Research
Further Research Closing in on How Acupuncture
It is a widely held belief that acupuncture is a great way to relieve stress. Several studies have seen groups diagnosed with chronic stress display remarkable improvement in quality of life and lower stress levels due to acupuncture. Despite this evidence it has remained largely unclear why or how acupuncture is able to reduce stress levels. A recent study however has come closer to pin pointing how acupuncture can specifically target and reduce stress. The researchers found that electro-acupuncture interacted with hormones in the brain to reduce their stress elevating effects. These results are promising as researchers find more and more evidence to show that acupuncture is a scientifically viable way to relieve stress and other ailments.
Links to the Articles: – www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23386059
Acupuncture May Help Relieve Symptoms after Chemo
There has been a wealth of research done, and still being done, on the effects of acupuncture on cancer patients undergoing chemo. Recent studies have confirmed statistically significant decreases in fatigue in breast cancer patients (Reuters). These studies are still just coming out and most physicians are wary of saying that acupuncture will be guaranteed to relieve fatigue due to chemo but more physicians are consistently telling their patients to give it a try. In another study several women going through chemo were given acupuncture to help with their nausea and vomiting and 24 of the 26 women given acupuncture reported much less nausea and an overall better and more health feeling (Sciencedirect). These results are still not conclusive but with more research being done regularly into the positive effects of acupuncture for cancer patients it’s definitely worth talking with your doctor about.
Links to the Articles: – www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/29/us-acupuncture-cancer-idUSBRE89S15420121029
– www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1566070206002219
Acupuncture Helps to Repair Brain Damage
There have been several reports before of research and theories about the usefulness of acupuncture in treating addiction but few have yielded concrete proof, that is until now. A recent study found that acupuncture at the Zusanli point significantly decreased the activation of heroin cues in the brain. Heroin cues are responsible for inducing sensations linked to reward and craving in the mind and the acupuncture used in this study quickly suppressed these sensations.
Drug addiction and abuse is a serious problem for a lot of people and overcoming that addiction sometimes seems insurmountable but this research proves that acupuncture can be an essential part of rehabilitation.
Links to the Articles:– www.nrronline.org/article.asp?issn=1673-5374;year=2012;volume=7;issue=33;spage=2607;epage=2616;aulast=Cai;type=0
Acupuncture for Neck Pain: Does It Work?
Chronic neck pain is one of the most common pain issues faced by students and office workers. Oftentimes, spending hours at a desk each day, combined with poor postural habits, is the root cause of the pain. However, for some, sports injuries, whiplash, and the wrong bed mattress or pillow can set off the pain. Regardless of what caused the neck pain to begin, many people find relief with acupuncture when seemingly nothing else helped. Scientific researchers and clinicians have been conducting clinical trials on the use of acupuncture for neck pain since the 1980’s, and most of these studies have confirmed that acupuncture is safe and effective.
One recent pilot study (published October 30, 2013 in the British Medical Journal) conducted at the Kyunghee University Medical Center in Seoul, Korea found that acupuncture three times per week was as effective as 80 mg of NSAIDs taken daily for chronic neck pain.
A meta-analysis of studies including 17,922 patients, published in Complementary & Alternative Medicine, found acupuncture to be effective for the treatment of back and neck pain, osteoarthritis, and chronic headaches. Patients receiving acupuncture had remarkably better results than patients receiving “sham” acupuncture. Those patients who had the worst baseline mental status and worst baseline pain scores also experienced the most benefit from acupuncture.
A rather intriguing study published in the Australian Journal of Acupuncture & Chinese Medicine tested the effectiveness of acupressure on distal acupoints on the hands for the treatment of chronic neck pain in the gallbladder and bladder meridians. There were a total of 60 patients in the study (30 in the treatment group and 30 controls who received acupressure on sham points), and those in the treatment group experienced dramatic pain relief over the 3-week treatment period. The control group did not report significant improvement.
One large study conducted in Germany and published in the Journal of the International Association for the Study of Pain found that patients with chronic neck pain lasting more than six months experienced considerable long-term relief with acupuncture, in comparison to a control group receiving conventional medical care and no acupuncture. A total of 14, 161 patients participated in the study, and there were 10, 395 patients who chose to receive acupuncture treatment (non-randomized). In addition, 1880 patients were randomized to receive acupuncture, and 1886 were randomized to the control group. The acupuncture groups were treated up to fifteen times in three months with acupuncture; the control group received conventional medical care. The non-randomized acupuncture group experienced more severe pain at the beginning of the study. Both acupuncture groups reported greater pain relief than the control group six months after the initiation of the study.
While the numerous scientific studies on the efficacy and safety of acupuncture have varied in methodology and number of patients recruited – and none of the studies have been flawless in design – the findings consistently support the use of acupuncture for longterm relief from chronic neck pain. Since acupuncture is a cost-effective treatment modality that is relatively free of side effects, it would be prudent for medical professionals to recommend acupuncture to patients with neck pain before prescribing potentially addictive pharmaceutical drugs and risky surgical procedures.
