The Ayurveda hospitals in Kerala are facing major crisis as there are complaints of Ayurveda pharmacies running short of several important drugs and the resultant dwindling turnout of patients to these hospitals.
Medical Officers in the ayurvedic dispensaries and hospitals complain that their pharmacies are running short of many important drugs and the number of patients coming to the hospital is steadily decreasing. The situation blights the existence of these traditional medical institutions by forcing the patients to depend on allopathic hospitals and expensive methods of treatments.
Due to non-availability of drugs, patients have to purchase these medicines from private medical shops by giving huge prices. “Only economically stable patients can afford them, but it becomes difficult for the poor patients to do so,” said a medical officer belongs to Idukki district in Kerala.
Apart from the drug shortage, all the Indian medicine hospitals are working without sufficient staff such as pharmacists, nurses and attenders. According to the medical officers, government is showing no interest in Ayurveda hospitals and the sector itself is in a major crisis.
In a chat with Pharmabiz during the Ayurveda Medical Association’s state conference in Kozhikode in Kerala, the physicians of Ayurveda system said the hospitals are getting an allotment of Rs.75000 from government during three terms for procurement of medicines. Since the hospitals come under the local bodies, additional expenditures are incurred by the local Panchayats, most of whom do not have supportive attitude.
“The delivery of supply is done by Aushadhi, but we have to wait three to six months period to get it. Government or the local Panchayats do not take any step to avoid the delay. There is always shortage of the essential ‘Kashaayams’, tablets, 'Arishtams', ointment and powders. So we advise the patients to buy the medicines from outside. Recently, the government has given order to Aushadhi to deliver the supply within two months of the intent received,” said a doctor.
An ayurveda dispensary or hospital should have some essential Kashaayams including Rasnerandaathi, Punarnavaathi, Desamoola Kaduthrayam and Rasnaasthakam, but these medicines are not available in most of the hospitals in Kerala, said the doctors. In the case of tablets, shortage is there for Kaishoragugulu, Yogarajagugulu, Vettumaaran and Chandraprabha.
Arishtams such as Amruthaarishtam, Abhayaarishtam, Mustaarishtam and Vaashaarishtam, oils including Murivenna, Karpooradi thailam, Kottamchukkaathi and Pindathailam, ointments like Dhanwantharam, Sahacharaadi, and powders such as Taaleesapathraadi and Raasnaadi are also not available in any of the hospitals or dispensaries functioning across the state.
The members of AMAI said Kerala has about 800 Ayurveda dispensaries which are controlled by the local bodies. But in 256 Panchayaths, there are no dispensaries.
Meanwhile, when contacted, joint director of ISM admitted that there is pending of supply from Aushadhi and said the management of dispensaries and hospitals in the villages is under the control of local bodies whose duty is to procure the medicines on time. He said there is no budget allocation for purchase of medicines to these Ayush hospitals from the government.
Source:Pharmabiz
Monday, 30 January 2012
Sunday, 29 January 2012
Shrinking Research Funding Resulting in Rising Problem of Scientific Plagiarism
Since scientific researchers are becoming fiercely competitive for scarce funding, scientific journals are increasing efforts to identify submissions that plagiarize the other’s work.
"We need a better system," said Harold Garner, executive director of the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute at Virginia Tech. Garner discussed the problem and solution in a Comment in the January 4, 2012 issue of Nature and in a January 19, 2012 radio interview with NPR's Leonard Lopate.
Garner, creator of eTBLAST plagiarism detection software, identified numerous instances of wholesale plagiarism among citations in MEDLINE. "When my colleagues and I introduced an automated process to spot similar citations in MEDLINE, we uncovered more than 150 suspected cases of plagiarism in March, 2009.
"Subsequent ethics investigations resulted in 56 retractions within a few months. However, as of November 2011, 12 (20 percent) of those "retracted" papers are still not so tagged in PubMed. Another two were labeled with errata that point to a website warning the papers are "duplicate" -- but more than 95 percent of the text was identical, with no similar co-authors."
