An overview of Qigong as Energy Medicine, information on its effectiveness as a therapy, a list of references, and a call for a Human Energy Project - Tom Rogers, Vice-President of the Qigong Institute.

A description of the affects of Qigong on body oxygen levels, the lymph system, and nervous sytem - Dr. Roger Jahnke, OMD

Professor Julia Tsuei (M.D)'s describes the science of acupuncture and meridians appearing in IEEE, ENGINEERING IN MEDICINE AND BIOLOGY Magazine, Volume 15, Number 3, May/June 1996. Also see Evidence-Based Acupuncture and What is a Meridian?

The U.S. Government's National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) which is part of the National Institutes of Health has published this introductory white paper on Energy Medicine.

The physiological and energetic basis for Qigong's benefits - Jim Loretta

Function/organ

How measured?

Effect

Brain

Local oxygen consumption via functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)

Stimulation of specific acupoints resulted in changes in activity at specific locations in the brain.  For instance, stimulation of foot acupoints commonly used to treat eye disorders increased activity at the visual cortex while treatment of a foot acupoint used for pain relief deactivated the activity at pain centers at the cingulate cortex of the brain.

Independent Component Analysis of electroencephalograms (EEG)

Increase in alpha and theta waves resulting from meditation was also accompanied by an increase in beta waves.   Since alpha and theta waves signify a state of relaxation and rest while beta waves reflect a state of alert consciousness, this analysis indicate that meditation is a dual state of “relaxed concentration”.  This conclusion is consistent with the common notion that mediation is not only an excellent way to achieve deep rest, but also an effective way to train the mind to be sharply focused during mental activities in every day life.

The brain is both relaxing and concentrating during Qigong meditation!

Read a short description of the five Brainwave States.

Cell culture

Growth rate and biochemical analysis

(1) Cancer cells grown on culture plates had a slower growth rate following exposure to external Qi emitted by a top Zen meditation master.  (2) The treated cancer cells exhibited more of the characteristics of normal cells.

Intracellular calcium concentration

Calcium ions measured with a fluorescence indicator dye assay

Exposure to external Qi caused a substantial increase in intracellular calcium concentration in cancer cells grown in culture.

Immune system

Hormone concentration in blood

14 weeks after starting practice of Guolin Qigong (a style popular among Chinese cancer patients), a group of normal subjects had a substantial decrease in stress hormone (i.e., cortisol) and interleukin 10 (suppresses anti-cancer immunity) and an increase in interferon (protects against cancer) in the blood stream

Acupoints and meridians

Conductance and capacitance at meridian terminus acupoints

Following a Qigong practice session, the Qigong masters' electrical conductance and capacitance measured at acupoints at the terminals of meridians went up very substantially.  These results could be interpreted as a reflection of the enhancement of the flow of Qi through the corresponding meridians and the strengthening of associated organs in the body.

Research in China on meridians has not been published in Pubmed: e.g. from the injection of radioactive tracers, measurements of pressure resistance to injected fluids, higher rate of transmission of sound and electricity, spreading of feeling of de qi from needling an acupoint, etc.

24 articles from 29 studies in publications from 1970 to 2007 were searched to support or refute the claim that acupuncture points or meridians possess distinct electrical properties. The reported electrical associations at acupuncture points include increased conductance, decreased resistance/impedance, elevated capacitance, and higher potential compared to controls. (Ref: Ahn, J.Alt.Compl.Med. Oct 2007. p.899).

