Acupuncture Study

[Jack Squat]

There has been alot of debate regarding whether or not TCM/acupuncture/qigong can be validated via the scientific method (which to some translates to "is it real" or "does it work").

After much research, I would like to share a small portion of what I have found:

Animal and human studies have demonstrated that acupuncture can cause multiple biological responses. These responses can occur locally (close to the site of the stimulation) or distally (at a distance). The studies briefly discussed below were some of the best because they defined the anatomy and physiology of the acupoints, how their stimulation affected other sites in the body, and what biochemical and physiological properties were elicited by acupuncture, resulting in changes in bodily response and medical outcome.

Bioelectrical properties- Niboyet, a French researcher, identified bioelectrical properties related to acupuncture. He scanned skin surfaces with a galvonometer, then stimulated points of low resistance with direct and alternating currents. He found that electrical conductance at acupoints is different from that at other skin sites and that stimulating acupoints results in physiologic responses not elicited from other skin sites similarly stimulated. Niboyet observed that points of lowered electrical resistance are usually found in the acupuncture zones illustrated on Chinese meridian charts.

Low resistance points- Grall verified Niboyet's work and found points of low resistance on the face and forearms corresponding to acupoints. Resistance values varied from subject to subject and from anatomical zone to anotomical zone. Values at acupoints ranged from 5 to 50 kilo-ohms, while nonacupoints ranged between .5 and 3 mega-ohms. When the low resistance points were traced on overlaying paper, they matched the classic acupuncture channels.

Radioactive tracing- A radioactive tracer, Technnetium 99, was injected into classical acupoints and into locations that were neutral (not acupoints). Pathways were compared by following the tracers with a scintillation camera. Radioisotope injected into acupoints diffused along a pattern corresponding to the classically described acupuncture channels, while neutral points did not. Others argued that transportation away from acupuncture and control points occured through the vein and lymphatic systems, not acupuncture networks.

Isotope migration- Darras, an investigator using nuclear tracers, rejected this last arguement by observing that the scanned pathway moved beyond a tourniquet blocking the surface peripheral blood circulation. Stimulation of the injected points with a needle, electricity, or helium-neon laser increased the migration rate along the channels. Since these rates did not correspond to vascular or lymphatic circulation rates, the authors concluded that the observed isotopic migration clearly demonstrated the pathways of acupuncture channels.

Radioactive isotopes were injected into human acupoints and tracked with a gamma imaging camera. Within 4-6 minutes, the isotopes traveled 30 centimeters along previously identified acupuncture meridian tracks. Isotopes were then injected into blood vessles at random points. These isotopes did not travel in any manner similar to how they traveled at acupoints, suggesting that meridians comprise a separate pathway system within the body.

I also found much research on "current resistance", "potential differences", "endogenous opiods" and many other interesting effects/mechanisms of acupuncture action.

THE BOTTOM LINE IS THIS-
Acupuncture/TCM/qi gong is REAL, it WORKS. Modern science is trying to figure out what the ancients somehow knew thousands of years ago. I only put in research for the validity of the acupuncture meridians, but research is there for other aspects of TCM as well. I ask the skeptics which frequent this board (in anticipation of remarks like "Well that only proves that the channels exist"): If an ancient culture could determine the exact pathways (and specific points on the pathway) that the unseen, "non-measurable" force called qi moves thru, without the use of modern imaging/tracing techniques, and we proved that it was correct, why not listen to the other "truths" that they discovered (or at least recorded) as well? In my mind, one cannot separate acupuncture from qi gong or TCM. The core is the same. It does not matter to me whether the results are caused by "qi", opioids, or peripheral nerve conduction.

As it stands now, Western Medicine (as an institution) views acupuncture/TCM as a threat. So what do they initially do with all threats? Attack it and claim it's "psuedo-science" at best, fraud at worse (see the totally biased websites that others commonly quote from). Once this tactic is exhausted and it doesn't work, the next step is to control it and take it over so they get the revenue. Mark my words, once Western Medicine does determine the exact mechanisms of action, all of the sudden, acupuncture will indeed be "valid" and you can bet your rear-end that the MD's will take it over and all the sudden what was once ridiculed and frowned upon as "unscientific" and equal to "snake oil salesmen" will all of the sudden be "so technical and complex that I as your MD am the only one qualified to perform this amazing and complex medical procedure (I'm inducing analgesia via endogenous opioids, you know). Do you have insurance? No? Then I can't help you unless you pay cash up front"!!!!!!

