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Villarreal. Love the way. This is Optimal Living Daily Episode 2810. Do alternative therapies for weight loss like acupuncture, hypnosis, and Reiki work by Dr.
Neal of Optimal Health Daily. And I'm Dustin Molick. Every day I share one article with you, and sometimes two, and provide a bit of commentary at the end. But on Sundays, like today, I think it's nice to share an episode from another podcast in our Optimal family.
This is literally family because it's my brother's podcast, Optimal Health Daily. This is actually a Q&A episode that I'm sharing with you today where he answers your questions related to health and fitness, nutrition, diet, stress management, and more. And by the way, if you send in a relevant health-related question, and you're in the United States, I'll personally go to the post office and mail you a physical copy of our 216-page hardcover Optimal Living Daily Journal or workbook, whatever you want to call it. If you're outside of the US, I'll email you a digital version of it, because it's totally free.
All you have to do is send in a question to healthatoldpodcast.com, and then take a listen to that podcast on Fridays, especially for the Q&A's. Again, that's Optimal Health Daily. But with that, let's get right to the bonus episode of Q&A with my brother Dr. Neal from Optimal Health Daily as we optimize our life.
Hi, my name is Sandy. I'm 61, and I have a problem keeping it right off. I can lose it pretty quick with diet pill, but once I get it off, then I get it all back. So I'm wondering what Dan thinks about acupuncture and Reiki or hypnosis.
If you're using those things to learn, it's a concept to keep the weight off. I'm willing to try it if he thinks any of those are worthwhile. And actually, I'm interested to know his take on Reiki and acupuncture in general, so thank you very much. Thank you for your question, Sandy.
It's great to hear that you've had success with weight loss in the past. Now, I know that losing the weight initially isn't always the biggest challenge. It's keeping it off that gives us the most trouble. I mentioned that you wanted to know whether acupuncture, Reiki, and hypnosis have been shown to help folks keep those pounds from creeping back on.
So let's find out. Now, I'll start with acupuncture. Now, acupuncture has been around for a long, long time. The practice of acupuncture involves the insertion of needles at specific points on the body with the goal of promoting optimal health.
Acupuncture can be helpful treatment for many conditions and has actually been studied really thoroughly for a number of different illnesses. Now, some of these published studies did look at the relationship between acupuncture and weight loss. In fact, I did happen to find a meta-analysis that was published last year. I like looking at meta-analyses because these types of studies basically collect a bunch of other published research and then looks at them as a whole.
We often hear how one study found a particular treatment that might be helpful, but then another one says the complete opposite. Meta-analyses can help us make sense of these conflicting results. So, a meta-analysis, when performed well, is considered one of the best ways to evaluate research. Now, the authors of this particular article found that acupuncture alone was not all that helpful for weight management.
They did admit, though, that studying acupuncture is challenging. This is because there are so many different ways acupuncture is practiced. This makes it hard to make definitive conclusions. Some studies are finding acupuncture when used with other lifestyle interventions, like watching your calorie intake and regular exercise may help.
But here again, we still really know if it's the acupuncture that's helping or watching your calories and exercising regularly that's really doing the trick. So, here's the thing. If receiving acupuncture isn't causing you any harm, then feel free to try it out and stick with it. If you like it, and again, it's not causing any harm and it helps you feel better, just stick with it.
Just be sure to find a reputable acupuncturist. Now, acupuncturist licensure is regulated at the state level here in the U.S. In the state of California where I am, we have a state of California acupuncture board. So, you would want to make sure that your acupuncturist is licensed within your state.
Also, some health insurance plans will cover all or some of the costs of seeing an acupuncturist. Definitely call the office in advance to see which insurance plans they take, if any, and what your out-of-pocket costs might be. Next up, Reiki and Hypnosis. I'll start with Reiki first.
Now, Reiki is often associated with Eastern traditions and has supposedly been around for over 2,000 years to treat various conditions. The person practicing Reiki usually has the client lie down in front of them and using a very soft touch or no touch at all. Instead, the hands are held just above the body. The practitioner uses vibrational energy to help relieve the patient's symptoms or heal them completely.
Now, Reiki hasn't studied as a treatment for anxiety, depression, and pain relief, but I actually couldn't find any studies looking at whether it helps with weight management. This was the same issue, believe it or not, with hypnosis. Now, hypnosis usually involves a practitioner guiding the patient into a state of relaxation or highly focused attention or highly focused concentration. By doing this, the goal with hypnosis is to have the patient reach a trance-like state so that all the person's attention is focused on a specific task, like reducing smoking or overeating behaviors.
The trouble is, I could only find one or two studies that were published like over 20 years ago, looking at whether hypnosis was helpful for managing body weight. So here's the deal. I am willing to be more lenient here because both Reiki and hypnosis are unlikely to cause harm. So why am I so okay with recommending things that haven't been studied, you may ask?
Aren't I such a stickler when it comes to looking at the research? In other episodes, I've been really careful about having well-designed studies to back up my recommendations. So what gives here? Well, here, because there's a very low risk for harm, I can be more lenient.
But let's say you listen to an episode where I talk about, like, working out on an empty stomach, and I talk about how we don't have quality research to support this idea. Well, that's because the consequences of working out on an empty stomach can be pretty severe. Someone could develop low blood sugar and pass out during their workout. If they do this while they are swimming and pass out in a pool, that's really dangerous.
So here, with therapies like Reiki or hypnosis or even acupuncture, these are unlikely to cause any harm, so I can be more flexible. So the bottom line is, it's worth a try. Just be sure you find a licensed practitioner. Do your research first.
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Plus, it used to cost $499 right now. It's just $199. And head to superpower.com and use code old at checkout for an additional $20 off your membership. Thank you again for the question, Sandy.
And now we're always accepting more questions for the Friday Q&A. It makes me super happy to listen to and respond to your questions. You can email one to health at oldpodcast.com or just come by oldpodcast.com slash ask, or you can call in your question. The number is 61.
I love OHD. Alright, that's another week of optimal health daily. Thank you so much. As always for listening, thank you for your continued support.
I hope you have a wonderful weekend, a holiday weekend for those of you in the U.S. And I will still see you back here on Monday. We are optimal life. Oh, wait.