But even when plagiarism is uncovered, it does not guarantee that the plagiarized articles will be retracted. In Garner's study, as noted in his Nature commentary, "Three of the 56 retracted papers are cited in books, including one citation after the retraction. Another eight were cited in other PubMed Central archived articles before retraction, and seven were cited after retraction."
Some researchers say plagiarism has become a pandemic in many large institutions and schools, and that there is an entire industry built on the business of copying the work of others for the purpose of developing theses content and technical papers.
Quelling the proliferation of scientific plagiarism by identifying and retracting plagiarized articles is not the only issue. Publication editors and researchers must agree on the definition of plagiarism as noted in Nature.
Said Garner, "Ultimately, plagiarism comes down to human judgment, similar to other questionable practices -- you know it when you see it."
Source-Eurekalert
Study Reveals Secret Behind Centenarians' Longevity
Researchers have found that genetic variants play a crucial and complex role in the exceptional longevity in centenarians.The findings of the study by researchers from the Boston University Schools of Public Health and Medicine, Boston Medical Center, IRCCS Multimedica in Milan, Italy, and Yale University are the corrected version of work originally published in Science in July 2010.
The new study includes additional authors who independently assessed and helped to produce a valid genotype data set, for which the same analysis as in the original paper was performed. It also contains an additional replication data set of subjects with an average age of 107.
Centenarians are a model of healthy aging, as the onset of disability in these individuals is generally delayed until they are well into their mid-90s.
Because exceptional longevity can run strongly in families, and numerous animal studies have suggested a strong genetic influence on life span, the researchers set out to determine which genetic variants play roles in human survival beyond 100 years of age.
They used a well-established Bayesian statistical method for determining which single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs, or genetic variants) could, as a group, be used to categorize subjects as centenarians versus controls, based solely upon the genetic information.
The predictive sensitivity of the model they developed, which contains 281 SNPs, increased with the age of the subject, supporting the hypothesis that genes play an increasingly strong role in survival in centenarians.
The model was able to predict exceptional longevity with 60 to 85 percent accuracy, depending on the average age of the replication sample that was used. The older the sample, the stronger the sensitivity.
Many of the 130 known genes associated with the SNPs in the prediction model have been shown by other gerontologists to play roles in age-related diseases and aging, said the study's lead researchers, Paola Sebastiani, PhD, professor of biostatistics at the BU School of Public Health, and Thomas Perls, MD, MPH, associate professor of medicine at the BU School of Medicine.
"This is a useful step towards meaningful predictive medicine and personal genomics," said Dr. Perls, a geriatrician at Boston Medical Center.
"When people can do this kind of analysis on whole genome sequences for traits that have important genetic components, the predictive value should be even better," he stated.
The corrected study, as did the original, found that subjects who shared the same profile of variations for genetic markers in the model appeared to share similar levels of risk for various traits or diseases associated with exceptional longevity-most notably, in their ages of survival.
The revised publication appeared in PLoS ONE.
Source-ANI
Centenarians are a model of healthy aging, as the onset of disability in these individuals is generally delayed until they are well into their mid-90s.
Because exceptional longevity can run strongly in families, and numerous animal studies have suggested a strong genetic influence on life span, the researchers set out to determine which genetic variants play roles in human survival beyond 100 years of age.
They used a well-established Bayesian statistical method for determining which single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs, or genetic variants) could, as a group, be used to categorize subjects as centenarians versus controls, based solely upon the genetic information.
The predictive sensitivity of the model they developed, which contains 281 SNPs, increased with the age of the subject, supporting the hypothesis that genes play an increasingly strong role in survival in centenarians.
The model was able to predict exceptional longevity with 60 to 85 percent accuracy, depending on the average age of the replication sample that was used. The older the sample, the stronger the sensitivity.
Many of the 130 known genes associated with the SNPs in the prediction model have been shown by other gerontologists to play roles in age-related diseases and aging, said the study's lead researchers, Paola Sebastiani, PhD, professor of biostatistics at the BU School of Public Health, and Thomas Perls, MD, MPH, associate professor of medicine at the BU School of Medicine.