Jack

[bodhitree]

Good info:
I wrote a research paper on TCM, and one of the best points I found was that accupuncture is widely used in veternary medicine. This completely eliminates the plasibo or suggestability theory. You cant tell a dog"ok this will make you feel better". In the USA at least, there is not much reasearch done on TCM because research is paid for mainly by Phamasudical companies, who want to develop drugs, not find ways for people to heal themselfs with the things inside of their own bodies. Very good thread!!!!

[chen zhen]

Nice info.
Acupuncture has been proven to hit precisely the nerve-meridians that exists in the body. What I have thought about is.. when the acupunctureists uses old charters of meridian lines that have existed for 1000's of years, how could the chinese of old find out where the nerves where placed, without doing any surgery?

[Former castleva]

" (see the totally biased websites that others commonly quote from)."

"Totally biased websites" serve to point out that there is disagreement on the validity of this medicine between experts.
Certainly if even one of them was not "totally biased",you would have to reconsider when in fact there is plenty of non-biased material shown and points raised that should be considered by any rational person.

"claim it's "psuedo-science" at best"

This is pseudoscience,unless argued otherwise.Your argument has a lot to do with physiology,one could sarcastically ask whether you think your gallbladder influences your reasoning? (physiology of TCM)

""Bioelectrical properties- Niboyet, a French researcher"

Picking this one as an example,could you show me some reference and also tell me something about the researcher(s) you are referring to (their possible expertise or lack of it and so on)
When I try to search on this subject,I can mostly come up with a TCM sites that like to rely on very similar testimonies,I have little knowledge on the exact subject,however,if my memory serves there are also contradicting "proofs".

"Acupuncture/TCM/qi gong is REAL, it WORKS"

If you´re basing this on what you said above,I believe you´re buying the fallacy of hasty generalization.
You will have to understand that despite what you consider to be convincing evidence for tcm´s efficiency,you must remember that there is also a great deal of evidence to contrary.
As my own note,I´d add that if we assume that skeptical stance of referring to placebo effect etc. be true,we would find at least some evidence for it´s validity from this above fact (was the method described as watertight&scientifical as one might hope,one could also expect the expected positive effect to be repeatable,which is does not seem to be)
To refute this evidence,requires one to subscribe to the fallacy of suppressed evidence.

"Modern science is trying to figure out what the ancients somehow knew thousands of years ago"

What makes you think so?

" and we proved that it was correct, why not listen to the other "truths" that they discovered (or at least recorded) as well? In my mind, one cannot separate acupuncture from qi gong or TCM. The core is the same"

What truths? Acupuncture is a part of TCM.Qi-gong is not related (in this context)

"I also found much research on "current resistance", "potential differences", "endogenous opiods" and many other interesting effects/mechanisms of acupuncture action."

On endogenous opioids I can comment on.It has been shown that acupuncture can trigger their release as it has been shown that you can cause the very same response yourself,ask someone to make you do it or stick a regular needle into your body which would be unpleasant of course.
Considering these facts,I would not consider this to be an argument for acupuncture (of course "other interesting mechanisms" like psychological arousal are worth mentioning)


"As it stands now, Western Medicine (as an institution) views acupuncture/TCM as a threat. So what do they initially do with all threats? Attack it and claim it's "psuedo-science" at best, fraud at worse (see the totally biased websites that others commonly quote from). Once this tactic is exhausted and it doesn't work, the next step is to control it and take it over so they get the revenue. Mark my words, once Western Medicine does determine the exact mechanisms of action, all of the sudden, acupuncture will indeed be "valid" and you can bet your rear-end that the MD's will take it over and all the sudden what was once ridiculed and frowned upon as "unscientific" and equal to "snake oil salesmen" will all of the sudden be "so technical and complex that I as your MD am the only one qualified to perform this amazing and complex medical procedure (I'm inducing analgesia via endogenous opioids, you know). Do you have insurance? No? Then I can't help you unless you pay cash up front"!!!!!!"

We have enough material for a strawman around here.
(If you were going for "appeal to emotion",then you probably chose the right target audience of course)

In total,we´ve been over this to a great degree.

[Jack Squat]

Former,

"Totall biased websites serve to point out...."

I disagree. A "totally biased" website would only promote one opinion, thus that's why it's totally biased. If these websites presented both sides of an arguement with equal representation, they would not be "totally biased".

"This is psuedoscience, unless argueing otherwise....."

I'm argueing otherwise. I list published scientific research. I didn't realize that JAMA, and all the other reputable references were publishing "psuedo science". If that's the case, if the medical journals don't publish "real" or non-psuedo science, where does one go? To one of the totally biased websites who don't even reveal who they are sponsored by? (sarcasm)

"Picking this one as an example, could you show me some reference...."

