From Dr. Andrew Weil

“Trend #1: Deterioration of Medical Philosophy and Practice
Technology has a shadow side. It accounts for real progress in medicine, but has also hurt it in many ways, making it more impersonal, expensive and dangerous. The false belief that a safety net of sophisticated drugs and machines stretches below us, permitting risky or lazy lifestyle choices, has undermined our spirit of self-reliance. The cold fact is that while Americans live more than 30 years longer than they did at the turn of the last century, public health measures such as better sanitation, immunizations, better food and water, and safer and less polluted workplaces account for 25 years of that increase; medical intervention, only five years. A recent study showed that in the 1990s, only about one in 16,000 Americans had his or her life saved or significantly extended by improvements in health-care technology. “Let’s Take the Stomachache Out of Health Care Reform” provides a real-world example of a different approach.”

The rest of the article is here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-weil-md/whats-wrong-with-american_b_261365.html

I really like the part that 5/6 of the increase in our life span is due to better sanitation and food supply.  People are now less likely to die of communicable diseases…but the double-edged sword of most deaths are due to chronic disease (most of which are preventable) but that is another story.  Acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine have a lot of tools to deal with lifestyle adjustments and dietary issues that can better help cope with disease.  If you are looking for relief from headaches, MS, obesity, heart disease…we may have some ideas for you to implement that can improve your quality of life without getting acupuncture.