"This is a useful step towards meaningful predictive medicine and personal genomics," said Dr. Perls, a geriatrician at Boston Medical Center.
"When people can do this kind of analysis on whole genome sequences for traits that have important genetic components, the predictive value should be even better," he stated.
The corrected study, as did the original, found that subjects who shared the same profile of variations for genetic markers in the model appeared to share similar levels of risk for various traits or diseases associated with exceptional longevity-most notably, in their ages of survival.
The revised publication appeared in PLoS ONE.
Source-ANI
Olive Oil May Protect Against Liver Damage
An impaired antioxidant defence of the body is one of the major causes for the development of heart disease, cancer and premature degeneration of the nerve cells. A healthy human body maintains a balance between the generation of Reactive Oxidant Species (ROS) which cause oxidation, and the counteractive antioxidant defences. ROS are by-products of normal metabolic processes and accidental exposure to occupational chemicals like pesticides accelerate their production.
Ar ecent study reported that rats fed on a diet containing olive oil were protected from liver damage following exposure to a moderately toxic chemical called 2,4-Dichlorophenoxyaceticacid (2,4-D). 2,4-D is one of the most widely used herbicides that causes liver damage. It is known to produce oxidative stress, and/or deplete antioxidants.
In the study, rats fed on the herbicide 2,4-D were supplemented with either extra virgin olive oil, or one of its extracts (hydrophilic or lipophilic).
2,4-D caused significant liver damage in the rats. Intake of extra virgin olive oil or its hydrophilic fraction induced a substantial increase in antioxidant activity and decreased markers of liver damage. These two contained a high amount of phenols, which could contribute to the antoxidant effect. The lipophilic fraction, which was deprived of phenols, failed to produce a protective effect.
Authors of the study concluded that extra virgin olive oil and its hydrophilic extract protect against oxidative damage of liver cells. More detailed studies dealing with the effect of antioxidant compounds separately and/or their interactions could corroborate these results.
Reference: Effects of olive oil and its fractions on oxidative stress and the liver's fatty acid composition in 2,4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic acid-treated rats; Amel et al; Nutrition & Metabolism 2010.
Company combines genomics and digital tech for a health care revolution
Modern medical technology is revealing the secrets of the human genome at an accelerating rate, and also making it possible to give patients anywhere intensive monitoring once available only in the hospital.
But translating medical technology into medical practice has fallen far behind, says Samir Damani, a Scripps Clinic cardiologist. Damani has co-founded a company called MD Revolution to close that gap.
Damani said the company personalizes medicine to the individual, something that advances in genomics is supposed to provide, but hasn't materialized. Genomics refers to the complete set of DNA in an individual.
"Medicine lacks plasticity, and the average technology takes 15 to 20 years to (enter) clinical practice, and we can't afford to do that anymore," Damani said.
MD Revolution, which opened this month, offers customers intensive workups and tests to guide them in staying healthy, Damani said. These are developed with Damani's clinical experience with patients, augmented with a team of specialists and including everything from nutritional consulting to health apps for the iPhone.
Colleagues at the company include board member Nicholas Schork, director of bioinformatics and biostatistics at the Scripps Translational Science Institute, which combines personalized medical with digital technology..
Customers can select from three programs, called DNA-Fit, DNA-Select and, at the high end, DNA-3-Day. The cost ranges from roughly $2,000 to $10,000, depending on the choice of programs. Some of the cost goes to devices that customers are given to assess their progress and gather data that's emailed back to the office. For DNA Fit, for example, the devices include a heart monitor and iPod Touch.
MD Revolution also gives customers a report in electronic form on a USB drive. The genomic information is not linked to the medical records, Damani said, so it's kept confidential. Customers have the option to share this information with their regular doctors, if they choose.
Equipped
Once they've been examined initially, customers have the option of a virtual office visit via teleconferencing.
