Ancient Medicine Made Modern
Greetings!
This image is from the Cagliari Museum of Anthropology in Sardinia. Highly recommended!
Acupuncture for Migraine and PTSD Prevention
Acupuncture for Migraine and PTSD Prevention
With regular acupuncture treatment, your body becomes more resilient and more able to handle stressors and triggers to disease. The best kind of prevention!! These two studies address this phenomenon.

This article reviews the literature and finds that, indeed, acupuncture is effective for migraine prophylaxis.

There was a nice study showing that acupuncture helped prevent PTSD in earthquake survivors in Italy.
CBS News 60 Minutes and PTSD Treatment
A recent 60 minutes segment highlighted a treatment for PTSD using stellate ganglion blocks. Anecdotally it seems to help, and the theory is modulation of vagal activity. However there have been no blinded studies to date. Please keep in mind, that preventative acupuncture as noted above may do the very same thing. The vagus nerve, responsible for the "rest and digest" restorative aspects of the nervous system is the focus of intense research. I've been monitoring vagal activity for many years!!.
Health and Fitness
INTERMITTENT FASTING
This video gives a decent run down of the benefits of intermittent fasting, or time restricted eating
Tyranny of the Logical or Bio-plausibility
I was listening to a podcast with author David Epstein who has a new book called "Range". But what interested me more was a previous article he wrote called “When Evidence Says No But Doctors Say Yes”. I have struggled with this phenomenon before in my blog. Even though a therapy doesn't work, it is prescribed and pursued relentlessly because it makes sense according to current medical models. Some examples are cardiac stents, sleeping aids for the elderly, strict blood pressure control, arthroscopic meniscectomy, and on and on. I urge you to read his article in full, it is extremely enlightening. In this blog post I discuss a few of them and link to the article. I'm definitely in the First, Do No Harm camp, but I feel now as though I'm in good company.
John Oliver has done a number of segments on the bad incentives in medicine. Paying Doctors to Prescribe,
Longevity, Optimize for Long Life!
Longevity has been a topic in Traditional Chinese Medicine for millenia. One of the side effects of longer life is disability that can come with it. Alzheimer's disease is becoming rampant. This researcher found that L-serine, a simple amino acid, may help in Alzheimer's prevention and longer life. A patient sent me the link to this article (thanks Krista!!) I've started taking L-serine!!

This article looks at inflammation and aging. Inflammation seems to be involved in everything!
Nobel Prize Winner Frances Arnold
The story of this Nobel Prize Winner from Cal Tech is so inspiring! What an incredible scientist and what a vital, rich life she's had. I just had to share it.
Heart Rate Variability (Stress Levels) and Well Being, Inflammation and How They Are Linked
I've submitted a paper for publication concerning my research looking at stress levels over time in a group of migraineurs. (Wish me luck!!) But what that means for you readers is that I unearth quite a few references which are pretty interesting! I will share a few of them here.
In this blog post I discuss this study that found HRV was lower (less healthy) in patients with depression. Acupuncture can raise HRV.

In another study they found that patients' self assessment of health correlated more strongly with HRV than other markers. "The current study supports the hypothesis that the extent of brain-body communication, as indexed by HRV, is associated with self-ratedhealth."

I've posted the data from my article submission here. If you look at it, you can see that in this group of 6 migraine patients, their HRV has improved over the course of a year in addition to eradicating their migraines. If you look at the data it tells a compelling story in my humble opinion!
Conditions Treated
Allergies
Allergies are a focus of my practice
Anxiety/Panic Attacks
Acupuncture is helpful for Anxiety and Panic Attacks
Migraine/Headache
Migraine patients are a large portion of my practice. Tell your friends!
Online Appointments are now an option. This is for your convenience. I'm glad to receive your calls/emails/texts to make or change your appointments, but if you'd like to try the new system give it a try!

  1. Ongoing patients, go to Book Now page. Scroll down to see the sign in.
  2. Put in your email address. Put in Clinic Treatment or Cosmetic Acupuncture according to the day and time you prefer.
  3. Unfortunately, you cannot change a current appointment, but you can add one. So if you'd like to change an appointment, look for a new time and book it. It will alert me of the new appointment and I will cancel the old one.
  4. New Patients Go to Book Now page sign up for a First Time Patient visit at time and day that works for you.
Kristen Sparrow MD
2000 Van Ness, Ste 310
San Francisco, CA 94109
415-775-0117