Barefoot Doctor's Journal

Take control of your health with this guide to natural health and healing. Get expert advice to help you alleviate pain and live healthy naturally. Access to tools, information and opportunities.

Take control of your health

For 5000 years Traditional Chinese Medicine has help people to relieve pain and achieve a healthy longevity naturally.

A comprehensive guide to natural health and healing, the Barefoot Doctor’s Journal seeks to empower it's readers to take control of their own health, find their own inspiration, help create healthier communities and share the adventure with whoever is interested. Internationally recognized experts in the fields of healthy aging and Traditional Chinese Medicine, the Living Younger Longer Institute has helped hundreds of people each year to live healthy naturally.

News You Can Use!

Providing members with the latest scientific research on the ancient healing secrets of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Get information, access to tools, and enjoyable opportunities for a lifetime of active adventure!

October 14, 2019
Joe Brady

Chinese Herbs and the Flu

First Clinical Trial of Ban Lan Gen Herb in Treatment of the Flu

Ban Lan Gen has been used in Chinese medicine for about 1000 years and is now slated to undergo its first random control trial, the gold standard in evidence-based medicine. Chinese Herbs and the Flu is the focus of scientists at Guangzhou Medical University they seek to study the efficacy and safety of Ban-Lan-Gen granules in the treatment against influenza A and B viruses in China. Scientists have started a large-scale clinical trial to comprehensively evaluate the effectiveness and safety of BLG against influenza infection, based on the results of a pilot study. This clinical trial will serve as an example for the study of other traditional herbal medicines in evidence-based clinical trials.

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October 6, 2019
Joe Brady

Complementary and Integrative Health: Twenty Years of Research Progress

The “NCCIH at 20” symposium examined accomplishments and progress in complementary and integrative health research – past, present, and future. Twenty years have passed since the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) was established and became one of the 27 Institutes and Centers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). 

Hosted by NCCIH at the NIH campus and is partially supported by the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health with a generous gift from Bernard and Barbro Osher.The symposium examined NCCIH milestones related to the development of research methods and how this work continues to address evolving public health concerns, including chronic pain, military and veteran health, depression, and anxiety. The symposium also explored priority areas for scientific discovery, including the human microbiome, the neuroscience of pain, complementary and integrative approaches to tackle the opioid crisis and whole health systems. 

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September 30, 2019
Joe Brady

Taoist Yoga/ Medical Qigong

On the day you were born your parents gave you three treasures, they gave you a mind, They gave you a body and they gave you the Qi, the Chinese word for the body”s energy and the connections between the mind and the body. These are the three treasures in traditional Chinese medicine, the san bao.

In Taoist Chinese yoga practices, these day’s known in the west as Qigong, it is your duty as a human being to cultivate all three treasures throughout your life. Qigong practices seek to strengthen the body and keep it healthy. To improve breathing function, diet nutrition and herbs are used to improve the body’s energy levels. Last but not least Qigong practices look to strengthen the mind and keep learning and strengthen the connections between the mind and the body. Ultimately in Qigong the mind becomes the center of command control and coordination, and the body becomes a fit instrument with the strength and vigor to execute the minds will and engage the world. 

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September 22, 2019
Joe Brady

Food is Medicine

Food is medicine, Hippocrates reportedly said: “Let food be thy medicine, and let medicine be thy food.” We all know this is true yet with all the confusing and seemingly conflicting information out there about diet and nutrition it is hard to know what is right. Former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop made the point in his 1988 Surgeon General’s Report on Nutrition and Health, that this is the nature of nutrition studies, “they all come out a little different”. When it comes to nutrition you cannot just look at one study, it’s too variable. To understand nutrition you have to look at thousands of studies to see the trends. Fortunately, we don’t have to read them all, it’s already been done many times. Whether it is the Mediterranean, diet, the Okinawan diet, the Chinese diet or a hundred other variations it all comes down to a simple concept called nutrient density.

A nutrient-dense healthy diet is one that pack as much nutrition into the recipes with as few calories as the flavor will allow. The trick really is making the food delicious. This is where diets like the Mediterranean diet can help because good cooks over a long period of time around the Mediterranean sea have applied themselves to creating delicious recipes that have stood the test of time. By exploring the cuisine of Greece, Italy and theMiddle East we can make healthy eating an adventure in culinary alchemy.

Read on and watch the Ted Talk with Dean Ornish

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September 15, 2019
Joe Brady

The Myth of Memory

Improving Memory, Learning and Concentration

Age related memory loss?

In the absence of any disorders, a healthy human brain shows no measurable decline as we age. Only 14% of folks over the age of 65 show any measurable memory loss whatsoever. That means you have an 86% chance of going to you grave as sharp as you ever were. Assuming you were all that sharp to begin with.

Aging doesn’t necessarily cause memory loss as we get older. Older adults who have an active lifestyle, including regular physical activity, mental activity, and social interaction, could have a short-term memory as sharp as any young person.

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