"You can meet with me through Skype on ITV or on Facetime on your iPhone," he said. "These are the kinds of technologies that are built into the practice."
While the programs aren't now covered by insurance, Damani said he expects they will eventually be, because they are scientifically valid approaches to preventing and managing health problems.
The programs include a scan of customers' DNA to find disease predispositions and how they metabolize drugs. The higher-end programs include a more complete genomic report, medical imaging, metabolic testing and more extensive monitoring of vital signs and activities.
Damani said the programs aren't meant to steal customers away from their regular doctors, but to help the patients stay healthy, and to help the doctors help their patients stay healthy.
For example, customers can get a personalized exercise regimen that's crafted to their own physiology. And the intensive examination can detect a wrong diagnosis.
Bringing in science
"My first patient was a 75-year-old gentleman who thought his heart was going to explode," Damani said. "He was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease but did not really have Parkinson's disease. He had a bad tremor and he had something called orthostatic hypotension, where he gets really light-headed because his blood pressure drops. We took him off the medication, but he had never really exercised at the level he should have."
Testing found that the man had a low metabolic rate, so he was given instructions on how to perform interval training. He also received a wrist monitor that tracked his heart rate. The patient emailed the information from the device to MD Revolution, so doctors could check on how he was responding to the exercise.
"There is a science to exercise, there is a science to nutrition, there is a science to genomics" Damani said. "There's a lot out there that's being under-utilized because our system doesn't allow us, as physicians, to use these because of time constraints. You cannot see 20 patients a day and be able to provide some of these tools."
Source:NCT
But translating medical technology into medical practice has fallen far behind, says Samir Damani, a Scripps Clinic cardiologist. Damani has co-founded a company called MD Revolution to close that gap.
Damani said the company personalizes medicine to the individual, something that advances in genomics is supposed to provide, but hasn't materialized. Genomics refers to the complete set of DNA in an individual.
"Medicine lacks plasticity, and the average technology takes 15 to 20 years to (enter) clinical practice, and we can't afford to do that anymore," Damani said.
MD Revolution, which opened this month, offers customers intensive workups and tests to guide them in staying healthy, Damani said. These are developed with Damani's clinical experience with patients, augmented with a team of specialists and including everything from nutritional consulting to health apps for the iPhone.
Colleagues at the company include board member Nicholas Schork, director of bioinformatics and biostatistics at the Scripps Translational Science Institute, which combines personalized medical with digital technology..
Customers can select from three programs, called DNA-Fit, DNA-Select and, at the high end, DNA-3-Day. The cost ranges from roughly $2,000 to $10,000, depending on the choice of programs. Some of the cost goes to devices that customers are given to assess their progress and gather data that's emailed back to the office. For DNA Fit, for example, the devices include a heart monitor and iPod Touch.
MD Revolution also gives customers a report in electronic form on a USB drive. The genomic information is not linked to the medical records, Damani said, so it's kept confidential. Customers have the option to share this information with their regular doctors, if they choose.
Equipped
Once they've been examined initially, customers have the option of a virtual office visit via teleconferencing.
"You can meet with me through Skype on ITV or on Facetime on your iPhone," he said. "These are the kinds of technologies that are built into the practice."
While the programs aren't now covered by insurance, Damani said he expects they will eventually be, because they are scientifically valid approaches to preventing and managing health problems.
The programs include a scan of customers' DNA to find disease predispositions and how they metabolize drugs. The higher-end programs include a more complete genomic report, medical imaging, metabolic testing and more extensive monitoring of vital signs and activities.
Damani said the programs aren't meant to steal customers away from their regular doctors, but to help the patients stay healthy, and to help the doctors help their patients stay healthy.
For example, customers can get a personalized exercise regimen that's crafted to their own physiology. And the intensive examination can detect a wrong diagnosis.
Bringing in science
"My first patient was a 75-year-old gentleman who thought his heart was going to explode," Damani said. "He was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease but did not really have Parkinson's disease. He had a bad tremor and he had something called orthostatic hypotension, where he gets really light-headed because his blood pressure drops. We took him off the medication, but he had never really exercised at the level he should have."