Why did you pick this one? If you really want me to, I'll give you the actual references, but one thing I've noticed is that if I do, you will find some thing wrong with the researcher or study which you will then use to invalidate the research findings. So, I don't want to waste my time. As an armchair quarterback who knows just enough to nit pick, you could find flaw with any study under the sun.

In addition, why do people try to hold acupuncture to a higher standard than other medical procedures. Do you know that there are many standard Western medical procedures that have less evidence-based research than AP? Why not attack those procedures? Orthoscopic knee surgery has been shown to be equal to placebo!!! This study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine and AARP (American Association of Retired People) put it in their national magazine. So an invasive, expensive surgery, with a large amount of possible risk, was shown to be equal to placebo. If the surgery has been shown to only equal placebo, why do it then? Oh wait, they get $50 K for every time they do it. These are the people you so eagerly endorse.

"If you're basing this on what you said above....hasty generalization.... placebo effect........fallacy of suppressed evidence"

The placebo effect has been shown to not possibly be the only mechanism involved in acupuncture by animal studies. This has been discussed on the TCM forum before. In addition, ALL medicine (INCLUDING CHEMICAL) has been shown to be 33% placebo. This is common knowledge among medical professionals.

Don't even get me started on the suppressed evidence thing. Refer back to my previous posts (As a scientist, how does one conduct research? Either through private funding or research grants. Who does the funding? What do they have to gain? We've been here before)

I said: "Modern science is trying to figure out what the ancients knew..."
You said "What makes you think so...."

NIH setting aside $50 million for CAM research. This is the break that TCM has needed in the US. What finally made the NIH decide to do this? Genuine interest? No, it was a grassroots movement along with studies which showed how much the US public spends on alternative medicine. If the MD's can "prove" it works, the next step is for them to take it over......

"On endogenous opiods, I can comment on...."

Please. You're wasting my time. By your implication, sticking a sewing needle anywhere in my body will make for an effective treatment. How does this explain imaging studies that I referenced in my initial post. In addition, how does that explain the anit-nausea effects, ot the inverting of a breach baby, or the stimulation of the optic cortex, etc. I know, I know, it's all placebo, or psuedo-science, or simply not true, or ..............

I do not mean to degrade Western medicine. In fact, I endorse it. But I simply use examples of it's negative aspects to illustrate my points.

Former, I challenge you. You like to debate alot, but how much real world experience do you have? I have worked in a mental institution, have both psychological and medical training, and am currently employed by a hospital. That is real. I know what I have seen, not just what I have read. Go do some real digging. Spend some time with real sick people, in and out of hospitals. Go to the front line and see how well Western medicine handles some diseases. Interview the patients and do some case studies. Then go to an acupuncture clinic and do the same. Until then, I don't have much more to say to you.

Is acupuncture perfect? Of course not. Is Western medicine perfect? Of course not. But they BOTH are valid and can produce positive results.

Jack

[ZIM]

In total,we´ve been over this to a great degree. Yes, we have. You keep siderailing topics into "scientific" arguments. Look:

Traditional Chinese Medicine
Information exchange on the Chinese way of Health and Healing, including acupuncture, herbal medicine and tuina bodywork.

Qigong and Meditation
All aspects of Qigong (Chi Kung) and the meditation arts and philosophies of the Chinese culture.

I don't see where it says "science arguments." In fact, I read 'information exchange'. Maybe, just maybe people want to learn more about these topics, don't you think?

[Former castleva]

"I disagree. A "totally biased" website would only promote one opinion, thus that's why it's totally biased. If these websites presented both sides of an arguement with equal representation, they would not be "totally biased"."

You´re distorting my words.
You could easily notice that a many sites are not biased at all,for those that can be considered such,you can find countering sites for.
This indicates you have not read them very carefully.

"I'm argueing otherwise. I list published scientific research. I didn't realize that JAMA, and all the other reputable references were publishing "psuedo science". If that's the case, if the medical journals don't publish "real" or non-psuedo science, where does one go? To one of the totally biased websites who don't even reveal who they are sponsored by? (sarcasm)"

I don´t think credible sites produce pseudoscience either,I know that very credible magazines or sites can,however,report on pseudoscientific treatments and see how they turn out like.
An examination of the founding principles of these treatments makes them pseudoscientific by definition,this does not keep them from writing about them though.
You´re talking about "totally biased" sites again,now I think you´re in denial.

