For hundreds of years cannabis has been used as a therapeutic medicine around the world. Cannabis was an accepted medicine during the second half of the 19th century, but its use declined because single agent pain medications were advocated by physicians who demanded standardization of medicines. It was not until 1964 when the chemical structure of THC (delta 9-tetrahydrocannabinol) was elucidated and its pharmacological effects began to be understood. Numerous therapeutic effects of cannabis have been reviewed, but cannabis-based medicines are still an enigma because of legal issues. Many patients could benefit from cannabinoids, terpenoids and flavonoids found in Cannabis sativa L. These patients suffer from medical conditions including chronic pain, chronic inflammatory diseases, neurological disorders, and other debilitating illnesses. As more states are legalizing medical cannabis, prescribers need a reliable source which provides clinical information in a succinct format. This book focuses on the science of cannabis as an antioxidant and anti-inflammatory supplement. It discusses cannabis uses in the human body for bone health/osteoporosis; brain injury and trauma; cancer; diabetes; gastrointestinal conditions; mental health disorders; insomnia; pain; anxiety disorders; depression; migraines; eye disorders; and arthritis and inflammation. There is emphasis on using the whole plant - from root to raw leaves and flowers discussing strains, extraction and analysis, and use of cannabis-infused edibles. Features: Provides an understanding of the botanical and biochemistry behind cannabis as well as its use as a dietary supplement. Discusses endocannabinoid system and cannabinoid receptors. Includes information on antioxidant benefits, pain receptors using cannabinoids, and dosage guidelines. Presents research on cannabis treatment plans, drug-cannabis interactions and dosing issues, cannabis vapes, edibles, creams, and suppositories. Multiple appendices including a glossary of cannabis vocabulary, how to use cannabis products, a patient guide and recipes as well as information on cannabis for pets.

Increasingly, healthcare professionals are encountering patients who are, or wish to be, taking herbal medicines. This book not only provides answers to frequently asked questions, but will also enable healthcare professionals to recommend safe alternatives to orthodox treatment if appropriate. A practical guide to the safe and effective use of herbal medicines in pediatric primary care, written by a respected and internationally known expert Easily accessible information ensures quick reference in practice Case histories and practical tips make this an essential companion for all professionals in primary care

A hip, sensual Ayurveda bible for the modern woman, this life-changing guide distills ancient teachings into a spirit-infused yet pragmatic approach to your physical, mental, and spiritual health.
Teacher and yoga instructor Katie Silcox is a leading expert on Ayurveda. She knows that bringing ancient wisdom into our modern lives does "not" mean sacrificing the occasional rendezvous with red wine, fashion magazines, and other sensual pleasures. In "Healthy Happy Sexy," Katie offers not only a philosophy of life but a time-tested (we're talking thousands of years ) method for living your most radiant, healthy, and sexually vital life possible.
Covering everything from how to get the perfect poo to glowing skin to deeper sexual fulfillment, here is a complete guide to women's health. It offers evocative questions, journaling exercises, simple but deep meditations, and natural recipes and remedies for common health and beauty needs. By engaging in these lifestyle choices, you will experience ancient practices that resonate with the way we live our lives now.
Combining Ayurvedic wisdom with practical tools and her lively, playful, and down-to-earth voice, Katie provides a method to heal, entertain, inspire, and remind you that you are one sexy goddess.

This groundbreaking work calls for the overhaul of traditional Ayurveda and its transformation into a progressive, evidence-based practice. This book begins by looking back at the research of the last three centuries, Indian medicinal plants, and Ayurveda in a twenty-first-century context. The first part of this book explores the limitations of contemporary Ayurvedic pharmacognosy and pharmacology, discussing the challenges the practice faces from research and clinical trials. It makes a compelling argument for the necessity of change. The second part of the book defines and elaborates upon a new, scientific path, taking the reader from identification of the herb through all stages of drug development. An essential tool for herbal drug development, this text is designed for knowledgeable students, practitioners, and scholars of Ayurveda, pharmacy, and herbal medicine.

