compared to 7.2% in those only drinking up to three diet drinks per month.
“We only found an association, so we can’t say that diet drinks cause problems,” said lead investigator Dr Ankur Vyas, who added that the women who drank at least two diet drinks a day were prone to have other risk factors including being smokers, having diabetes, high blood pressure and being overweight.
Mums don’t trust food and drink firms says Organix boss
The managing director of leading children’s food brand Organix has warned that food industry self-regulation is failing.
Anna Rosier’s comments come in the week that Organix launches its No Junk Challenge which challenges parents to cook for their children using ‘real ingredients’ and encourages children to make good food choices.
The company also published the findings of a new survey that found fewer than one in 10 mothers trust the food and drink industry to make products that are good for their children.
The Mumspanel survey of 700 mums found that two thirds wanted to see a legislative clampdown on unhealthy products, while 71% said food firms were motivated more by profit than the health of children.
The No Junk Campaign also throws a spotlight on several leading brand products said to contain unhealthy products or make unjustified claims to be ‘healthy’.
Despite food industry claims to have made their products healthier, nearly half of best-selling children’s brands are high in fat, salt and sugar says Organix. Some breakfast cereals aimed at children contain as much as 37g of sugar per 100g it says.
Rosier said: “We know that parents want to give their children good, healthy and nutritious food – but it’s not always easy to make good choices.
“Our children are targeted with foods that are often high in salt, fat and sugar and it feels like you need a special qualification to understand all the ingredients and E numbers.
“We’re calling for the Government and the food industry to provide stricter controls on the levels of added salt, fat and sugar and artificial additives in children’s food. We also need clear, easy to understand labelling that will help parents choose the best for their children.”
In a Saturday Essay piece for The Grocer, Rossier added: “Self-regulation (of the food industry) is obviously failing the next generation if we are facing rapidly growing obesity levels, diabetes and heart disease. If we want to do the right thing for society and for children this is a major challenge that should keep us all awake at night.”
Professor Rupert Hangretinger lectures earlier last month at the Biobran International Workshop 2014
Professor Rupert Hangretinger, Chairperson of the Department of Hematology/Oncology and General Pediatrics at the Children’s University Hospital in Tübingen, Germany, gave a lecture earlier last month at the Biobran International Workshop 2014 in Tokyo on his research and clinical use of the natural immunomodulator Biobran. Hangretinger, who has published 322 research papers in peer-reviewed medical journals, described how NK cell cytotoxic activity was vital in fighting viral infections and controlling malignant diseases such as cancer. Low NK activity, for example, was associated with a high relapse rate in his paediatric patients with leukemia after stem cell transplantation. He showed how Biobran overnight increases NK cell activity against leukemic cell lines (K562) and against various neuroblastoma and sarcoma cell lines (NB1691, A673, A204, RD and RH30 cell lines) in vitro, and compared its effectiveness to Interleukin-2 (1000IU/ml) without the toxic side-effects, suggesting that the two together could make a powerful weapon to boost immune function. Hangretinger also tested Biobran (3g per day) on healthy volunteers to show that it was able to increase NK cell activity even for those with strong immunity. As for his pediatric patients, he found different results, with 6 patients experiencing increased NK cell activity and 4 with no effect. At this time, the mechanism by which Biobran stimulates NK cell activity is unknown, and Hangretinger suggested that further research to identify the exact intracellular mechanism will help to optimise the use and effect of Biobran in clinical settings.
Five-a-day should stay
Following a study by researchers at University College London that eating seven or more portions of fruit and veg per day better protects against the risk of death than the current five-a-day guideline, Cambridge University’s Dr Nita Forouhi has stated that she believes the five-a-day message works and should be retained.
The research, published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, found that the risk of death by any cause was reduced by 14% by those eating between one and three portions of fruit or veg a day but 42% for those eating seven or more.
However, although admitting that the research was “well done”, Forouhi said: “A change to increase the current five-a-day message to seven or more a day on the basis of this study is not warranted. There is no strong evidence for such a change, and the suggestion by some quarters to consider changing the message to ten-a-day is simply not supported by the data.
“The results are based on a single assessment of food intake in the previous 24 hours, with no longer assessment of intake, adjustment for total calorie intake was not possible, accounting for other dietary factors was also not possible, yet this is important to do, and there was little evidence of a linear dose response.”
Forouhi emphasized that the present guideline is to consume “at least” five-a-day. “Current efforts will therefore be better spent in getting the population intake to meet the guideline of eating at least five-a-day, which offers a win-win for all … As for those who already meet the five-a-day goal, this study supports they can increase their intake, and is covered by the “at least” bit of the five-a-day message already.”
DEFRA green-lights GM plant trial
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has given the go-ahead for scientists to grow genetically-modified plants in the hope of helping protect against heart disease.
Statutory consent has been granted to Rothamsted Research in Hertfordshire to carry out a small-scale field trial of GM camelina plants, modified to produce omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids in its seed oils. The trial, said to be the first field trial of nutrient-enriched crops in the UK, is due to start this spring and run until 2017.
Omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids have long been known to be beneficial for heart health and protect against heart disease and the trial is being heralded as a possible answer to the problem of over-fishing.
However, Emma Hockridge, Soil Association head of policy, said of the move: “This is a waste of scarce public funds by Rothamsted Research – it is choosing to carry out trials of GM Camelina when two non-GM Omega 3 producing crops are already available to UK farmers. Government scientists in the US have recently confirmed that GM crops do not yield any more than non-GM crops, and sometimes even less. GM crops are making farming less fair, more risky and no more sustainable. Instead, we support practical science and innovation that addresses real needs, is genuinely sustainable and puts farmers in control of their livelihoods.”