Cardiac system

Heart rate variability (HRV) analysis of data from electrocardiograhy (EKG) is becoming an increasingly common method to non-invasively evaluate autonomic nervous function.  In many studies, low frequency variability (LF, < 0.15 Hz as shown in the power spectrum produced by fast Fourier transformation of time series data) is taken as an indicator of sympathetic function, and high frequency variability (HF, > 0.15 Hz) as an indicator of parasympathetic function

In a published study by Dr. Zhong-Yuan Shen and collaborators at the Qigong Research Institute (QRI) of the Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, regulation of respiration by a group of Qigong masters produced cycles of increase and decrease in heart rate (defined medically as Heart Rate Variability) corresponding to slow and deep breathing cycles as indicated by computer analysis of electrocardiograms (EKG).  This effect is apparently caused by conscious control of the autonomic nervous system, which in turn regulates the heart rate.  In a related study at the QRI, Qigong meditation was accompanied by fast cycles of heart rate variability.  Because such a variability pattern is normally seen during deep sleep, this result supports the notion that meditation is a very effective way to deeply refresh the mind and the body.

Circulatory System

Laser Doppler Flowmetry and an infrared imaging system.

Qigong masters were asked to focus their intention on sending their internal Qi to their hands.  This resulted in significant increases in blood flow in their hands and a corresponding increase in the temperature of that part of the body. According to Traditional Chinese Medicine, qi follows intent (i.e. mind intent) and the blood follows the qi.

Single photon counting device

Detected changes in emission of visible light (i.e. biophotons) from the hands. The dark adapted eye can detect single photons

Chemical absorption of laser light shone through the skull (i.e., transcranial photon migration spectroscopy)

Qigong deep breathing and breath-holding exercises produced a strong increase in oxygen content in capillaries of the forebrain.

The term coherence is used to describe two or more waves (or systems) that are either phase- or frequency-locked. This is also called entrainment. In the coherent mode, respiration, heart rhythms, and blood pressure rhythms become entrained and oscillate at the same frequency. The term cross-coherence is used to specify this type of coherence. Note that this use of the term coherent is different than its use to describe coherent waves, which are man-made concentrated radiation that can harm biological organisms.

Physiological Coherence: A state characterized by:

• High heart rhythm coherence ((sine wave-like rhythmic pattern)
• Increased parasympathetic activity
• Increased entrainment and synchronization between physiological systems
• Efficient and harmonious functioning of the cardiovascular, nervous ,hormonal and immune systems

Sustained positive emotions affect bodily functions. Thus, there are physiological correlates of positive emotion. This is called psychophysiological coherence. This mode, characterized by heart rhythm coherence, increased heart-brain synchronization and entrainment of diverse physiological oscillatory systems, is associated with increased emotional stability, improved cognitive performance, and a range of positive health-related outcomes. Additionally, individuals frequently report feelings of increased spiritual connectedness during psychophysiologically coherent states.

Through the use of tools and technologies that foster positive emotions and psychophysiological coherence, individuals can effectively initiate a repatterning process, whereby habitual emotional patterns underlying stress are replaced with new, healthier patterns that establish increased emotional stability, mental acuity, and physiological efficiency.

The heart generates the largest electromagnetic field in the body. The electrical field as measured in an electrocardiogram (ECG) is about 60 times greater in amplitude than the brain waves recorded in an electroencephalogram (EEG). The magnetic component of the heart's field, which is around 5000 times stronger than that produced by the brain, is not impeded by tissues and can be measured several feet away from the body with Superconducting Quantum Interference Device (SQUID)-based magnetometers. Clear rhythmic patterns in beat-to-beat heart rate variability are distinctly altered when different emotions are experienced. These changes in electromagnetic, sound pressure, and blood pressure waves produced by cardiac rhythmic activity are "felt" by every cell in the body, further supporting the heart's role as a global internal synchronizing signal.

Bioenergetic Marker

How Measured

Higher level of heat emission at the palm

Infrared thermography

Increase in pre-polarization electrical conductance at acupoints

Motoyama’s single square voltage pulse method (averaged over hand and foot points)

Increase in biophoton emission

Single photon counting system

Greater change in bioelectrical charge measured at the finger tips

Bioelectrography: Gas discharge visualization (GDV)

The nervous system is a network based on neurotransmitters (chemical proteins which consist of peptides).