The second edition to this successful textbook is for all physiotherapy students and newly qualified physiotherapists working in orthopaedics at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. The authors have drawn on their many years of experience and clinical work in various orthopaedic settings to help students with clinical reasoning when faced with apparently diverse patient problems. The content of this book moves from normal to abnormal and from simple to complex. Case studies and self-assessment sections encourage participation by the reader to help students develop a reasoned and logical approach towards the management of their orthopaedic patients. Chapter summaries emphasize key areas of importance. Case studies illustrate problem-solving approaches and demonstrate how to manage specific client groups. Objectives and prerequisites are included for each section, alerting readers to what they should know before and after reading. Reading and practice assignments include recommended prerequisite knowledge and experience. Well-illustrated text includes line diagrams, photographs, and radiographs to clarify important concepts. New chapters on Hydrotherapy and Gait present current knowledge on these areas. Chapters have been updated to include more information on the upper limb. Chapters on Decision Making and Clinical Reasoning in Orthopaedics and Gait Analysis in the Clinical Situation have been thoroughly updated and revised.

The world of development thinkers and practitioners is abuzz with a new lexicon: the idea of "the nexus" between water, food, and energy which is intuitively compelling. It promises better integration of multiple sectoral elements, a better transition to greener economies, and sustainable development. However, there appears to be little agreement on its precise meaning, whether it only complements existing environmental governance approaches or how it can be enhanced in national contexts. One current approach to the nexus treats it as a risk and security matter while another treats it within economic rationality addressing externalities across sector. A third perspective acknowledges it as a fundamentally political process requiring negotiation amongst different actors with distinct perceptions, interests, and practices. This perspective highlights the fact that technical solutions for improving coherence within the nexus may have unintended and negative impacts in other policy areas, such as poverty alleviation and education. The Water-Food-Energy Nexus: Power, Politics and Justice lays out the managerial-technical definitions of the nexus and challenges these conceptions by bringing to the forefront the politics of the nexus, around two key dimensions - a dynamic understanding of water-food-energy systems, and a normative positioning around nexus debates, in particular around social justice. The authors argue that a shift in nexus governance is required towards approaches where limits to control are acknowledged, and more reflexive/plural strategies adopted. This book will be of interest to academic researchers, policy makers, and practitioners in the fields of international development studies, environmental politics, and science and technology studies, as well as international relations.

Did you know that gin was first created as an anti-malarial? Or that Buckfast Tonic Wine was created by Benedictine monks as a cure-all? Whilst alcohol is today best known for its intoxicating properties, in the past it was prized for its ability to extract and preserve the active elements from herbs. In fact, many of our favourite drinks were originally created for medicinal purposes. Herbal Elixirs is a detailed guide to the process of creating your own herb-based alcoholic drinks and an exploration of the rich history of similar drinks across Europe. Topics covered include: the history of herbal drinks in Europe; how to make your own tinctures, infusions and decoctions; the art of distillation: how to make alcohol and use a still; botanical information for identifying and using plants; recipes for restorative herbal drinks, and finally, a seasonal guide to foraging in the UK. Drawing on both natural and scientific research, this fascinating book will reacquaint you with this tradition, offering detailed explanations of the processes involved and sharing the skills to design and make your own herbal elixirs.

The Profession and Practice of Horticultural Therapy is a comprehensive guide to the theories that horticultural therapists use as a foundation for their practice and provides wide-ranging illustrative models of programming. This book aims to enhance understanding and provide insight into the profession for both new and experienced practitioners. It is directed to students in the field, along with health care and human service professionals, to successfully develop and manage horticultural therapy programming. The book is organized into four sections: an overview of the horticultural therapy profession, theories supporting horticultural therapy use, models for programs, and tools for the therapist. Areas of focus include: Overview of the profession, including the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed to practice Discussion of related people-plant endeavors and theories supporting horticultural therapy Issues within the profession of horticultural therapy, including employment models, professionalism and ethics, and credentials Characteristics and implementation of therapeutic, vocational, and wellness program models Accommodations and adaptive techniques to best serve the needs of all participants Strategies for assessment and documentation for horticultural therapy intervention Issues for managing programs including how horticultural therapy programs collaborate with other disciplines, determining program costs and budget, managing staff and growing spaces, and conducting program evaluations Horticultural therapy serves the needs of the whole individual when practitioners have a broad and deep comprehension of the theories, techniques, and strategies for effective program development and management. The Profession and Practice of Horticultural Therapy provides relevant and current information on the field with the intent to inspire best practices and creative, effective programs.

