Green tea boasts many other benefits so including a cup or two a day is an easy way to promote and maintain good health!

Acupuncture can be very effective in the treatment of allergies. Chronic allergy can indicate a deficiency in an aspect of the kidney’s yang energy, that can be remedied over time with a combination of acupuncture, heat treatment (through heat lamp or moxibustion) and attention to dietary factors. For more information, please feel free to contact us with any allergy-specific questions you may have.

Generally the trend has been for IVF success rates to rise for women up to the age of 42. For women between 40 and 42, the 2007 success rates were as high as 12%, increasing to over 32% for women under 35.

The new website is called ‘choose a fertility clinic’, and should be available through the HFEA site soon.

There is currently a lot of public worry about the spread of swine flu, especially when people see news reports of how quickly it is predicted to spread through the population. For those people who want to avoid conventional drug treatments, we have some traditional and natural preventative solutions that can help.

First of all, take some basic measures to keep your immune system strong. We recommend a good dose of Vitamin C and Zinc daily, and continue to eat healthily with lots of fresh fruit and vegetables.  Garlic has very powerful anti-bacterial and anti-viral actions, so eat plenty of it. Echinacea has an immune strengthening effect, and is also a powerful heat clearing herb, so is useful to take if any heat or fever symptoms appear.

At The Helix Clinic we have developed a traditional herbal formula that helps to create a strong defensive barrier to flu viruses. This formula is a variant of one that has been used for hundreds of years in China to guard against flu. We are making this formula available to all patients who can come in to see us, so if you are interested please feel free to contact us for more details.

The Spanish scientists found good quality sperm is a direct result of a diet high in antioxidants found in fruit and vegetables and especially in peppers, citrus fruits and spinach. Alternatively, sperm are fewer and slower in men who eat few antioxidants and instead feast on meat and full-fat dairy products such as cream or cheese.

Lead researcher Jaime Mendiola, of the University of Murcia, Spain, said: “A healthy diet is not only a good way of avoiding illness, but improves the quality of semen.

“Men who eat lots of meat and full-fat dairy products have much poorer quality sperm than those who eat lots of fruits, vegetables and low-fat dairy products. People who eat more fruits and vegetables are ingesting more antioxidants, and this is the important point.”

The scientists spent four years studying men in two fertility clinics in Spain to see if anything in their diets or exposure to pollution at work was making it difficult for some to father children.  The study included 61 men, 30 of whom had reproductive problems and 31 who didn’t.

The thing to remember is that ovulation kits predict impending ovulation by detecting the surge of a hormone called LH, or luteinizing hormone. LH is the catalyst that thrusts the egg out of the ovary during ovulation. When the basal body temperature rises as a result, ovulation has occurred because after ovulation, the leftover follicle (the corpus luteum) that encased the egg in the ovary starts producing progesterone, a heat-inducing hormone.

So, the progesterone causes the basal body temperature to rise, usually a day or two after ovulation, and there is usually a two or three day delay from the LH surge to the temperature rise. The LH surge happens first, then ovulation, and then the temperature rise.

This means that it is possible to have an LH surge and then still not ovulate.  If this happens, the ovulation predictor kit will register positive but the body temperature will not rise to a sustained higher level. This is why it is a good idea to track the temperature as well as use the ovulation predictor kit.

In a recent guideline, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has said that anyone whose pain persists for more than six weeks and up to a year should be given a choice of several treatments to try on the NHS.

In addition to painkillers and regular advice to stay active and carry on with normal activities as much as possible, patients, together with their doctor, can decide to try up to 10 sessions of acupuncture over a 12 week period.

Professor Peter Littlejohns, NICE Clinical and Public Health Director said: “This new NICE guideline means that for the first time we now have the means for a consistent national approach to managing low back pain.

“Importantly, patients whose pain is not improving should have access to a choice of different therapies including acupuncture, structured exercise and manual therapy.”

This news is very positive for the public perception of acupuncture, as it implicitly acknowledges a number of research studies that show acupuncture is effective in the treatment of back pain.

The Rhinitis Quality of Life Questionnaire (RQLQ) was filled in by patients at the start of the trial and again after 3 and 6 months. 487 patients were assigned to the acupuncture group, and 494 patients were in the control group (routine care without acupuncture).

The researchers found that the quality of life for patients as measured by the questionnaire was significantly higher in the acupuncture group compared to the control group after 3 months. The researchers also found that the improvement from acupuncture was greatest in the initial 3 month period.

The results of this trial are positive for acupuncture and  suggest that treating patients with allergic rhinitis in routine care with additional acupuncture leads to clinically relevant and persistent benefits.

Not many people have heard of the exotically named Quercetin, a phytochemical that is part of the coloring found in the skins of apples and red onions. It is a powerful anti-oxidant and is also a natural anti-histamine as well as being anti-inflammatory.

It has been isolated and is sold as a dietary supplement, but is also found in high quantities in apples and red onions. Quercetin’s antihistamine action may help to relieve allergic symptoms and asthma symptoms, and the anti-inflammatory properties may help to reduce pain and discomfort.

We would also recommend a diet high in other anti-oxidants and vitamin C. From the point of view of Chinese medicine, the herb Astragalus can also be a useful supplement, because of its strong immunity building properties.

It is vitally important to have a good pair of shoes for training, that are well cushioned and custom-built to support individual running gaits. However, even the right shoes cannot always prevent the ill effects of lots of running on the knee joints.

In our experience, we have always found acupuncture to be effective in the treatment of knee problems. It can sometimes be a little scary having acupuncture done to the knee, because the needles used are longer than normal body needles. This is because the acupuncture points that need to be stimulated are deep inside the knee joint. However, even though the needles have to go in quite deep, there is usually only a slight sensation which is not generally painful. Relief from symptoms usually occurs fairly soon after the treatment, and sometimes immediately after.

The reason acupuncture can work so well for knee problems is that it can ‘reach parts other therapies cannot’! No amount of manipulation or massage can have the same effectiveness compared to an acupuncture needle  placed directly into the knee joint.

The treatment is good for acute injuries, such as sprains, and also more chronic injuries, such as bad knees developed over many years due to lots of running or kneeling (e.g. electricians).