April 12, 2012 – High school students from Baltimore, Delaware and Washington, DC will show off their culinary prowess and nutritional know-how in the kitchens of the former Baltimore International College on May 8. The Teen Battle Chef competition is the culmination of a seven-week culinary arts and nutrition education program orchestrated by HealthCorps, a nonprofit organization that provides innovative health programming to schools in high-need communities.
The Institute for Integrative Health’s BMore BWell initiative brought the HealthCorps program to Baltimore last fall when it placed HealthCorps coordinators in two schools, Baltimore Freedom Academy and the ConneXions School for the Arts. The Institute is provides ongoing support and resources for local HealthCorps activities, including Teen Battle Chef.
Students taking part in the competition have spent the semester honing their leadership, teamwork and kitchen skills while learning about healthy, sustainable food choices. Now, each of the six participating schools is holding its own Teen Battle Chef contest to determine which team will advance to the regional showdown.
Competing alongside teens from other schools is reason enough for most students to be excited. Now, add some celebrity judges to the mix. Chef Jerry Pellegrino of the Waterfront Kitchen; chef Lisa Turner from Beyond Expectations Catering and Phaze 10 restaurant; Eric Frauwirth, Dean of Stratford University; and Miss Queen State’s Outstanding Teen Hannah Brewer are among the judges who will evaluate students’ performance and declare the winner.
March 15, 2012 – World-renown integrative health pioneer Andrew Weil is the keynote speaker at a one-day symposium for healthcare professionals and the lay public on Saturday, April 14, in Baltimore. At the University of Maryland Center for Integrative Medicine Health and Wellness Conference, participants will gain an understanding of how different evidence-based modalities promote health and well-being, and can be incorporated into conventional health care.
The Institute for Integrative Health is a proud sponsor of the event. For details, visit the conference website.
January 31, 2012 – Brian Berman, president of the Institute for Integrative Health, has been elected to the Board of Trustees of Tai Sophia Institute. Founded in 1974, Tai Sophia is a nonprofit, accredited graduate school offering academic programs in health and wellness. Guest lecturers include Deepak Chopra, Hans Peter Duerr, Effie Poy Yew Chow, and Rosalyn Bruyere, among others. Visit tai.edu for more information.
December 15, 2011 – Two papers recently published by the Institute for Integrative Health (TIIH) Fellow Kirstin Aschbacher, PhD, provide evidence supporting integrative interventions.
Examining acute stress responses among women, Aschbacher and colleagues found that the loss of a positive outlook is associated with greater pro-inflammatory reactivity, putting women at increased risk for future depressive symptoms. The paper, Maintenance of a positive outlook protects against pro-inflammatory reactivity and futures depressive symptoms appears in the February 2012 issue of Brain, Behavior and Immunity.
Separately, Dr. Aschbacher and colleagues conducted what may be the first study among healthy, non-diabetic individuals to demonstrate a relationship between fasting plasma glucose levels (FPG) and circulating angiogenic cell (CAC) function. The authors recommend that future studies investigate the impact of lifestyle and dietary interventions on glucose regulation and CAC function.
The paper, Higher fasting glucose levels are associated with reduced circulating angiogenic cell migratory capacity among healthy individuals appears in the January issue of American Journal of Cardiovascular Disease.
October 15, 2011 – TIIH Scholar David Lary, PhD, and his team are developing a fleet of compact helicopters that may one day help asthma sufferers better manage their condition. The quiet, remote-control aircraft are equipped with sensors that can measure air pollution on a localized scale. Eventually, that data may be fed to a system that delivers personalized air quality alerts to people with breathing and lung disorders.
Dr. Lary’s work is supported by the Department of Defense and the National Institutes of Health in addition to the Institute for Integrative Health.
See the robotic helicopters in action and learn more about the work of Dr. Lary’s team in this video.
Dr. George Brainard on the Impact of Light on Sleep
July 5, 2011 – Institute scholar George Brainard, PhD, appears in today’s New York Times story on the relationship between light, the hormone melatonin, and wakefulness.
The article, In Eyes, a Clock Calibrated by Wavelengths of Light, describes a recent study of the human body’s response to blue wavelengths produced by certain light bulbs and electronic devices. Findings suggest that “exposure to blue light may keep us more awake and alert, partly by suppressing production of melatonin.”
If you think ditching your smart phone or TV at bedtime is enough to jump start melatonin and trigger sleep, Dr. Brainard has news for you: “When you turn it off, it doesn’t mean that instantly the alerting effects go away. There’s an underlying biology that’s stimulated.”
Brainard, who has spent 30 years studying the biological and behavioral effects of light, applies this kind of insight in his work with NASA. He’s now developing lighting schemes that will help astronauts’ aboard the International Space Station regulate their alertness and sleep patterns.
“I think we’re on the verge of a lighting revolution,” Dr. Brainard said in the article. He believes the use of light during spaceflight could lead to similar applications on Earth.
May 1, 2011 – Brian Berman, M.D., president and founder of the Institute for Integrative Health, has been appointed to the 18-member National Advisory Council for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM). Dr. Berman will serve a four-year term on the council, which provides recommendations on matters relating to the research activities of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, part of the National Institutes of Health.
Council members’ responsibilities also include secondary review of grant applications in light of NCCAM scientific program priorities and program balance.
NCCAM’s mission is to define, through rigorous scientific investigation, the usefulness and safety of complementary and alternative medicine interventions and their roles in improving health and health care.
August 16, 2010 – 4:27 pm
Acupuncture for Chronic Low Back Pain
July 29, 2010 – Brian Berman, MD, president of the Institute for Integrative Health (TIIH), and co-authors Helene H. Langevin, MD; Claudia M. Witt, MD, MBA; and Ronald Dubner, DDS, PhD, published the article Acupuncture for Chronic Low Back Pain in the July 29 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
Beginning with a hypothetical–though all too common–case of chronic low back pain (LBP) unresponsive to therapies, the authors discuss the complex physical condition of LBP and possible ways in which the traditional Chinese practice of acupuncture may affect this condition.
After summarizing past research on the subject, Dr. Berman et al. describe the use of acupuncture in contemporary clinical care for LBP, identify guidelines set forth by medical professional associations, and make a recommendation for their hypothetical LBP patient: “a course of 10 to 12 treatments over a period of 8 weeks from a licensed acupuncturist or a physician trained in medical acupuncture.”
The authors suggest the following “areas of uncertainty,” which offer opportunities for future research:
- - Does acupuncture alleviate pain because some patients hold the expectation that it will? (Yet, the authors note, studies show that acupuncture causes measurable brain changes in humans and relieves pain in animals, which presumably have no expectations about effects.)
- - For human patients, to what extent are acupuncture’s effects related to characteristics of the setting in which care is given?
- - How do pain relief effects of acupuncture stack up against effects of other therapies, such as massage or biofeedback?
- - And finally, can the pain relief of acupuncture be stimulated without actual needle penetration?