Testing found that the man had a low metabolic rate, so he was given instructions on how to perform interval training. He also received a wrist monitor that tracked his heart rate. The patient emailed the information from the device to MD Revolution, so doctors could check on how he was responding to the exercise.
"There is a science to exercise, there is a science to nutrition, there is a science to genomics" Damani said. "There's a lot out there that's being under-utilized because our system doesn't allow us, as physicians, to use these because of time constraints. You cannot see 20 patients a day and be able to provide some of these tools."
Source:NCT
New ‘killer' bacteria on the prowl
After the scary New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase-1 or the “superbug” was detected two years ago, the world is now faced with the community-acquired methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (ca-MRSA) bacterium that is resistant to almost all common antibiotics.
In India, where poor hygiene and the availability of over-the-counter antibiotics lead to development of resistance, an estimated 100 to 200 million people are reportedly already carriers of these virtually unbeatable killer bacteria. The killer bugs have also reached England, presumably through medical tourists who travelled to India for cosmetic surgery, and reportedly already infected several hundred people. A few cases have also turned up in Germany.
The bacterium has become a serious health threat in the United States. India had protested the naming of the superbug after New Delhi and denied its presence then. Now, the ca-MRSA is all set to raise another storm.
There is only one antibiotic left — a drug that is normally not even used anymore owing to its potentially fatal side effects — that is still effective against these killer bacteria. In serious cases, people who become infected with these types of pathogens die of urinary tract infections, wound infections or pneumonia. And, in contrast to the highly drug-resistant hospital-acquired MRSA (ha-MRSA) strains, which primarily affect the elderly and people in hospitals and nursing homes, ca-MRSA affects healthy young people.
An article written by Philip Bethge, Veronika Hackenbroch, Laura Hoflinger, Michael Leockx and Udo Ludwig for German news magazine Der Spiegel says the two bacteria, ha-MRSA and ca-MRSA, are only two strains from an entire arsenal of pathogens that are now resistant to almost all available antibiotics. Less than a century after the discovery of penicillin, one of the most powerful weapons ever produced by modern medicine, it threatens to become ineffective.
FEAR OF ‘PANDEMIC'
The British medical journal The Lancet warns that the drug-resistant bacteria could spark a “pandemic.” And, in Germany, the dangerous pathogens are no longer only feared “hospital bugs” found in intensive care units (ICUs). Instead, they have become ubiquitous.
The pathogens thrive in warm, moist environments. They can be found in people's armpits, in the genital area and in the nasal mucous membranes. Their hunting grounds are the locker rooms of schools and universities, as well as the community showers of prisons and health clubs.
The bacteria are transmitted via skin, through towels, clothing or direct body contact. All it takes is a small abrasion to provide them access to a victim's bloodstream. Festering pustules develop at the infection site, at which point the pathogens are also capable of corroding the lungs. If doctors wait too long, patients can die very quickly.
The dangerous bacteria have even been detected on one of Germany's high-speed ICE trains. Likewise, more than 10 per cent of the residents of German retirement homes have been reportedly colonised by MRSA bacteria. In their case, every open wound is potentially deadly. The pathogens have also been found in beef, pork and vegetables.
ALARMING FINDING
Another alarming finding is that about 3 to 5 per cent of the population carries the so-called ESBL-forming bacteria in the intestine without knowing it. Even modern antibiotics are completely ineffective against these highly resistant bacteria, the article warns.
Infestation with multidrug-resistant bacteria is normally harmless to healthy individuals because their immune systems can keep the pathogens under control. Problems arise when an individual becomes seriously ill.
Israel even experienced a nationwide outbreak a few years ago. Within a few months, about 1,300 people were afflicted by an extremely dangerous bacterium that killed 40 per cent of infected patients. Even today, the same bacterium still sickens some 300 people a year.