"Why did you pick this one? If you really want me to, I'll give you the actual references, but one thing I've noticed is that if I do, you will find some thing wrong with the researcher or study which you will then use to invalidate the research findings. So, I don't want to waste my time. As an armchair quarterback who knows just enough to nit pick, you could find flaw with any study under the sun. "

All the sites I spontaneously looked for could be considered "biased" if wanted.If you can give those references out,why don´t you just go ahead? Are you afraid that they are flawed?
You should know that these points are essential concerning your argument.

"In addition, why do people try to hold acupuncture to a higher standard than other medical procedures. Do you know that there are many standard Western medical procedures that have less evidence-based research than AP? Why not attack those procedures? Orthoscopic knee surgery has been shown to be equal to placebo!!! This study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine and AARP (American Association of Retired People) put it in their national magazine. So an invasive, expensive surgery, with a large amount of possible risk, was shown to be equal to placebo. If the surgery has been shown to only equal placebo, why do it then? Oh wait, they get $50 K for every time they do it. These are the people you so eagerly endorse."

This is the second time by now,that you are referring to a single orthoscopic knee surgery study.
But you say that there are MANY procedures which have less evidence than medieval therapy,I´m unaware of the evidence for this claim.


"Please. You're wasting my time. By your implication, sticking a sewing needle anywhere in my body will make for an effective treatment. How does this explain imaging studies that I referenced in my initial post. In addition, how does that explain the anit-nausea effects, ot the inverting of a breach baby, or the stimulation of the optic cortex, etc. I know, I know, it's all placebo, or psuedo-science, or simply not true, or .............."

It explains a part of this.This has been addressed to some degree earlier.Stimulating someone´s optic cortex does not convince me of medical efficiency,I´d also like to see how it deals compared to X in "inverting a breach baby" as an example.
I´m not saying that a stab from a needle is an effective treatment,but regardless of the needle or even the impact itself,results are similar as far as the subject goes.

"NIH setting aside $50 million for CAM research. This is the break that TCM has needed in the US. What finally made the NIH decide to do this? Genuine interest? No, it was a grassroots movement along with studies which showed how much the US public spends on alternative medicine. If the MD's can "prove" it works, the next step is for them to take it over......"

Red herring fallacy.

"Former, I challenge you. You like to debate alot, but how much real world experience do you have? I have worked in a mental institution, have both psychological and medical training, and am currently employed by a hospital. That is real. I know what I have seen, not just what I have read. Go do some real digging. Spend some time with real sick people, in and out of hospitals. Go to the front line and see how well Western medicine handles some diseases. Interview the patients and do some case studies. Then go to an acupuncture clinic and do the same. Until then, I don't have much more to say to you."

Another red herring fallacy.

" ALL medicine (INCLUDING CHEMICAL) has been shown to be 33% placebo. This is common knowledge among medical professionals."

This argument is an extremely broad one.Appeal to authority of medical professionals is justified in one way,while having containing the ingredients for a fallacy since "medical professionals" remain anonymous,but if this is the case,I want you to elaborate on this and back this up with ways other than an anecodte.


ZIM,
when something is presented as science when it is not,that´s where the problem is.Think of a line like "Scientific proof...".

[TaiChiBob]

Greetings..

At the risk of ridicule from both sides of the arguement, i present my interpretation of experience..

"placebo effect".. a similar result effected without conformity to the premise of the experiment.. OR, evidence of the potential of the mind to effect healing exclusive to commonly accepted modalities..

Why is it that science, when faced with evidence that exceeds its ability to verify, seeks to invalidate rather than investigate? I oten consider the ego factor, science seems to believe that it is responsible for all of mankinds advances.

Each belief system can and will rationalize its beliefs.. on the otherhand, accepting the results and building from there is frequently overlooked in favor of protecting the chosen belief system.

Ultimately, i sense that there will be a marriage of East/West medical theories.. as it should be. Exclusivity only hinders progress.

Suppose someone discovers that whistling a particular tune cures cancer, yet.. no logical reason supports this cure.. certainly, it would not be discarded as snake-oil medicine (bear with the hypothetical for a moment and suppose that the effective rate of cure is 90%).. The prescription might be a class on how to precisely whistle the required tune with the caveat that no one knows why this works.. My point is this, that faced with varying results or less than perfect rates of success does not invalidate the successes obtained by modalities outside the rigors of scientific "proof".. that the real injustice is to betray the evidence and its potential to relieve the suffering of even a few people in favor of "scientific evidence"..