Sources:
- http://aim.bmj.com/content/early/2013/10/30/acupmed-2013-010410.short
- http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3373337/
- http://www.ajacm.com.au/Portals/0/AJACMFiles/PDFs/Vol%207%20Iss%201/AJACM%202012%207%201%20Treatment%20Neck%20Pain.pdf
- http://www.painjournalonline.com/article/S0304-3959%2806%2900264-8/abstract
The Most Shocking Meta-Study of Fertility Acupuncture
A growing number of new parents are telling their friends and families that acupuncture helped them conceive – after seemingly nothing else worked. Acupuncturists who specialize in reproductive medicine, providing acupuncture within a Western medical setting as an adjuvant to in-vitro fertilization, report success rates of 70% and higher among patients in their own clinics.
This is greater than the success rate of IVF alone. However, a meta-analysis of a number of scientific studies on the efficacy of acupuncture as an adjuvant to IVF, published in the June 2013 issue of the Oxford Journal, found that acupuncture was ineffective for increasing the success rate of IVF.
In fact, the study’s authors went on to conclude that acupuncture actually decreased the success rate of IVF. Needless to say, the conclusions of this meta-analysis have come as a shock to all of us who have witnessed quite the opposite.
It makes you question why there is such a discrepancy between the success rates of controlled clinical trials and the reported success rates from patients?
Are the controlled clinical trials somehow fundamentally flawed?
These are the right questions to be asking.
Let’s take a look at the ways in which the effects of acupuncture on IVF are currently being quantified by researchers.
One often-cited study, published in Fertility and Sterility in March of 2009, utilizes the so-called Paulus protocol, which is usually described as PC-6, SP-8, Liv-3, DU-20, LI-4, and four specific auricular points needled 25 minutes before IVF, and ST-26, SP-10, SP-6, LI-4, and the same auricular points needled 25 minutes after IVF.
Half of the 150 patients received acupuncture, and half did not.
All patients then completed a questionnaire about their anxiety and optimism.
No difference was shown in the pregnancy rates between the two groups.
The most notable problem with this particular study is that there is no acknowledgement of pattern diagnosis. In addition, the study does not replicate what is generally done in a real clinical setting in which the patient receives acupuncture treatments for several weeks or even months to address the underlying issues that are causing the infertility. The patient may be advised to make new dietary choices in following a pre-natal fertility-promoting diet and possibly utilizing herbal medicine in addition to acupuncture according to tongue and pulse diagnosis.
Further investigation reveals that the study was funded by Organon USA, which is a pharmaceutical company that “favors the man-made over the organic approach to medicines,” and manufactures contraceptives, anesthetics, treatments for mental health disorders (Remeron), fertility (Follistim), and bladder cancer (Tice/BCG).
They have a vested interest in acupuncture being proven ineffective, wouldn’t you agree?
Other studies usually replicate this same protocol, often using a sham acupuncture group (non-insertion of acupuncture needles at the same acupuncture points with special needles that appear to get shorter when “inserted”), instead of a control group which receives IVF only. Many of these studies show higher rates of pregnancy for the sham acupuncture than with the real acupuncture.
Besides the problems stated above (no attention to pattern diagnosis, no long-term pre-natal acupuncture treatments to address underlying health issues, and vested interests by those funding the studies), the use of sham acupuncture introduces a host of new complications.
Sham acupuncture is stimulating the acupoints, so it is not really a “sham.” It also adds a strong placebo effect, which may be quite significant. We know very little about the needling method used for the true acupuncture group. Was the stimulation too strong, and potentially draining for patients with deficiency patterns? Did the needling startle already anxious patients? We do not have the answers to these questions.
A final issue not being addressed in the conclusions of these studies is that if one particular acupuncture protocol is ineffective for IVF, this does not mean acupuncture treatment as a whole is ineffective for IVF.
Making such a statement would be similar to conducting numerous studies on the use of aspirin to treat H. Pylori infection, finding that it is ineffective and can even make patients feel worse, and then concluding that pharmaceuticals do not treat H. Pylori.
When pattern diagnosis is not taken into account, we might even say that such a conclusion about acupuncture and IVF is similar to saying that aspirin doesn’t treat stomach pain, so therefore pharmaceuticals don’t work for treating stomach pain.
No one with a PhD or MD would ever make such a conclusion about pharmaceuticals and stomach pain because it’s ridiculous! Making a similar conclusion about acupuncture and IVF is just as absurd.
So what can we conclude from taking a closer look at the scholarly research on the effectiveness of acupuncture for increasing IVF success?
The studies are clearly not a reflection of the way in which acupuncture is practiced in the real world, by practitioners who fully understand the complex ancient theories underlying the practice of acupuncture.
Actual clinical IVF success rates with highly educated practitioners are reported to be 70% and higher, as opposed to the typical IVF success rate of around 25%. In addition, patients receiving acupuncture from a qualified practitioner in a real-world setting are typically counseled to eat a fertility-enhancing diet, use herbal medicinals, and do various exercises that promote blood flow to the uterus and pelvic region. There is no reason to conclude that such a combination of therapies is ineffective for helping couples to conceive.
Sources:
http://humupd.oxfordjournals.org/content/19/6/696.short
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0015028208000125