Source:The Hindu
In India, where poor hygiene and the availability of over-the-counter antibiotics lead to development of resistance, an estimated 100 to 200 million people are reportedly already carriers of these virtually unbeatable killer bacteria. The killer bugs have also reached England, presumably through medical tourists who travelled to India for cosmetic surgery, and reportedly already infected several hundred people. A few cases have also turned up in Germany.
The bacterium has become a serious health threat in the United States. India had protested the naming of the superbug after New Delhi and denied its presence then. Now, the ca-MRSA is all set to raise another storm.
There is only one antibiotic left — a drug that is normally not even used anymore owing to its potentially fatal side effects — that is still effective against these killer bacteria. In serious cases, people who become infected with these types of pathogens die of urinary tract infections, wound infections or pneumonia. And, in contrast to the highly drug-resistant hospital-acquired MRSA (ha-MRSA) strains, which primarily affect the elderly and people in hospitals and nursing homes, ca-MRSA affects healthy young people.
An article written by Philip Bethge, Veronika Hackenbroch, Laura Hoflinger, Michael Leockx and Udo Ludwig for German news magazine Der Spiegel says the two bacteria, ha-MRSA and ca-MRSA, are only two strains from an entire arsenal of pathogens that are now resistant to almost all available antibiotics. Less than a century after the discovery of penicillin, one of the most powerful weapons ever produced by modern medicine, it threatens to become ineffective.
FEAR OF ‘PANDEMIC'
The British medical journal The Lancet warns that the drug-resistant bacteria could spark a “pandemic.” And, in Germany, the dangerous pathogens are no longer only feared “hospital bugs” found in intensive care units (ICUs). Instead, they have become ubiquitous.
The pathogens thrive in warm, moist environments. They can be found in people's armpits, in the genital area and in the nasal mucous membranes. Their hunting grounds are the locker rooms of schools and universities, as well as the community showers of prisons and health clubs.
The bacteria are transmitted via skin, through towels, clothing or direct body contact. All it takes is a small abrasion to provide them access to a victim's bloodstream. Festering pustules develop at the infection site, at which point the pathogens are also capable of corroding the lungs. If doctors wait too long, patients can die very quickly.
The dangerous bacteria have even been detected on one of Germany's high-speed ICE trains. Likewise, more than 10 per cent of the residents of German retirement homes have been reportedly colonised by MRSA bacteria. In their case, every open wound is potentially deadly. The pathogens have also been found in beef, pork and vegetables.
ALARMING FINDING
Another alarming finding is that about 3 to 5 per cent of the population carries the so-called ESBL-forming bacteria in the intestine without knowing it. Even modern antibiotics are completely ineffective against these highly resistant bacteria, the article warns.
Infestation with multidrug-resistant bacteria is normally harmless to healthy individuals because their immune systems can keep the pathogens under control. Problems arise when an individual becomes seriously ill.
Israel even experienced a nationwide outbreak a few years ago. Within a few months, about 1,300 people were afflicted by an extremely dangerous bacterium that killed 40 per cent of infected patients. Even today, the same bacterium still sickens some 300 people a year.
Source:The Hindu
Who should be allowed to teach yoga?
Joe Palese took his first yoga class in the 1990s, right as the practice began gaining in popularity in the United States.
"They didn't even have any yoga mats," he said, recalling the New York sports club that offered the class.
It wasn't until Palese started taking classes at yoga studios that he realized a lot of the previous sessions were "watered down" versions of yoga.
The loose interpretation wasn't bothersome; yoga by definition is a diverse practice with more than a dozen different styles. But as Palese remembers, some of the poses the inexperience teachers were demonstrating were simply not right.
"The instructors were cool people, and they'd play good music, but students didn't know they were being taught poorly," said Palese, who became a yoga instructor himself 14 years ago.
And, according to author and New York Times science writer William J. Broad, some of the common yoga poses can cause serious injuries like nerve damage, torn cartilage, and strokes, among others.An article adapted from Broad's upcoming book on yoga featured in the New York Times Sunday Magazine earlier this month with the title "How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body," sparked a lively debate within the yoga community about how to keep practitioners safe.