As logic and reason digs its heels into the sand and proclaims fraud and fallacy to the masses, it may well persuade some uncertain people to avoid treatments that could offer relief that science itself cannot.. Unless science can "prove" negative or harmful side-effects of alternative treatments (and i mean specifically on a case by case basis) it should support whatever results and treatments improve the quality of one's life.. Notably, i find that Eastern medicine sometimes refers patients to Western medicine, the opposite is seldom the case.. In short, "united we stand/divided we fall" is supremely applicable in the East/West search for health and well-being..

Just another perspective.. Be well..

[Former castleva]

"Suppose someone discovers that whistling a particular tune cures cancer, yet.. no logical reason supports this cure.. certainly, it would not be discarded as snake-oil medicine (bear with the hypothetical for a moment and suppose that the effective rate of cure is 90%).. The prescription might be a class on how to precisely whistle the required tune with the caveat that no one knows why this works.. My point is this, that faced with varying results or less than perfect rates of success does not invalidate the successes obtained by modalities outside the rigors of scientific "proof".. that the real injustice is to betray the evidence and its potential to relieve the suffering of even a few people in favor of "scientific evidence".. "

I guess whistling could work as an analogy.
Two things that we would want to remember while hearing about magical whistle cure would be the following;
-Why does whistle cure work? Whistledoctors say it works because it activates the person´s natural healing cababilities,and stimulates his energies (defined no further)
-"faced with varying results" (A great quote to use)
Left with little to search for with rational manners,whistle cure is tried and it comes out it works "with varying results".What whistledoctors say sounds like an ad hoc hypothesis,and instead of their explanations,various previously discovered mechanisms are thought to be involved.
It is concluded that non-falsifiable nature of whistle cure,which also gives varying results (no to some) all too often,the case for whistle cure is considered vague.

"Why is it that science, when faced with evidence that exceeds its ability to verify, seeks to invalidate rather than investigate? I oten consider the ego factor, science seems to believe that it is responsible for all of mankinds advances. "

"Science" does not exactly say so,this sounds like a strawman.You´ll be better of saying "people",and still you have to be careful to not slip anything.
Science is a method,it does not believe anything.

[cha kuen]

There are very few people out there that are against TCM, like former is. Anyways I just wanted to throw in there that there is this acupuncturist in San Diego named Mike Callistan (sp?) who is the main acupuncture for the San Diego Chargers, NFL football team.

That's right. Atheltes that are paid millions of dolllars a year are placing their trust in TCM. TCM isnt' going anywhere, the MD's are realizing that TCM is taking more and more of their patients away and now they are going and leanring some acupuncture.

It sucks that MD's only need like 200 hours to be certified to practice Acupuncture, but their knowledge of tcm is very shallow.

A surgeon that works in the ER room is also taking private lesssons from Share Lew, a reknown Taoist healer in SD as well.

[Former castleva]

"That's right. Atheltes that are paid millions of dolllars a year are placing their trust in TCM. "

Whether you tell us about athletes that earn millions of dollars,or athletes that earn tens of dollars,is not relevant.
Neither have you shown that these athletes are "placing their trust in TCM".Even if the majority of such athletes would be shown to place their trust in it,it still would not make it any more valid.

[fa_jing]

So tell me FormerC, I suppose you've had accupuncture performed on you 4 or 5 times, and it's done nothing for you?

[dwid]

It sucks that MD's only need like 200 hours to be certified to practice Acupuncture, but their knowledge of tcm is very shallow.

Probably because MD's already have a pretty sophisticated knowledge of the human body. They don't need to know the TCM theory of why X technique works, they just need to learn the mechanics of how to do it.

In the case of things like acupuncture, the conventional theory of why the technique works is the main thing that has detracted from mainstream acceptance.

You tell people that sticking a needle into point X affects the nervous system ultimately resulting in a specific effect, and most people will unblinkingly accept this.

You tell people that sticking a needle into point X affects an invisible network of channels that contain a form of energy undetectable to science and that this network contains sort of metaphorical organs that have various effects on psychology and physiology, and they're going to trip over themselves trying to get the hell away from you.

The big trouble with traditional approaches, I think, is the people deeply entrenched in those approaches who have accepted them part and parcel, and are threatened by attempts to understand legitimate mechanisms by which things like acupuncture and herbal medicine work.

The fact is, it took a lot of trial and error on the part of the "ancients" to find these solutions to various problems, and energy theory was likely just one way to try to integrate a lot of disparate information into a comprehensive theory. It's a sort of baby and bathwater thing.

