Tim Ferris and Michael Levin on Acupuncture and Bioelectronic Medicine

This conversation on Tim Ferriss podcast was notable to me, in that acupuncture is being discussed in a real way. The last time I paid attention to Tim Ferriss on acupuncture, he said that he talked to his contacts and thought that there was nothing there. Tim is so impressive how he really keeps up with so many different fields of study! Mark Levin is and I quote

“Dr. Michael Levin is the Vannevar Bush Distinguished Professor of Biology at Tufts University and director of the Allen Discovery Center. He is primarily interested in how intelligence self-organizes in a diverse range of natural, engineered, and hybrid embodiments. Applied to the collective intelligence of cell groups undergoing morphogenesis, these ideas have allowed the Levin Lab to develop new applications in birth defects, organ regeneration, and cancer suppression.”

I was also amused to hear that both of them had read the Body Electric by Robert O’ Becker!!! It was one of the first books I read in an attempt to understand physiologic bioelectricity in an attempt to better understand acupuncture. For me, if I better understood what was going on, I could give better treatments.

This YouTube clip “

From Mark Levin “To me, as someone who’s interested in practical results, I would say I can’t say

anything other than 100% that I I think there’s something very powerful here. Very significant. So the next question

is what are those meridians and do they have any functional overlap with the bio electricity that we’re talking about? I

don’t know.

Mark Levin again (click here for video)

“whatever it is that acupuncturists are managing with their treatments, it has the same relationship to the

bioelectricity that the bioelectricity has to the chemical signaling. In other words, you know, chemical, physical

protein signaling pathways, bioelect electrical state, there’s some

other informational state. Maybe it has to do with a biomechanics of tissues. And again, like disclaimer, I I still get

acupuncture, right? every month I get a tuneup like I I I think it

really works. So, you know, take it all with a grain of salt, but I don’t think they’re managing bioelectricity directly. I think they’re managing something else.”

https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxRoaUmqNylMfjglKGd5eRhsdwd1_wKGKE?si=53Zcw69-wuFrfm_M

Acupuncture for Conception and Placebo

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I don’t have any domain expertise but it continues to be interesting I suppose and also pregnancy data

acupuncture for conception which may intersect with vagus nerve

stimulation who knows yeah the deal with placebo like I don’t see placebo as a confound Mhm.

I mean, it can be if you’re trying to calculate certain things, but I think it’s kind of the main show in a lot of

ways. Yeah. And some of the placebo research like Fabriio Benedeti is, you know, one of my favorites…