Originally published October 21 2005
University of Maryland to expand its alternative medicine studies
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
The University of Maryland Center for Integrative Medicine, with the help of a $10 million grant from the government, will construct two centers to expand its study of Eastern therapies.
Under a new, $10 million federal grant, the University of Maryland Center for Integrative Medicine is forming two new centers to study increasingly popular Eastern therapies.
The center, now in its 14th year of studying alternative therapies with a focus on Chinese medicine, will use the grants from the National Institutes of Health's National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine to continue its investigation of acupuncture and herbal medicine in pain relief, and to form an international collaboration with Chinese scientists to examine use of the methods in treating bowel disorders.
"We as an institution want to make sure what patients are doing is safe and effective, and can even complement what we can do with standard care."
A grant for nearly $6 million is going to the formation of a Center of Excellence for Arthritis and Traditional Chinese Medicine Research within the center, to conduct a clinical trial on the effectiveness of a Chinese herbal formula called HLXL in treating osteoarthritis of the knee.
Researchers now will probe the reasons acupuncture is effective, including the neurochemicals it stimulates to release in the brain, Berman said.
A second, $4 million, grant will create the International Center for Research on Complementary and Alternative Medicine, led by the university and including Chinese University in Hong Kong, the University of Illinois and the University of Western Sydney in Australia.
The international effort will study the effectiveness of herbal therapies and acupuncture compared to standard methods of care in each country in the treatment of bowel disorders, such as irritable bowel syndrome.
Acupuncture supporters, he said, would like to see federal funding for data collection among clients at institutes like Tai Sophia, where 35,000 acupuncture treatments are administered each year in concert with other therapies.
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