In the article, Broad noted that yoga is a "free-for-all" with "no hierarchy of officials or organization to ensure purity and adhere to agreed-upon sets of facts and poses, rules and procedures, outcomes and benefits."
Broad is correct -- there isn't a government oversight committee dedicated to yoga practice. And that's because many practitioners prefer it that way.
"Yoga comes from India. Things are not uniform by tradition," said Gyandev McCord, who has taught yoga for 25 years.In an effort to provide a common ground for the diverse practice of yoga, a group of seasoned yoga practitioners -- "yogis" -- came together in 1999 to form the Yoga Alliance, a nonprofit organization whose sole purpose is to create minimum standards for yoga teacher training.
Fearing government or insurance companies might step in and start calling the shots, the alliance set forth to self-regulate, said McCord, who is the co-founder and vice chairman of the organization.
It is for yogis, by yogis. After all, McCord said, those "who don't understand the landscape of yoga aren't qualified" to regulate the standards for teaching.
Anyone trained by schools registered with the Yoga Alliance completes 200 or 500 hours of training, based on the following five principles: yoga techniques, including poses, breathing and meditation; general teaching methodology; anatomy and physiology; yoga philosophy and ethics; and training, practicum, and supervised teaching, in which senior instructors observe trainees to identify and correct any issues.McCord said the five principles allow for "a lot of wiggle room," and aim to protect and promote the teacher's individuality.
Once trained, the instructors are certified by their school and their names are listed on a registry that informs the public of teachers in their area who have completed the minimum standards for yoga instruction. Yoga Alliance-trained teachers may also use the trademarked "RYT" -- registered yoga teacher -- behind their name, indicating they've completed the required hours.Not all members of the yoga community are on board with this approach, however.
Leslie Kaminoff, co-founder of the Breathing Project, a nonprofit that provides continuing education to yoga practitioners, disagrees with yoga regulation of any kind. She believes in a free market approach to regulations for yoga teacher training.
"Yoga is about freedom," he said, "The market place is the ultimate quality control."Yoga instruction, he said, is about a relationship between a teacher and a student. If a teacher is trained to teach yoga on the Internet or by a DVD at home and the student is fine with it, it's really nobody's business.
McCord said he has no problem with that approach. "It's not illegal to teach without training as a teacher," he said.
But Palese is more wary. He believes that learning how to align properly is something that needs an "expert eye," one that can't be achieved by watching a DVD.
"Anyone can tell you what to do, it's explaining how to do it," he said. And that is what separates effective teachers from the rest, according to Palese.
"It's alignment with awareness," he said.
Palese trains teachers at a studio where he teaches in suburban Atlanta. His 200-hour training class meets one weekend a month for 10 months, a long stretch of time imperative to the teaching process.
"You need time for information to settle," Palese said.
Since yoga instruction is far more complex than just leading students to do poses, Palese said he reserves the right to extend the training past 10 months if needed. He wants to give his new teachers whatever time they need to assimilate the information so that they can feel confident teaching others.
"It's the integrity and the awareness that the teacher brings to class that is most important," Palese said.
Palese said successful teachers are committed to the safety for their students and will provide suggestions for modification, as well as props like belts, blankets and blocks to make those modifications. A willingness to adapt the practice for different audiences and environments helps too.
"I've taught yoga in the oddest of places," he said. Good teachers "can teach yoga in an auditorium, a prison, a hospital."
They "can transform the whole thing just by who they are."
By :Stephanie Gallman, Source:CNN
"They didn't even have any yoga mats," he said, recalling the New York sports club that offered the class.
It wasn't until Palese started taking classes at yoga studios that he realized a lot of the previous sessions were "watered down" versions of yoga.
The loose interpretation wasn't bothersome; yoga by definition is a diverse practice with more than a dozen different styles. But as Palese remembers, some of the poses the inexperience teachers were demonstrating were simply not right.
