Recorded by Felix Schembri in Wiggensbach/Germany in the IBA office in Europe
Friday, April 19, 2013
Breast Health
I came across this article the other day and thought it would be rather fitting to post on my blog since in BodyTalk we have always supported the idea that the bra is harmful to breast health.
Do Women Need Bras? French Study Says Bras are a 'False Necessity'
The Huffington Post by Sara Gates. Click here for the article and video.
Women who go braless may actually have the right idea, new research suggests.
According to the results of a 15-year study in France published Wednesday, bras provide no benefits to women and may actually be harmful to breasts over time.
"Medically, physiologically, anatomically, the breast does not benefit from being deprived of gravity," Jean-Denis Rouillon, a professor at the University of Franche-Comté in Besançon, told France Info.
Conducting the study at the university's hospital, Rouillon measured and examined the breasts of more than 300 women, aged 18 and 35, taking note of how the additional support provided by bras affects the body over time. (It should be noted the study does not mention breast size.)
Overall, he found that women who did not use bras benefited in the long term, developing more muscle tissue to provide natural support. As France's The Local notes, Rouillon also noticed that nipples gained a higher lift, in relation to the shoulders, on women who went braless. When bras are worn, the restrictive material prevents such tissue from growing, which may actually accelerate sagging, the study concluded.
Capucine Vercellotti, a 28-year-old woman who participated in the research, found that she breathes easier without the constraints of a bra.
"At first, I was a little reluctant to the idea of running without a bra, but I got started and after five minutes, I had no trouble at all," Vercellotti said, according to the Agence France-Presse.
But don't throw away your bras just yet, ladies.
Despite the findings, Rouillon said it would be dangerous to advise all women to take off their bras based on the study's sample, which may not be representative of the population.
Speaking to France Info, Rouillon cautioned women who have worn bras for a long time -- several decades -- from following the recommendation since they would not benefit from taking off their bras now.
Thursday, April 11, 2013
The Future of Health Care: Military and Special Forces' Use of Integrative Medicine
By Robert Piper
The future of health care in America and the world at large is integrative medicine. Things like mind-body practices, meditation, yoga, acupuncture, nutrition, and other complementary practices are here to stay. The Samueli Institute is one of several organizations looking to make integrative medicine available to society as a whole; they are tirelessly working to bring it to the men and women who serve in the U.S. military.
I spoke with Dr. Kevin Berry, the vice president for military medical research at Samueli Institute, on how the military is using integrative medicine. He severed in the military for 30 years.
Thanks for the service to our country.
It's been tremendous to be associated with the people I've been associated with. It's been about growth and seeing things that I would never have a chance to see. I think that's why after retiring I didn't want to get too far away from the military. I've been very fortunate to find the Samueli Institute.
I read on your site that over 50 percent of the military uses integrative medicine.
We've done surveys on that, and there are more than what we see in the general population. I think that may be under-reported -- probably on the civilian side also. I don't think that people think of [it], particularly these young kids that are into muscle-building. They're in GNC and they're buying this and that; that's also a part of this story.
We did a leadership needs assessment -- I'm not at liberty to say which base or which service. So I'll use it in more general terms. We're suspicious to say that it wouldn't matter if it was Army or Navy, or this base or that base. But after 10 years of war, we are seeing that these leaders, the colonels, and the lieutenants are maintaining their physical health, their ability to run and all that jazz, but we are seeing deterioration of emotional strength. We're seeing the concerns they have with the tolls on their family, and with it we are seeing this dichotomy on one side there going to it in big numbers, but there's another component that thinks if you go to mind-body or medical massage you are skipping out on being hard.
If you go over to Special Forces, in their contract world they put together a human performance and resilience contract. They haven't awarded it yet, but they are looking to put hard cash on the barrel head. To bring in a whole group of people that would be working with Special Forces and their family members to build resiliency, to include mind-body, nutrition, to help people work on the work/life balance.
You mentioned Special Forces. Are the Navy Seals using integrative medicine, as well?