A "second" nervous system based on ligands and receptors (vibrating molecules/peptides) coordinates the activities of cells throughout the body. This includes the endocrine, neurological, gastrointestinal, and immune systems. Peptides are created throughout the body. Peptides that affect the brain are called neuropeptides. Brain function is moderated by both neurotransmitters and neuropeptides. A "gut feeling" is related to the density of receptors in the intestines.

Emotions are physically instantiated as neuropeptides and their receptors, both of which can be found throughout the body. Physiology and emotions are inseparable. There's a wonderful section in the movie What the Bleep which depicts this process.

Cells are constantly signaling other cells via neuropeptides, which bind with receptors. The signaled cells respond by making physiologic changes. These changes create a feedback loop to the signaling cell, providing a mechanism to moderate the production of the neuropeptides.

Virtually any peptide found anywhere in the body can be found in the respiratory center. This may provide the substrate for the powerful healing effects of consciously controlled breathing.

Psychoneuroimmunology is the study of the functional integration via peptides of the nervous, endocrine, and immune systems. Neuropeptides and their receptors join the brain, glands, the spleen, bone marrow, and immune system in a multi-directional network of communication between the brain and body. At the molecular level, there is no difference between the mind and the body.

Conscious breathing modulates peptide production and activity which in turn creates the healing effects associated with Qigong breathing practices.

The function of the nervous system is to perceive the environment and coordinate the response/behavior of all cells in the body

Environmental influences, including nutrition, stress, and emotions can modify genes without changing their basic blueprint

Chromosomal contents of the nucleus of the cell are made up of an equal combination of DNA and regulatory proteins

Information that controls biology starts with environmental signals that in turn, control the binding of regulatory proteins to the DNA. The regulatory proteins direct the activity of the genes.

The malignancies in 95 percent of breast cancers are derived from environmentally-induced epigenetic alterations and not defective genes.

Humans have about the same number of genes as rodents; only 9000 more genes than fruit-flies; and only 1500 more genes than microscopic worms. How can we be so complex with so few genes?

The nucleus of a cell is simply a memory disk, a hard drive containing the DNA programs that encode the production of proteins - proteins are part of the endocrine system and they control the autonomic nervous system as well as all other bodily functions

Since each atom has its own specific energy signature (wobble or vibration), molecules radiate their own identifying energy patterns. Every material structure in the universe, including individual humans, radiates a unique energy signature.

Specific frequencies of electromagnetic radiation regulate DNA, RNA, and protein synthesis, alter protein shape and function and control gene regulation, cell division, cell differentiation, hormone secretion, nerve growth and function.

Electromagnetic or acoustic vibrations can create a constructive interference or "harmonic resonance" in atoms. The atom absorbs energy and starts to vibrate faster as a result. Kidney stones have been treated by doctors with constructive interference mechanics. Focused energy waves interact with atoms.

Thoughts, the mind's energy, directly influences how the brain controls the body. Thoughts, a form of energy, can activate or inhibit the function of a cell's proteins via constructive or destructive interference.

Our conscious mind experiences the chemical communication signals between cells as emotions.

If positive thinking/emotions is good for you, imagine what negative thinking can do.

Physics: The mathematical description of nature

Special Theory of Relativity (1905)

E= mc² = Qi

Einstein: Energy is mass; mass is energy

"wu li" ("organic patterns of energy") is Chinese for "physics"

Quantum Physics/Mechanics

The study of the relationship between matter (yin) and energy (yang)

Qi = yin qi + yang qi

Quantum Physics is asking the same questions and arriving at the same conclusions as Qigong/Taoism and Buddhism

All of these disciplines have a similar description of reality

Reality perceived intuitively through right-brain and direct experience instead of symbols/left-brain

Reality is described mathematically

Impermanence/change

Buddhism: "Emptiness is form - Form is emptiness" - The Heart Sutra

Dalai Lama: Emptiness is a state and a process. It is the purified mind or the natural purity of mind -- The original/ultimate nature or state of mind.

It is not true that you came into this world. You came out of it. Alan Watts.

Feynman or "vacuum diagram" - From "empty space" comes something  and then it disappears back into empty space. Matter appears out of thin air, and then disappears.