This book examines the history and evolution of Ayurveda and other indigenous medical traditions in juxtaposition with their encounter with colonial modernity. Through the lens of hereditary folk and Ayurvedic practitioners, it focuses on Kerala's heterogeneous medical traditions and presents them against the backdrop of the geographical, historical, sociocultural, ethnographic and regional contexts in which they developed and transformed. The author explores the world of Kerala's last traditionally trained hereditary practitioners (folk healers, poison therapists, Sanskrit-speaking Muslim Ayurvedic practitioners and the legendary Brahman Ashtavaidyan physicians). He discusses the views of these physicians regarding the marked difference between their personalised ancestral methods of treatment and the standardised version of Ayurveda compliant with biomedicine that is practised by doctors today. Drawing on extensive fieldwork, this book will be useful to researchers and scholars of medical anthropology, health and social medicine, sociology and social anthropology, the history of science and modern Indian history, as well as to medical practitioners interested in alternative and traditional medicine.

The User's Manual is a transformative guide to the principles of Traditional Chinese Medicine for the 21st century, showing how these differ from those underlying Western medicine, what that means in practice and how we can help our bodies to heal themselves and thereby achieve a longer, healthier life. Books about TCM tend to be thousands of years old, very detailed and without reference to contemporary scientific knowledge. As a former computer engineer, Alex Wu draws parallels between the way a computer functions and the functioning of the human body in order to interpret the key concepts within Chinese medicine so that they become significantly easier to understand for today's readers. As he explains, Chinese medicine provides a dramatically different point of view to that of Western medicine, in particular its foundation belief that the body has a powerful self-healing system that must be nurtured and encouraged, not stifled with symptom-suppressing treatments. Taking the simple examples of gout, psoriasis, the common cold and today's obesity epidemic, the author explores the TCM and conventional medical approaches, showing how promoting body energy and self-healing can resolve the `incurable'. Alex Wu says: `Many readers have used the simple methods described in this book to achieve a healthy lifestyle and thereby improve their health within a short time... Modern medicine has not made significant advances in many chronic conditions for many years. It may be that the problem stems from its basic philosophy.' Here is an opportunity to look at health and medicine from a completely different point of view.

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) originated from the traditional medical system in the Chinese civilization, with influences from the Daoist and Chinese folk traditions in bodily cultivation and longevity techniques. In the past few decades, TCM has become one of the leading alternative medical systems in the United States. This book demonstrates the fluidity of a medical ideological system with a rich history of methodological development and internal theoretical conflicts, continuing to transform in our postmodern world where people and ideas transcend geographic, ethnic, and linguistic limitations. The unique historical trajectories and cultural dynamics of the American society are critical nutrients for the localization of TCM, while the constant traffic of travelers and immigrants foster the globalizing tendency of TCM. The practitioners in this book represent an incredible range of clinical applications, personal styles, theoretical rationalizations, and business models. What really unifies all these practitioners is not their specific practices but the goal of these practices. The shared goal is to strive for health, not just health in terms of the lack of illness but the ultimate health of achieving perfect balance in every aspect of the being of a person-physically, mentally, spiritually, and energetically.

