The field of energetic medicine began generations ago when medical doctors and scientists found an electrical correlate for what Rheinold Voll described, in the Nineteen Fifties, as medication testing on meridian points. These points showed electrical variability through resistance when a patient was exposed to various homoeopathically prepared substances. William Nelson, the developer of the Quantum Xrroid Consciousness Interface (QXCI) Device, calls this phenomenon electrophysiological reactivity. The developers of the QXCI device claim that the QXCI is able to connect deeply with the energies and tissues of the patient’s body, mind and spirit and test his or her reactions or “reactivity” to over eight thousand items. The QXCI then offers a wealth of software programs that make suggestions from many different modalities on balancing and reintegrating the body, mind and spirit of the patient. The QXCI device and software claims to analyse and balance stresses of many types including: toxicity, trauma, deficiency, perverse energy, pathogens, allergy, heredity and mental factors (Nelson, 2003). The results of research published by Nelson (1994b) and Nagy (1994b) showed that there was a correlation of over eighty percent between QXCI reactivity readings and conventional diagnostic tests and analysis for various infections and blood chemicals. As a result of this research the QXCI is recommended by the developers as a useful pre-diagnostic screen. The study aimed to determine whether there was any correlation between prediagnosed malaria, tuberculosis and diabetes mellitus subjects and QXCI reactivity readings. Reactivity readings were taken of twenty healthy individuals and twenty prediagnosed malaria, tuberculosis and diabetes mellitus subjects. Reactivity readings were analysed for increased reactivity to Plasmodium, Mycobacterium and glucose. Results showed no significant statistical relationship between the conventional diagnostic tests for malaria, tuberculosis and diabetes mellitus and the QXCI vi reactivity readings. The Predictive Value Theory tests of Sensitivity, Specificity and Efficiency as well as the Chi-Square Test were used to obtain statistical results. The results are not conclusive and further investigation into the use of the QXCI as a pre-diagnostic tool is required. / Dr. M.R.A. Moiloa Dr. J.L. Du Plessis

BACKGROUND:Obesity is an urgent public health problem, yet only a few clinical trials have systematically tested the efficacy of long-term weight-loss maintenance interventions. This randomized clinical trial tested the efficacy of a novel mind and body technique for weight-loss maintenance.METHODS:Participants were obese adults who had completed a six-month behavioral weight-loss program prior to randomization. Those who successfully lost weight were randomized into either an experimental weight-loss maintenance intervention, Tapas Acupressure Technique (TAT(R)), or a control intervention comprised of social-support group meetings (SS) led by professional facilitators. TAT combines self-applied light pressure to specific acupressure points accompanied by a prescribed sequence of mental steps. Participants in both maintenance conditions attended eight group sessions over six months of active weight loss maintenance intervention, followed by an additional 6 months of no intervention. The main outcome measure was change in weight from the beginning of the weight loss maintenance intervention to 12 months later. Secondary outcomes were change in depression, stress, insomnia, and quality of life. We used analysis of covariance as the primary analysis method. Missing values were replaced using multiple imputation.RESULTS:Among 285 randomized participants, 79% were female, mean age was 56 (standard deviation (sd) = 11), mean BMI at randomization was 34 (sd = 5), and mean initial weight loss was 9.8 kg (sd = 5). In the primary outcome model, there was no significant difference in weight regain between the two arms (1.72 kg (se 0.85) weight regain for TAT and 2.96 kg (se 0.96) weight regain for SS, p < 0.097) Tests of between- arm differences for secondary outcomes were also not significant. A secondary analysis showed a significant interaction between treatment and initial weight loss (p < .036), with exploratory post hoc tests showing that greater initial weight loss was associated with more weight regain for SS but less weight regain for TAT.CONCLUSIONS:The primary analysis showed no significant difference in weight regain between TAT and SS, while secondary and post hoc analyses indicate direction for future research.TRIAL REGISTRATION:ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT00526565

published_or_final_version / Behavioral Health / Master / Master of Social Sciences

Thesis (M.A.)--Memorial University of Newfoundland, 2002. / Bibliography: leaves 151-161.

Thesis (M.Ost.)--Unitec New Zealand, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 88-93).

The medical division between constitutional homeopathy and allopathic medicine shaped the culture in which William Faulkner grew up and wrote. Early 20th century America was daily subjected to a variety of conflicting approaches to maintaining or recovering physical, psychological, or spiritual health. The culture was discussing the role of vitalism for good health; the use and dosage of medicine to treat the individual or to treat the disease instead; the interaction of the mind, body, and spirit; the tendency of personality to emerge from inherent biology or acquired traits; the varied explanations for illness; and the legitimacy of doctors, their philosophies, and their remedies. These competing definitions of psycho-biological health informed Faulkner’s character conceptions and portrayals. In their psycho-biological traits, some of his characters represent concurrently published homeopathic descriptions of constitutions quite accurately. Faulkner’s own life may have offered him opportunities to learn about alternative medicine and generated an interest--along with other medical dissidents--in opposing the newly-garnered authority of modern scientific medicine. It is also likely that Faulkner’s own beliefs about a divinity present in humans and the human capacity to neglect their spiritual essence would have instead supported the older, more romanticized, homeopathic ideas based on mind-body typology to balance an invisible vitalism. Medicine and literature has recently established itself as an engaging and complementary-paired field in the humanities. This study contributes to the maturing interdisciplinary field by contemplating a famous author and some of his character portrayals from a medical or health perspective. This study of the writer and his fictional people suggests that the unorthodox ideology of homeopathy continued to play a role in the culture through literature, even as it lacked legitimate authority from the newly established medical community.