It is not possible according to our usual conceptions for "something" to come out of "empty space"; but, at the subatomic level, it does - Dancing W-Li Masters, page 267.

What we call matter (i.e. mass or particles) is being forever created, annihilated, and created again.

Interconnected/interdependence. Unity.

Taoism - unity is implied in the interdependence of things

Bodies in space and the space surrounding them are two aspects of a single continuum. Alan Watts.

"wu li" = organic patterns of energy. Nothing is separate. According to physics, everything is a web of relationships between elements. There is nothing but space-time and motion, and they are the same thing.

The idea that objects exist apart from event is part of the epistemological net with which we snare our particular form of experience. This idea is dear to us because we have accepted it, without question, as the basis of our reality. It profoundly influences how we see ourselves. It is the root of our inescapable sense of separateness from others and environment - Dancing Wu Li Masters, Page 279.

Bell's Theorem: separate parts of the universe are connected in an immediate way. The results of Bell's experiment are said to have shown that subatomic particles that are far apart are able to communicate in ways that cannot be explained by the transfer of physical signals traveling at or slower than the speed of light. Many physicists regard these 'nonlocal' connections as absolutely instantaneous.

Bohm: implicate order: There is an unbroken wholeness at the most fundamental level.

ZPF - The Zero Point Field is the empty vacuum of space that is uniform and isotropic (the same in all directions) which is why it is so hard to detect and observe. The ZPF consists of enormous residual background energy (ZPE or Zero Point Energy) which, according to classical physics, is brought into existence (form) by the laws of Quantum Mechanics.

Stochastic Electrodynamics goes a step further than Quantum Mechanics and postulates that the ZPF is real and is as fundamental as the universe itself.

Buddhism: Dependent origination

Taoism: wu-wei - being spontaneous and letting everything follow its natural course, the way of nature

You function by happening, that is to say, by spontaneous occurrence. Alan Watts.

At the quantum level, the wave function (the possibilities that can happen to an observed system) are described by probabilities that are a function of chance.

Particles exist as combinations of other particles

S-matrix theory: "particles" are intermediate states in a network of interactions

Now = presence = the present moment = enlightenment = satori = great spirit = emptiness = samadhi = nirvana = perfection = Unity = Tao = ego-less state (listen to Eckart Tolle explain enlightenment). Listen to neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor describe her experience of losing her left brain and discovering her connection to the world.

Ram Dass said it with the name of his book - Be Here Now as did Eckart Tolle - The Power of Now

Read Gunther Weil's profound Qigong as a Portal to Presence.

Minowski mathematical proof based on Theory of Relativity: For each individual, the past and future meet at a single point: now.

Human mystical "knowing"

Zero-point vacuum fluctuations might be detected

Maya - Sanscrit for illusion. Reality is real. What is not real is our perception of it.

Cause and effect are a central part of our maya. You can't break unity apart to get a separate "cause" and its "effect"

Von-Neumann: our thought processes (symbols) project illusory restrictions on the real world. In other words, the mind molds reality.

Technology

Description/Therapy

Acupuncture

Inserting needles at particular points in the body to alleviate pain or cure illness by balancing the body's energy

Bioelectrography

See Gas Discharge Visualization.

Colorpuncture (laser therapy). Also called Laserneedle Acupuncture and laserpuncture

Light is focused on acupuncture and other points on the skin to stimulate healing. In general the use of lasers for healing is referred to as Low-Intensity Laser Therapy (LILT) or Low Level Laser Therapy (LLLT). For more information see Healing with Electromedicine and Sound Therapies - Part Two .

Computerized Axial Tomography (CAT/CT)

Combines multiple x-rays via computers to create 3-dimensional images of parts of the body

Electrocardiogram (EKG/ECG)

Measures the electrical current of the heart.

Electroencephalogram (EEG)

Electroencephalography measures the electrical current of the brain.

Electrohydraulic lithotripsy (EHL)

A flexible probe breaks up small kidney stones with shock waves generated by electricity.