Increased oxidative stress due to the production of excessive amounts of free radicals along with the effects of chronic inflammation plays a major role in the initiation and progression of most chronic diseases. In addition, increased release of glutamate plays a central role in the pathogenesis of various disorders. This second edition of Micronutrients in Health and Disease proposes a novel concept that in order to simultaneously and optimally reduce oxidative stress, chronic inflammation, and glutamate, it is essential to increase levels of antioxidant enzymes as well as levels of dietary and endogenous antioxidant compounds at the same time. This is accomplished by activating the Nrf2 pathways and by increasing the levels of antioxidant compounds and B-vitamins through supplementation. This book proposes a mixture of micronutrients that achieves this above goal. The mixture of micronutrients together with modification in diet and lifestyle may reduce the risk of chronic diseases and in combination with standard care, may improve the management of these diseases. KEY FEATURES * Provides evidence in support of the idea that increased oxidative stress, chronic inflammation, and glutamate are involved in the pathogenesis of chronic diseases. * Contains three new chapters on Huntington's disease, Autism spectra, and Prion disease. * Discusses the role of microRNAs in the pathogenesis of chronic diseases. * Presents information on regulation of the expression of microRNAs by reactive oxygen species and antioxidants. Micronutrients in Health and Disease, Second Edition serves as a valuable resource for those seeking to promote healthy aging and prevent and improved management of chronic diseases.

As people moved into cities and suburbs and embraced modern medicine and industrialized food, they lost their connection to nature, in particular to the plants with which humanity coevolved. These plants are essential components of our physiologies--tangible reminders of cross-kingdom signaling--and key not only to vibrant physical health and prevention of illness but also to soothing and awakening the troubled spirit. Blending traditional herbal medicine with history, mythology, clinical practice, and recent findings in physiology and biochemistry, herbalist Guido Mase explores the three classes of plants necessary for the healthy functioning of our bodies and minds--aromatics, bitters, and tonics. He explains how bitter plants ignite digestion, balance blood sugar, buffer toxicity, and improve metabolism; how tonic plants normalize the functions of our cells and nourish the immune system; and how aromatic plants relax tense organs, nerves, and muscles and stimulate sluggish systems, whether physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual. He reveals how wild plants regulate our heart variability rate and adjust the way DNA is read by our cells, controlling the self-destructive tendencies that lead to chronic inflammation or cancer. Offering examples of ancient and modern uses of wild plants in each of the 3 classes--from aromatic peppermint to bitter dandelion to tonic chocolate--Mase provides easy recipes to integrate them into meals as seasonings and as central ingredients in soups, stocks, salads, and grain dishes as well as including formulas for teas, spirits, and tinctures. Providing a framework for safe and effective use as well as new insights to enrich the practice of advanced herbalists, he shows how healing "wild plant deficiency syndrome"--that is, adding wild plants back into our diets--is vital not only to our health but also to our spiritual development.

The rapid growth of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) demands that the public, the medical world, social scientists, the media, and governments pay attention. People are questioning the limits of what modern medicine can accomplish and seeking additional ways to manage their health. While many are enthusiastically adopting complementary and alternative forms of medicine, others are more sceptical. Physicians' attitudes are in transition, and governments are pondering where this increasingly important phenomenon fits into the health care system. The challenge is to keep pace with the changing ways that people view health and illness, take reposibility for themselves, and incorporate CAM into their health care.
This text brings together for the first time a wide range of leading North American and European social scientists to identify who uses CAM, why they use it, and how they find out about it. Presenting research from psychology, sociology, anthropology and public health, they alert us to the current context of CAM use and provide new models and techniques for understanding its future place in health care.

Indigenous Knowledge and Development: Livelihoods, Health Experiences, and Medicinal Plant Knowledge in a Mexican Biosphere Reserve provides an ethnographic account of a group of indigenous people living in a natural resource protected area in west central Mexico. The political, economic, and social history of these indigenous Nahua people is related to their cultural knowledge. As an anthropological study, the analysis presented in this book is based on household level socioeconomic data and cultural knowledge measured through the use of both structured and semi-structured interviews. The study presented here moves back and forth between the macro- and micro- to explore the relationships between three central axes-health, livelihood and cultural knowledge. The Sierra of Manantlan Biosphere Reserve is the fieldsite where this study was carried out during 2007 and 2008. This Reserve is governed by explicit goals of cultural and natural resource preservation. Exhaustive household censuses give a comprehensive view of livelihood activities, and individual health experiences are measured using a structured interview. Demonstrated through the economic activity profiles present in the study sample, the indigenous people in the Reserve subsist through low-intensity agriculture, animal husbandry, and paid labor. Political histories of Mexico and the Reserve, specifically, continually shape subsistence strategies and the agrarian communities. Medical pluralism and the health profile in Mexico influence the local-level health status and access to health care services in the Reserve, demonstrated by the persistence of medicinal plant knowledge. The interviews with medicinal plant experts and biomedical practitioners are used to illustrate the spectrum of opinions regarding usage of medicinal plants across the three study communities in the Reserve. Significantly, there is neither a direct nor linear relationship between the loss of cultural knowledge and increasing modernity. This research contributes to ethnographic knowledge about conservation and cultural heritage on protected areas in Mexico.