[dwid]

Yes, we have. You keep siderailing topics into "scientific" arguments. Look:

Zim, I don't think you can call it siderailing when the thread is called "scientific proof of acupuncture." Questioning said "proof" is very much on-topic.

[TaiChiBob]

Greetings..

That anyone would dismiss anything that doesn't fit into such a rigid Model as FC espouses, is deficient in concept and practice.. i cannot measure or quantify such intangibles as love or hate, nor can i deny their existence.. What we witness, and buy into, is a role played by someone that enjoys the struggle we each have with describing the indescribable.. We each know our truths, FC knows his own truth.. so be it. his redundant lapse into meaningless "strawman" or "red herring" comments is simply the blinders that limit his own vision of a grander universe.. leave him be, he has a right to his opinions.. too much time is wasted describing the elephant to the blind man..

Of course acupuncture works.. and i don't need proof to convince me of it, my evidence is firsthand.. of course Qigong works, my evidence is firsthand.. FC's rejection of such notions is premised on constrained procedures, and evidence manipulated by others, so what.. likely we will not encounter each other.. more likely, such narrow-minded perspectives will not diminish the benefits of Qigong or acupuncture.. too many other topics worthy of mind-play than trying to open the eyes of the self-blinded..

Be well..

[dwid]

i cannot measure or quantify such intangibles as love or hate, nor can i deny their existence..

You also wouldn't want to rely on a consistent dose of one or the other to keep you alive.

Things like love and hate don't need to be quantified. Things like penicillin do.

I would consider myself very moderate in comparison to Castleva, or to you or Repulsive Monkey for that matter, but to argue that there's no point in attempting to quantify something being passed off as medicine does nothing to support its validity as such.

[TaiChiBob]

Greetings..


Things like love and hate don't need to be quantified. Things like penicillin do.

Why? Why not?

Again, you adjust the game to fit your desires.. if penicillin should be quantified, why shouldn't Love or hate?.. Could it be that it negates the arguement?

The most compelling arguement for the intangibles is the vast numbers of returning practitioners and testimonials.. if it works, why deny it because of lack of quantifiable proof.. just accept the evidence (testimonials) and give it an unprejudiced try..

I'll move on now.. weary from the cries of sterile science, the real world beckons.. the real world where the mystery is also the magic..

Be well..

[Former castleva]

" FC knows his own truth.. so be it. his redundant lapse into meaningless "strawman" or "red herring" comments is simply the blinders that limit his own vision of a grander universe.. leave him be, he has a right to his opinions.. too much time is wasted describing the elephant to the blind man.."


If you are to argue,bring up a logical argument.

" i cannot measure or quantify such intangibles as love or hate, nor can i deny their existence.. "

We are talking about medicine,not emotions.

"Of course acupuncture works.. and i don't need proof to convince me of it, my evidence is firsthand.. of course Qigong works, my evidence is firsthand.. FC's rejection of such notions is premised on constrained procedures, and evidence manipulated by others"

Do keep in mind that not everyone is impressed without this proof.When you make statements like the one above (constrained procedures etc.),you may be expected to back them up.

"more likely, such narrow-minded perspectives will not diminish the benefits of Qigong or acupuncture.. too many other topics worthy of mind-play than trying to open the eyes of the self-blinded.."

Why are the perspectives "narrow-minded"? What about "self-blinded"?
Add all loaded terms you wish,but it will not support an argument.In fact,it will only demonstrate your (the you being a general one) inability to produce one.

[dwid]

Again, you adjust the game to fit your desires.. if penicillin should be quantified, why shouldn't Love or hate?.. Could it be that it negates the arguement?

My point, which I think was rather obvious, was that penicillin needs to be quantified because, like many things, not enough of it won't help you and too much will kill you. I'm not trying to tear the magic from your world, I'm simply establishing that it's reasonable for some things to be held to a different standard than others. If the only claim made about qi gong, etc... is that it makes you feel good, then there is no need for further analysis. However, when you start saying that qi gong will significantly extend your life, cure cancer, etc... then it is reasonable to expect some proof to the validity of such claims.

I understand we are coming at this from differing perspectives. Would it surprise you to know that I have learned a variety of qi gongs and still practice some (not as much as I should).

The fact that is quickly apparent here is that many on the spiritual side of the debate are every bit as inflexible as the stodgiest of scientists.

[Former castleva]

"just accept the evidence (testimonials) "

Anecdotal evidence cannot be considered evidence,as far as logic goes.

[Daredevil]

I strongly recommend anyone to get their own proof. What's there to lose (compare with what you have to gain)?

If it happens to work for you, **** the scientific proof. You want the effects, not the causes, anyway.