Yeah, all the services. Special Forces have been doing that for probably a lot longer; I don't think they think of it as unusual any more. I think they've just included as just [a] thing that they do. Martial arts and tai chi are not that much different; it's a physical discipline that gets you back into the moment. There's pretty good evidence that sharp shooters will lower their heart rate and control their heart rate variability as they're contemplating a shot. I think that's probably true of Olympic shooters.
Can you talk about some the research that's been going on with PTSD?
Yeah, we talk about the right of boom and the left of boom. The boom can be any type of traumatic event; we think we need to be working on both sides. So the pre-exposure work that we've done, that looks to teach soldiers some mindfulness. One of them is called War-Ops Warrior Optimization. It's a proprietary for-profit firm that one of the army generals wanted for his units that were going out to Afghanistan and Iraq back in 2009. They asked us to evaluate if it makes any difference, and it was just four hours of mind-body activities. The trends are pretty strong that this makes a difference.
We were just talking here in the last day or two that the Marine Special Forces MARSOC is looking like they are going to purchase this training. They are going to take it a step further and try to reinforce it through leadership and leaders to remind people of it while they're deployed. It looks like we are proposing an evaluation of that. Another example of that would be looking at the Benson-Henry approach for a group of people who have been identified with PTSD.
Another approach is acupuncture for headaches. We have a study going on at Walter Reed and at Fort Belvoir in the Wounded Warrior community with those that are diagnosed with PTSD and chronic headaches. We're still collecting data on that one. That's just to give you an idea of what we're doing.
That brings up the question that all Special Forces, Olympic athletes, mixed martial artists in the UFC [...] use the breathing component to curb the stress response. Can you talk about breathing and the stress response?
That's one of the common things we see in many of these type of programs. Whether it's yoga nidra when you're working with a causality who's physically impaired and maybe recent from surgery. Becoming mindful, using breathing, and getting the mind to focus on breathing. Getting the chest expansion to trigger the parasympathetic nervous system, which can balance the overactive sympathetic system. That's just one example, simple, straightforward meditation, starts with breathing. Special Forces units might use tai chi for an example.
Well, thank you very much, it was great interviewing you.
The future of health care in America and the world at large is integrative medicine. Things like mind-body practices, meditation, yoga, acupuncture, nutrition, and other complementary practices are here to stay. The Samueli Institute is one of several organizations looking to make integrative medicine available to society as a whole; they are tirelessly working to bring it to the men and women who serve in the U.S. military.
I spoke with Dr. Kevin Berry, the vice president for military medical research at Samueli Institute, on how the military is using integrative medicine. He severed in the military for 30 years.
Thanks for the service to our country.
It's been tremendous to be associated with the people I've been associated with. It's been about growth and seeing things that I would never have a chance to see. I think that's why after retiring I didn't want to get too far away from the military. I've been very fortunate to find the Samueli Institute.
I read on your site that over 50 percent of the military uses integrative medicine.
We've done surveys on that, and there are more than what we see in the general population. I think that may be under-reported -- probably on the civilian side also. I don't think that people think of [it], particularly these young kids that are into muscle-building. They're in GNC and they're buying this and that; that's also a part of this story.
We did a leadership needs assessment -- I'm not at liberty to say which base or which service. So I'll use it in more general terms. We're suspicious to say that it wouldn't matter if it was Army or Navy, or this base or that base. But after 10 years of war, we are seeing that these leaders, the colonels, and the lieutenants are maintaining their physical health, their ability to run and all that jazz, but we are seeing deterioration of emotional strength. We're seeing the concerns they have with the tolls on their family, and with it we are seeing this dichotomy on one side there going to it in big numbers, but there's another component that thinks if you go to mind-body or medical massage you are skipping out on being hard.
If you go over to Special Forces, in their contract world they put together a human performance and resilience contract. They haven't awarded it yet, but they are looking to put hard cash on the barrel head. To bring in a whole group of people that would be working with Special Forces and their family members to build resiliency, to include mind-body, nutrition, to help people work on the work/life balance.
