Hi my name is Luke. I’m a chiropractor at the Health and Healing Wellness Center. I'm AHPTA registered, and what we’re going to talk to you about today is acupuncture, Chinese medicine, and its ability to treat weight loss.

When assessing a client for weight loss, some common symptoms would be an inability to lose weight, carrying excess adipose tissue, even though you might be trying to approach it with a healthy diet. But sometimes there are underlying factors that can stop a person from their ability to lose weight. And that is where seeing an AHPTA registered acupuncturist or an AHPRA registered naturopath.

Chinese medicine practitioners can be useful to help identify some underlying causes that will be individual to the person that we’re trying to treat. And then we can come up with a treatment plan that can help with that. When we are looking at weight loss, Chinese medicine and particularly herbal medicine targets metabolism. The general chi and flow in the body to help the body function better and looking at underlying hormonal factors and or under health factors that are stopping a person from being able to lose weight. This can only really be identified in a person with a consultation with an AHPRA registered Chinese medicine practitioner.

In the practice here we have our Chinese medical practitioner Greg Bantic who’s been practicing for over 40 years and has a lot of experience in this area. Greg, when he’s looking at a patient, would always look to assess the patient’s health status to try and identify in person what some of those underlying factors that are stopping weight loss are. And then we look to come up with an individualised treatment program to try and address those factors and help with that. This may include some dietary advice, some lifestyle advice, Chinese herbal medicine, some acupuncture to help relieve stress or tension in the body to allow the body to function better, or potentially referral to another practitioner who might get help further on, such as a naturopath nutritionist, or moving in to a doctor or something like that.

When we’re assessing a patient, every single patient is individual and they are different. And the main thing that we would say the benefit of seeing an AHPRA registered practitioner is that they can really individualise the treatment to your specific needs. And the first step is to do an in-person consultation because that in-person consultation can give the practitioner a lot of information that can tailor healthcare to their needs.