Maintaining Lifestyle Change: Beyond the Initial Health Scare
Health crises often drive patients to change, but sustaining those changes is the greater challenge. Research shows many return to old habits within two years. Ongoing support and integrative care can make healthier patterns last.
Why Acupuncture Could Be the Missing Piece in Back Pain Treatment for Over-50s
Back pain is one of the biggest reasons people lose independence as they age. Here’s how acupuncture is proving to be a safe, effective option for over-50s.
Pain Isn’t Just an Alarm... It’s an Experience Your Whole Life Shapes
Pain is real—but it isn’t a simple read‑out from injured tissue. What you feel is your nervous system’s running commentary on threat, shaped by sleep, stress, beliefs, hormones, movement load, diet, age, and health history. That’s why the same scan or diagnosis can hit different people in totally different ways
Reframing Inflammaging: A Clinical Perspective on Acupuncture, Chinese Herbal Medicine, and Ageing
Inflammaging—a term now well established in the biomedical literature—describes low-grade, persistent inflammation that accumulates with age. It underpins many of the chronic, non-specific symptoms we see in older patients: fatigue, musculoskeletal pain, poor sleep, digestive slowing, and decreased resilience.
These symptoms often present before frank pathology is measurable, making early intervention both difficult and crucial. This is where Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM)—particularly acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine—offers a valuable, evidence-aligned framework.
⚡ Pain, Fatigue & Mitochondrial Crosstalk
Low-grade chronic inflammation in ageing patients quietly sensitises pain receptors and disrupts mitochondrial energy production. This results in a clinical constellation often seen in older adults:
Persistent, nonspecific muscle or joint pain
Reduced physical resilience and easy fatigability
Non-restorative sleep and heightened sensory sensitivity
“Idiopathic” fatigue that doesn’t respond to conventional therapies
Emerging biomedical evidence highlights a bidirectional relationship: inflammation impairs mitochondrial function → lower ATP output → more reactive oxygen species (ROS) → further inflammation → more mitochondrial damage. This vicious cycle underpins syndromes like fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, and frailty.
Vascular Ageing and Endothelial Dysfunction
Inflammaging—the chronic, low-grade inflammation that accompanies ageing—is now widely recognised as a key contributor to vascular stiffening, endothelial dysfunction, and microvascular deterioration….TCM does not treat these changes symptomatically. Instead, it works systemically—restoring the functional relationships between organs, enhancing microcirculation, and addressing the root causes of degenerative vascular change.
Inflammaging: Chronic Inflammation, Tissue Breakdown, and the TCM Perspective
Inflammaging is more than a theory—it's increasingly recognised as a driver of degenerative and inflammatory changes in older patients. Here’s how Traditional Chinese Medicine interprets and addresses these changes using targeted, clinically applicable strategies.
Acupuncture Proven Effective for Chronic Pain: What the Research Says
Acupuncture Proven Effective for Chronic Pain: What the Research Says…