You mentioned Special Forces. Are the Navy Seals using integrative medicine, as well?
Yeah, all the services. Special Forces have been doing that for probably a lot longer; I don't think they think of it as unusual any more. I think they've just included as just [a] thing that they do. Martial arts and tai chi are not that much different; it's a physical discipline that gets you back into the moment. There's pretty good evidence that sharp shooters will lower their heart rate and control their heart rate variability as they're contemplating a shot. I think that's probably true of Olympic shooters.
Can you talk about some the research that's been going on with PTSD?
Yeah, we talk about the right of boom and the left of boom. The boom can be any type of traumatic event; we think we need to be working on both sides. So the pre-exposure work that we've done, that looks to teach soldiers some mindfulness. One of them is called War-Ops Warrior Optimization. It's a proprietary for-profit firm that one of the army generals wanted for his units that were going out to Afghanistan and Iraq back in 2009. They asked us to evaluate if it makes any difference, and it was just four hours of mind-body activities. The trends are pretty strong that this makes a difference.
We were just talking here in the last day or two that the Marine Special Forces MARSOC is looking like they are going to purchase this training. They are going to take it a step further and try to reinforce it through leadership and leaders to remind people of it while they're deployed. It looks like we are proposing an evaluation of that. Another example of that would be looking at the Benson-Henry approach for a group of people who have been identified with PTSD.
Another approach is acupuncture for headaches. We have a study going on at Walter Reed and at Fort Belvoir in the Wounded Warrior community with those that are diagnosed with PTSD and chronic headaches. We're still collecting data on that one. That's just to give you an idea of what we're doing.
That brings up the question that all Special Forces, Olympic athletes, mixed martial artists in the UFC [...] use the breathing component to curb the stress response. Can you talk about breathing and the stress response?
That's one of the common things we see in many of these type of programs. Whether it's yoga nidra when you're working with a causality who's physically impaired and maybe recent from surgery. Becoming mindful, using breathing, and getting the mind to focus on breathing. Getting the chest expansion to trigger the parasympathetic nervous system, which can balance the overactive sympathetic system. That's just one example, simple, straightforward meditation, starts with breathing. Special Forces units might use tai chi for an example.
Well, thank you very much, it was great interviewing you.
Access and Africa
Some news from South Africa from Morag Bromfield!
The two projects which we have running at the moment involve a remedial school in Durban where a group of three CBPs, Sue Parnell (who has a son at the school) Jenny Davies and Zelda Bronzin are going into the school daily at the beginning of class, and are teaching the students how to tap out cortices. Once they are happy with how the children are doing the technique, the teachers will encourage them to do this a few times a day and will give us their feedback.
The second project involves the University where the students involved in Nutritional studies and Homeopathy have asked to be taught Access to enable them to support their clients who have a headache or joint pains, etc and are unable to do this with nutrition and homeopathy alone. There are also a small group of nurses who have been encouraged to attend as well. The University would collect the data and track changes from the clients and give feedback to us. The clients are from a low-cost housing estate and have agreed to have BT daily. I will have more to report once this gets off the ground!
The two projects which we have running at the moment involve a remedial school in Durban where a group of three CBPs, Sue Parnell (who has a son at the school) Jenny Davies and Zelda Bronzin are going into the school daily at the beginning of class, and are teaching the students how to tap out cortices. Once they are happy with how the children are doing the technique, the teachers will encourage them to do this a few times a day and will give us their feedback.
The second project involves the University where the students involved in Nutritional studies and Homeopathy have asked to be taught Access to enable them to support their clients who have a headache or joint pains, etc and are unable to do this with nutrition and homeopathy alone. There are also a small group of nurses who have been encouraged to attend as well. The University would collect the data and track changes from the clients and give feedback to us. The clients are from a low-cost housing estate and have agreed to have BT daily. I will have more to report once this gets off the ground!
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