Many Benefits of Chinese cupping therapy

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Friday, October 11, 2013 by: Ethan A. Huff


Many of our readers are probably already familiar with some of the more popular modalities of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), such as acupuncture, massage therapy and herbal medicine. But did you know that there is another lesser-known TCM treatment protocol known as cupping therapy that can help relieve a host of maladies?

The protocol, which involves applying small cups or jars to the skin and suctioning it away from the body, dates as far back as 1500 B.C., when ancient Egyptians used it to treat fever, vertigo, menstrual imbalance, poor appetite, pain and a variety of other health conditions. Taoist herbalists later used cupping therapy to induce relaxation, expel toxins from the body and promote healthy blood flow, among many other uses.

Today, this simple and highly versatile technique is still beneficial for all sorts of health conditions, which makes it an excellent alternative to drugs and surgery for many people. Whether they are made of glass, bamboo or modern materials like silicon, these unique little cups have a confirmed track record of clinical efficacy that renders them worthy of further investigation.

How does Chinese cupping therapy work? According to the Pacific College of Oriental Medicine (PCOM), a TCM practitioner will first create suction inside the cups, one method of which involves applying rubbing alcohol to the bottom of the cups and lighting them on fire. When the flame is put out and the generated heat eventually cools, the air inside the cups contracts to create a natural suction.

The cups are then placed on the skin and either moved across it in a continuous motion, a process known as gliding cupping, or kept isolated and gently lifted. In both methods, the suction inside the cups lifts the skin away from the body to create negative pressure, as opposed to the positive pressure induced by massage. This negative pressure helps loosen muscle tissue, promote healthy blood flow and sedate the nervous system.

“Generally, cupping is combined with acupuncture in one treatment, but it can also be used alone,” explains PCOM. “Cupping is used to relieve back and neck pains, stiff muscles, anxiety, fatigue, migraines, rheumatism, and even cellulite.”

Cupping therapy combined with acupuncture can provide amazing relief

One of the reasons why cupping therapy is often coupled with acupuncture is that both treatments follow the body’s natural meridian lines, which are believed to be the pathways through which the body’s “life energy,” or “qi,” flows. Since it is traditionally used on the back, cupping therapy follows the back’s five meridian lines, which is meant to both align and relax the qi and open up all the channels through which energy flows.

“Cupping is one of the best deep-tissue therapies available,” adds PCOM. “It is thought to affect tissues up to four inches deep from the external skin. Toxins can be released, blockages can be cleared, and veins and arteries can be refreshed within these four inches of affected materials. Even hands, wrists, legs, and ankles can be ‘cupped,’ thus applying the healing to specific organs that correlate with these points.”

Cupping therapy has also been effectively used to treat lung and respiratory conditions, including asthma symptoms and the common cold. In fact, respiratory ailments are among the earliest recorded conditions for which cupping therapy was deemed beneficial.

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Farmed salmon more toxic than wild salmon, study finds

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BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — A study of more than two metric tons of North American, South American and European salmon has shown that PCBs and other environmental toxins are present at higher levels in farm-raised salmon than in their wild counterparts.

Researchers at Indiana University and five other research centers say increased toxin levels in farm-raised salmon may pose health risks to people who eat the economically important fish. Their study, which appears in this week’s (Jan. 9) issue of Science, is the most comprehensive analysis to date of salmon toxin concentrations.

“We think it’s important for people who eat salmon to know that farmed salmon have higher levels of toxins than wild salmon from the open ocean,” said IU School of Public and Environmental Affairs Distinguished Professor Ronald Hites, who led the study.

The researchers applied U.S. Environmental Protection Agency fish consumption advisory methods to determine consumption recommendations. Farmed salmon purchased for the study from supermarkets in Frankfurt (Germany), Edinburgh (Scotland), Paris (France), London (U.K.), Oslo (Norway), Boston, San Francisco and Toronto (Canada) triggered consumption recommendations of one-half to one meal of salmon per month. (A meal is defined as 8 ounces of uncooked meat.) Farmed salmon from supermarkets in Los Angeles, Seattle, Chicago, New York, Washington, D.C., and Vancouver (Canada) triggered a recommendation of no more than two salmon meals per month. Farmed salmon from Denver and New Orleans supermarkets both triggered a consumption recommendation of two meals of salmon per month. With very few exceptions, farmed salmon samples tested significantly exceeded the contaminant levels of wild salmon, which could be consumed at levels as high as eight meals per month.

The production of farmed salmon has increased 40-fold over the last two decades, thanks in large part to the world’s salmon farms. Over half the salmon sold globally are raised in Northern Europe, Chile and North America.

While the health benefits of eating salmon have been established by numerous studies, concerns about the fish’s tendency to accumulate toxins have gone largely unaddressed. As fish-eaters themselves, salmon occupy fairly high positions in their food chains. As a general rule, carnivorous animals tend to have higher concentrations of toxins in their bodies than herbivores.

To test this ecological principle, Hites and his colleagues measured organochlorine toxin levels in about 700 farmed and wild salmon. Farm-raised Atlantic salmon were purchased from retailers in London, Frankfurt, Edinburgh, Oslo, Paris, Toronto, Vancouver, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, D.C., and from wholesalers in North America, Chile and Europe.

For comparison, the researchers collected samples of five wild Pacific salmon species — Chinook, Coho, chum, pink and sockeye — from three different regions in North America. The researchers did not study farmed Pacific salmon or wild Atlantic salmon because fish from the two groups are difficult to obtain.

The researchers analyzed the concentrations of 14 organochlorine toxins in salmon from each collection site, using gas chromatographic high-resolution spectrometry. The toxins they studied were polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), dioxins, toxaphene, dieldrin, hexachlorobenzene (HCB), lindane, heptachlor epoxide, cis-nonachlor, trans-nonachlor, gamma-chlordane, alpha-chlordane, Mirex, endrin and total DDT. Many of these toxins, including PCBs, dioxins and toxaphene, are “reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen,” according to a recent report by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

When samples from all over the world were grouped, the researchers found farm-raised Atlantic salmon had significantly higher levels of 13 toxins when compared with wild Pacific salmon. Breaking it down by region, the researchers found levels of all 14 toxins were significantly elevated in both European and North American farm-raised salmon when compared with wild Pacific salmon. Levels of only six toxins were significantly elevated in South American farm-raised salmon. Levels of two toxins (HCB and lindane) were actually significantly lower in farm-raised South American salmon than in wild salmon species.

Only PCBs, dioxins, dieldrin and toxaphene were used to calculate consumption safety guidelines, because the researchers deemed these four toxins to most strongly impact human health.

The researchers also found that toxin levels in European farm-raised salmon were significantly higher than in North American or South American farm-raised salmon. Levels of PCBs, dioxins, toxaphene and dieldrin were highest in farmed salmon from Scotland and the Faroe Islands (Denmark) and lowest in farmed salmon from Chile and Washington state, though Hites pointed out that even these comparatively uncontaminated South American salmon had high levels of other toxins.

Hites and his colleagues also measured toxin levels in “salmon chow,” a mixture of ground-up fish and oil fed to farm-raised salmon. They found a strong correlation between the toxicities of chow and salmon, suggesting toxins are passed into the salmon from their feed.

Jeffrey Foran (University of Michigan), David Carpenter (University at Albany), M. Coreen Hamilton (AXYS Analytical Services Ltd.), Barbara Knuth and Steven Schwager (Cornell University), and Amy Matthews Amos (Turnstone Consulting, in West Virginia) also contributed to the study. It was funded by a grant to the University at Albany from the Pew Charitable Trusts’ Environmental Division.