If you're a scientist looking to advance the field, then by all means seek the proof. Otherwise it's just air coming out of your ass like from any fundamentalist.

[Former castleva]

"If you're a scientist looking to advance the field, then by all means seek the proof. Otherwise it's just air coming out of your ass like from any fundamentalist."

As dwid said,this thread was about scientific proof.

"I strongly recommend anyone to get their own proof. What's there to lose (compare with what you have to gain)?"

Financial losses&loss health-wise is a possibility.

[RAF]

http://groups.msn.com/NeiWaiChiaKungFu/thismonthsarticlescientificstudyofchiandmeridians. msnw

Here is a little piece from that Tom posted on the another site.

http://www.utexas.edu/cola/depts/culturalstudies/tpp/tpp2/frank.pdf , at pp. 24-25 (see p. 22 for Henry Look's recollection of Yu Peng-xi).

[Former castleva]

PubMed´s;
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=2339006&dopt=Abstract

http://www.acsh.org/publications/priorities/1102/acu.html

[cha kuen]

The only reason people say TCM is all about the mind is because they can't imagine how a needle, or herbs, or chi kung can work. They don't understand it so they make some stupid assumption.


If TCM is all "mental" then western can be mental as well. My friend has headaches all day, her left ear hurts, has a lump on her throat, dry throat and a funny head feeling. She went to her MD's and took many pills for years.....this TOO SHOULD have been the mental effect. After all, she was seeing a "doctor" and paying a lot of money to her pills and cat scans...and taking the pills she HOPES it will work, but ....it didn't.

anyways, there is a main acupucnturist for the SAN DIEGO CHARGERS, TCM getting into the professtional sports. Millionair players being treated by tcm..yes....success.. =]

[Former castleva]

"If TCM is all "mental" then western can be mental as well. My friend has headaches all day, her left ear hurts, has a lump on her throat, dry throat and a funny head feeling. She went to her MD's and took many pills for years.....this TOO SHOULD have been the mental effect. After all, she was seeing a "doctor" and paying a lot of money to her pills and cat scans...and taking the pills she HOPES it will work, but ....it didn't."

Hardly "mental",whether she was helped or not (anecdote).

"anyways, there is a main acupucnturist for the SAN DIEGO CHARGERS, TCM getting into the professtional sports. Millionair players being treated by tcm..yes....success.. =]"

Financial succes for-? Cannot disagree.

[bob10]

Originally posted by Former castleva
[B
Anecdotal evidence cannot be considered evidence,as far as logic goes. [/B]

It seems that it can when the evidence points the "right" way :D

Taiji masters or similar who die at an early age are conveniently ignored, people that qigong fails to cure are conveniently ignored - or worse still, it is somehow their own fault that the qigong didn't work - people that acupuncture hasn't worked for are conveniently ignored.

Anecdotal evidence works both ways, it seems that whatever belief system you adopt colours how you use the information.

[Former castleva]

I agree.
However,it´s pretty much as worthless both ways.No matter how much of it you gather.

[vikinggoddess]

I don't know if this research is translated into English anywhere, but I saw a video- taped lecture by some Chinese OMD lecturers that was translated into English. I have no way to find out where or when these studies took place, as the library I checked it out from was shut down. But anyway, they did pain tolerence studies on rabits where first they found that acupuncture increased pain tolerence in rabits, second they tranfered the cerebral spinal fluid from these rabits into rabits that received no acupuncture. This second group of rabits had increased pain tolerence, like the first group, with out acupuncture.

A nasty study, admittedly, but it shows that acupuncture acts on the brain at the biochemical level. I was really disapointed a year or 2 ago when the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine proposed nothing about looking to other countrys that are successfully using and researching different types of medicines. I think it would really be great if CAM set up some grants for researchers to go to China and figure out what promising research is going on instead of trying to reinvent the wheel over here. There are plenty of Chinese who obtained their PhD's in the US, who would be able to understand, judge and translate these types of research studies and make some reviews and recommendations.

[RAF]

Angina Pectoris I
by Ballegaard S; Meyer CN; Trojaborg W.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Homepage | Research Subject Index | Cardivascular


Acupuncture in angina pectoris: does acupuncture have a specific effect?



Journal of Internal Medicine, 1991 Apr, 229(4):357-62.
(UI: 91225644)
Pub type: Clinical Trial; Journal Article; Randomized Controlled Trial.
AT: UCLA Biomed W1 J0674H
(PE title: Journal of internal medicine.)