Electromyography

Measures electrical activity generated by muscles.

Electron microscopy

Microscopy using an electron beam instead of light to form an image.

Extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy (ESWL)

Highly focused impulses projected from outside the body pulverize kidney stones anywhere in the urinary system.

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI)

Diagnostic technique for obtaining images of soft body tissue via magnetic fields and the radio waves generated by them

Gas Discharge Visualization (GDV)

Bioelectrography is a new and controversial field within physics whose purpose is to study the electric emissions of objects and living organisms. The method used in bioelectrography is called the Gas Discharge Visualization (GDV) technique. It is a more advanced technique than Kirlian photography and has been accepted as a medical technology by the Russian Ministry of Health. It creates a computer model inreal time of the energies measured by GDV, and is thought to be able to perceive 'imbalances' in energy fields which can then be used as a tool for medical diagnosis.

Technically, GDV is capturing the image of gas discharge during exposure to EMF. The cells exposed to the EMF produce a burst of electron-ion emission and optical radiation light quanta in the visual and ultraviolet light regions of the EM spectrum. These particles and photons initiate electron-ion avalanches, which create the gas discharge along the dielectric surface. A spatial distribution of discharge channels is registered via glass plate by an optical system with a CCD TV camera, and then it is digitized. The avalanche effect amplification of the object response can only occur in ionized gas and does not work in a vacuum.

Radiosurgery is a non-invasive medical procedure in which high-energy X-rays are delivered to a target area within the body from a machine outside the body. With the HD120 MLC, which is part of PAMF’s Novalis Tx® radiosurgery system from Varian Medical Systems and BrainLab, patients receive an ultra-precise dose of high-intensity radiation – accurate within fractions of a centimeter – while avoiding the pain and complications associated with conventional “open” surgery. Palo Alto Medical Foundation March 2008 e-HealthNews Volume 5 Issue 3.

A more general term for radiosurgery is Radio Frequency Ablation (RFA) which essentially heats tumors and kills them. Results show it to be extremely effective and can be used with advanced lung cancer where conventional surgery is not possible.

Magnetoencephalography

The measurement of magnetic fields over the head  which are generated by electrical currents in the brain

Positron Emission Tomography (PET)

A computerized imaging technique that utilizes a radioactive dye. This type of imaging may reveal tissue problems that are not visible on CT or MRI scans.

Proteomics (the study of proteins)

This technology is based upon mass spectrometry coupled with hyphenated separation techniques such as two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2DE) and micro- or nano-scale multidimensional liquid chromatography. The technique of proteomics is one of the fastest developments with the farthest-reaching consequences in the high and new biotechnology in the world of today. It can be used to screen the target molecules of the action of traditional Chinese medicines, to identify the new effective components from traditional Chinese medicines, and to explore the mechanisms of the effects of traditional Chinese medicines.

Pulsed EM fields

Effective for treating slow-healing fractures

Superconducting Quantum Interface Device (SQUID)

Diagnostic device that can detect minute magnetic fields. SQUIDS map biomagnetic fields produced by physiological processes in the body. One example is recording the magnetic field of the heart (magnetocardiography). Since thinking causes electrical signals in the brain which in turn produce magnetic fields, it's possible to detect thoughts, even at a distance, using SQUIDS

Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS)

Stimulates the brain with magnetics fields

Ultrasonic lithotripsy

High frequency sound waves delivered through an electronic probe break up kidney stones

Ultrasound

High intensity ultrasound successfully used to seal punctured lungs. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070830160753.htm

Ultrasound stethoscope uses Doppler effect to screen out outside noise and amplify internal body sounds.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/videos/2007/0410-ultrasound_stethoscope.htm

High intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) stops internal bleeding without surgery

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/11/011115072310.htm

Ureteroscopy

A laser may be used to break up a kidney stone.

Vega Test

A highly effective electronic procedure to detect all allergy conditions by monitoring skin impedance at acupuncture points.