About
The Center of Excellence for Research and Training in Integrative Health works closely with the Krupp Center for Integrative Research, supporting research excellence and collaboration in integrative health within UCSD and across the greater San Diego region. The Center is advancing research excellence to transform how medicine is practiced, supporting education and mentorship in integrative health research for students as well as healthcare professionals, helping to guide the creation of new models of clinical care, combining the best of traditional medicine and evidence-based integrative therapies. Towards this end, the Center's projects include examining effects of meditation, tai chi, acupuncture, guided imagery, journaling, and Ayurveda in heart failure, myocardial infarction, hypertension, cancer, multiple sclerosis, and pain patients.
News
The Center Director Paul J Mills just completed serving as Guest Editor for the journal Global Advances in Health and Medicine (GAHM) on a Special Collection of articles on the topic of Whole Health. GAHM is the official journal of the Academic Consortium for Integrative Health and Medicine (https://imconsortium.org/).
As Paul notes in his Opening Commentary, the “Whole Health approach is not just about disease prevention but the creation of health as we understand it, essentially a salutogenic model with a focus on creating the health and wellbeing of the individual.” The Collection also tackles the question of what constitutes the “Whole Person”, who is at the center of the Whole Health model, addressing consciousness and the transcendent nature of the human being as fundamental.
The Special Collection includes a Special Commentary by Helene Langevin, MD, Director of the NIH National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCIH), as well as commentaries by Tracy Gaudet, MD, founding Director of the Veterans Health Administration’s (VHA) National Office of Patient Centered Care and Cultural Transformation and Founding Director of the Whole Health Institute, Benjamin Kligler MD, Director of the VA Office of Patient Centered Care & Cultural Transformation, and Len Wisneski, MD, Former Chair of the Integrative Health Policy Consortium.
The collection also includes a special article by Deepak Chopra, MD on the topic of “What Is Wholeness? The Consciousness View” where he notes that “Taking a holistic view of consciousness solves all the [current top 10] questions that science has posed” and that “When reflecting on wholeness as relevant to the whole person and whole health, consideration of consciousness itself is fundamental.”
Other relevant articles cover topics of psychedelic psychotherapy and healing, the role of legislative advocacy, Traditional Chinese Medicine, Naturopathic Medicine, COVID, and findings on whole health intervention programs from around the US. The Special Collection articles can be found at this link and are available to the public at no charge: https://journals.sagepub.com/topic/collections-gam/gam-1-whole_health/gam.
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The Center’s Director was listed in the Huffington Post as one of the top 10 individuals positively affecting Integrative Medicine policy and research.
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The Center completed working with an international group of clinicians and scientists to host a conference on Traditional Tibetan Medicine, which was held at Harvard Medical School. The conference promoted dialogue among traditional Tibetan medical practitioners from Tibet, China, India, Europe, and the United States. The conference helped identify and establish future research and international collaboration efforts to carry forward the Tibetan medical tradition.
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The Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley named the Center’s work on gratitude and heart health #1 in its “Top 10 Insights from the Science of a Meaningful Life”. The list was compiled by polling 350 researchers, asking them to name the findings from the science of a meaningful life that they considered most provocative, powerful, and influential.
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COE Director Paul Mills spoke at the 100th Anniversary Conference of the Men-Tsee-Khang Hospital and Research Facility in Lhasa Tibet. The institute was founded in 1916 by the 13th Dalai Lama to advance the practice of Tibetan Medicine, which is one of the world's oldest known medical traditions. Dr. Mills is organizing a follow-up conference on Tibetan Medicine and Mind-Body Health to be held at Mass General Hospital.
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The Center recently completed working closely with 7 other institutions, including the University of California San Francisco, Mount Sinai Hospital, Duke University, Harvard Medical School, Scripps Translational Science Institute, Sanford Burnham Medical Research Institute, and the Chopra Center for Wellbeing examining the effects of a traditional whole medical system on wellbeing. The randomized trial, the 'Self-Directed Biological Transformation Initiative' (SBTI), examined whether the system of Ayurvedic medicine, including meditation and yoga practices, influenced biological markers of aging, alter cellular biology, genomics.
The Center is supported by funding from
National Institutes of Health
American Academy of Osteopathy
Department of Defense
Greater Good Science Center
Sanford Institute for Empathy and Compassion
Krupp Endowed Fund (UC San Diego)
Osteopathic Center of San Diego
The Chopra Foundation
The Caroline Young Foundation
The Earthing Institute
The Hecht Memorial Foundation
The Samueli Institute
The Solomon Dutka Fund in the New York Community Trust
The Westreich Foundation
UC San Diego Academic Senate