"The instructors were cool people, and they'd play good music, but students didn't know they were being taught poorly," said Palese, who became a yoga instructor himself 14 years ago.
And, according to author and New York Times science writer William J. Broad, some of the common yoga poses can cause serious injuries like nerve damage, torn cartilage, and strokes, among others.An article adapted from Broad's upcoming book on yoga featured in the New York Times Sunday Magazine earlier this month with the title "How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body," sparked a lively debate within the yoga community about how to keep practitioners safe.
In the article, Broad noted that yoga is a "free-for-all" with "no hierarchy of officials or organization to ensure purity and adhere to agreed-upon sets of facts and poses, rules and procedures, outcomes and benefits."
Broad is correct -- there isn't a government oversight committee dedicated to yoga practice. And that's because many practitioners prefer it that way.
"Yoga comes from India. Things are not uniform by tradition," said Gyandev McCord, who has taught yoga for 25 years.In an effort to provide a common ground for the diverse practice of yoga, a group of seasoned yoga practitioners -- "yogis" -- came together in 1999 to form the Yoga Alliance, a nonprofit organization whose sole purpose is to create minimum standards for yoga teacher training.
Fearing government or insurance companies might step in and start calling the shots, the alliance set forth to self-regulate, said McCord, who is the co-founder and vice chairman of the organization.
It is for yogis, by yogis. After all, McCord said, those "who don't understand the landscape of yoga aren't qualified" to regulate the standards for teaching.
Anyone trained by schools registered with the Yoga Alliance completes 200 or 500 hours of training, based on the following five principles: yoga techniques, including poses, breathing and meditation; general teaching methodology; anatomy and physiology; yoga philosophy and ethics; and training, practicum, and supervised teaching, in which senior instructors observe trainees to identify and correct any issues.McCord said the five principles allow for "a lot of wiggle room," and aim to protect and promote the teacher's individuality.
Once trained, the instructors are certified by their school and their names are listed on a registry that informs the public of teachers in their area who have completed the minimum standards for yoga instruction. Yoga Alliance-trained teachers may also use the trademarked "RYT" -- registered yoga teacher -- behind their name, indicating they've completed the required hours.Not all members of the yoga community are on board with this approach, however.
Leslie Kaminoff, co-founder of the Breathing Project, a nonprofit that provides continuing education to yoga practitioners, disagrees with yoga regulation of any kind. She believes in a free market approach to regulations for yoga teacher training.
"Yoga is about freedom," he said, "The market place is the ultimate quality control."Yoga instruction, he said, is about a relationship between a teacher and a student. If a teacher is trained to teach yoga on the Internet or by a DVD at home and the student is fine with it, it's really nobody's business.
McCord said he has no problem with that approach. "It's not illegal to teach without training as a teacher," he said.
But Palese is more wary. He believes that learning how to align properly is something that needs an "expert eye," one that can't be achieved by watching a DVD.
"Anyone can tell you what to do, it's explaining how to do it," he said. And that is what separates effective teachers from the rest, according to Palese.
"It's alignment with awareness," he said.
Palese trains teachers at a studio where he teaches in suburban Atlanta. His 200-hour training class meets one weekend a month for 10 months, a long stretch of time imperative to the teaching process.
"You need time for information to settle," Palese said.
Since yoga instruction is far more complex than just leading students to do poses, Palese said he reserves the right to extend the training past 10 months if needed. He wants to give his new teachers whatever time they need to assimilate the information so that they can feel confident teaching others.
"It's the integrity and the awareness that the teacher brings to class that is most important," Palese said.
Palese said successful teachers are committed to the safety for their students and will provide suggestions for modification, as well as props like belts, blankets and blocks to make those modifications. A willingness to adapt the practice for different audiences and environments helps too.
"I've taught yoga in the oddest of places," he said. Good teachers "can teach yoga in an auditorium, a prison, a hospital."
They "can transform the whole thing just by who they are."
By :Stephanie Gallman, Source:CNN
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