Tsao-Lin Moy | Source | Founder at Integrative Healing Arts

Why does inflammation occur as we age?
First things first: It's important to understand that inflammation isn't all bad. As alternative medicine expert Tsao-Lin Moy, the founder of Integrative Healing Arts, points out, our bodies are in a constant state of transformation and renewal. Every day, we are exposed to new stressors that affect both our physical and biological selves, not to mention our emotional well-being. When this exposure happens, our innate inflammatory process kicks into gear to heal and restore any tissue that is damaged in the process. But as we age, our body tissues don't revert back to that perfect, renewed state—and instead, we experience ongoing inflammation.

"Think of your body as a piece of fabric. Over time, the fibers lose strength, weaken, and lose shape," Moy says. "Your body's ability to repair is harder to keep in balance. Viruses, infections, hormonal fluctuations, emotional trauma, physical injury, and environmental factors (such as pollution and radiation from the sun) slowly damage our ability to regenerate and cause metabolic waste accumulation that can become chronic inflammation." It's at that point—when inflammation turns chronic—that it becomes a concern, notes Moy.

Unlike other methods of dealing with cancer and the side effects of treatment, acupuncture and acupressure deal with the effects on the entire human body. Acupuncture and acupressure is ideal for treating patients with cancer undergoing chemotherapy as it helps with conditions such as nausea, dry mouth, pain post-surgery, anxiety, joint pain from aromatase inhibitors, peripheral neuropathy, fatigue, poor sleep, and help with immune regulation. What is important to consider is that acupuncture uses a whole health model (that is) effective because it does not treat the person with the disease. Chinese medicine looks at who it is and how the disease is manifesting in that person.