This book explores how many issues related to development and governance -including migration, disaster management, environmental justice, peace and security, sustainability, public-private partnerships, and terrorism - impact the practice of social work. It takes a global, comparative approach, reflecting the global context in which social workers now operate.

Updated to cover the latest scientific developments, a must-read for individuals, families, and medical practitioners that opens a new door in psychiatric health care.
Psychiatry has made great advances in the past fifty years, but it needs a new direction. Today's emphasis on psychiatric drugs will not stand the test of time. Recent scientific advances, particularly in the molecular biology of the brain, have provided a road map for the development of effective, natural, drug-free therapies that do not produce serious side effects. Psychiatric medications have served society well over the last fifty years, but the need for drug therapies will fade away as science advances.
"Nutrient Power" presents a science-based nutrient therapy system that can help millions of people diagnosed with mental disorders. The author's database containing millions of chemical factors in blood, urine, and tissues has identified brain-changing nutrient imbalances in patients diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism, behavior disorders, depression, schizophrenia, and Alzheimer's disease. This book describes individualized nutrient therapy treatments that have produced thousands of reports of recovery. Walsh's approach is more scientific than the trial-and-error use of psychiatric drugs and is aimed at a true normalization of the brain.
Depression, schizophrenia, and ADHD are umbrella terms that encompass disorders with widely differing brain chemistries and symptoms. "Nutrient Power" describes nutrient therapies tailored to specific types, not umbrella solutions to individual problems, and offers a groundbreaking approach to psychiatric health care. Updates to the paperback edition include sections on nutrient therapies for bipolar disorder, expanded chapters on depression and schizophrenia, and analysis of the latest scientific developments in brain research and advanced nutrient therapies.

Acupuncture Treatment for Musculoskeletal Pain covers the basics of acupuncture theory and explains the precepts of Eastern medicine. The text is written for orthopaedic surgeons, anesthesiologists and rehabilitation medicine specialists, and will aid them in their diagnosis and treatment of musculoskeletal pain -- both acute and chronic -- as well as arthritis. Readers of the text will progress on a journey through healing that will serve as a useful adjunct to the procedures and medications currently in use. The author breaks the subject down into three sections: Basics of Acupuncture, Acupuncture Treatment of the Muscoloskeletal Acupuncture Points and Indications, and Special Techniques.

This excellent research based textbook addresses nursing care issues rather than disease processes and therefore looks at issues such as discharge planning, adolescents and cancer, coping strategies for family and staff. It concentrates on the psychological and social aspects of care and reflects the radical changes that have occurred in recent years in thisfield. These include better survival rates in childhood cancer, advanced therapies, the move to community based care and increasing awareness of the long term effects of treatment.All post-graduate nurses working with children with cancer, whether in a community or hospital setting will find this text invaluable. It will equally benefit post-graduate nurses studying professional and academic specialist courses such as the ENB 240 paediatric oncology course or those who are already qualified paediatric oncology nurses but who need to keep themselves updated or need a reference in this area.Expert contributors and editor in this field who will provide up-to- date and relevant analysis of the subject. Emphasises the partnership between nurse, child and family.Discusses the impact of treatment on the nursing team. This is an important chapter as there is a lack of knowledge regarding the emotional cost of caring for children with cancer.