Abstract: To overcome the methodological problems of blinding the patients and the acupuncturist in acupuncture trials, 33 patients with stable angina- pectoris, who were randomized to either genuine or sham acupuncture, received electroacupuncture by another acupuncturist, and the change in skin temperature was recorded. It was found that the change in skin temperature correlated significantly with the degree of improvement following both genuine and sham acupuncture. Fourteen patients with no decrease in skin temperature exhibited a significantly better response to acupuncture than 19 patients who showed a decrease in skin temperature (G II). In the former group, there was a 15% median improvement in exercise tolerance (G II 0%), a 678 improvement in anginal attack rate (G II 38), and an 84% improvement in nitroglycerine consumption (G Ir 50%). A significant correlation was found between the duration of disease and the effect of acupuncture. It is concluded that both genuine and sham acupuncture have a specific effect on some angina pectoris patients in addition to the effect of pharmacological therapy.


http://acupuncture.com/Research/ResInd-all.htm

[ctoepker]

Earlier in the discussion much was made of the placebo affect and the common notion that 1/3 of placebo control groups get better. This affect is often attributed to the amazing healing power of the mind, etc.

However, recent studies have shown that in fact that notion is a myth.

http://hideinplainwebsite.com/Placebodoc.htm

From the above linked New York Times article
"The investigators analyzed 114 published studies involving about 7,500 patients with 40 different conditions. The report found no support for the common notion that, in general, about a third of patients will improve if they are given a dummy pill and told it is real."

On another point, much has been made of discussion styles. When sections of the discussions are rightly labelled "red herring," etc. the response seems to be a discounting of the very real observations. Does this advance the discussion? It seems as if folks are dismissing a real POV instead of engaging it. In other words, isn't it hypocritical to write someone else's opinion off as hopelessly mired in logic, science, and "western" constraints while standing on similarly mired "eastern" ground?

I see that many people believe this works. Maybe it does. If it does, it seems clear that it works for reasons other than those currently stated. For example, in another thread this article:

http://www.skeptics.com.au/journal/acufacts.htm

gives a pretty good outline of the history of one aspect of TCM and its transportation abroad. When one realizes that current understandings of the practices are not connected to the "T" of Traditions at all, the stance is weakened.

Be that as it may, when faced with new information, one cannot simply write it off. Either one's assumptions are wrong or reality is. So far, no one has unduly suffered from examining their assumptions....

CT

[Former castleva]

" Earlier in the discussion much was made of the placebo affect and the common notion that 1/3 of placebo control groups get better. This affect is often attributed to the amazing healing power of the mind, etc.

However, recent studies have shown that in fact that notion is a myth.

http://hideinplainwebsite.com/Placebodoc.htm "

The thing I dislike about articles like that,the article itself being legitimate,is their authoritative note.Yes,it raises points but not enough to convince me that dearly held placebo effect is a "myth".The article was not exactly new (not old) but they´re really raising just as conventional explanations to replace the placebo effect.The important thing is that those explanations (talk about condition´s natural course) has been addressed together WITH placebo,which the document does not let you know.I´d like to see a stance on nosebo.

[Tak]

The most compelling arguement for the intangibles is the vast numbers of returning practitioners and testimonials..

Well, no, this isn't really a good argument at all. This has been used to support every popular religion and cult, as well as every folk remedy, legitimate or not, and wide varieties of financial scams.

[ctoepker]

FCV,

Perhaps you'll like this one better....

http://www.studyworksonline.com/cda/content/article/0,,NAV4-42_SAR1112,00.shtml


Of particular note from the article:


But after nearly 50 years of acceptance, the placebo effect is now being questioned. In a recent paper in the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Asbjorn Hrobjartsson and Dr. Peter C. Gotzsche of the University of Copenhagen and Nordic Cochran Center reported the results of their recent study. They reviewed journal articles looking for the original research stating that 35-percent of patients improve if given a placebo. All the papers they looked at did not include original research on the placebo effect but cited a reference. When they looked up the paper being referenced, it cited another reference. It turns out that the original source of the statement was a 1955 article “The Powerful Placebo” published in The Journal of the American Medical Association. The paper was written by Henry Beecher, who had been chief of anesthesiology at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Dr. Beecher had analyzed about a dozen studies and came up with the 35-percent figure.

I put "Dr. Peter C. Gotzsche placebo" into Google and got all sorts of responses. I'm sure you'll find the "deconstructions" of the work very interesting too.

Example: http://www.hideinplainwebsite.com/Placeboo.html

Later,
CT

[Former castleva]

Thanks.
I have not had the time to drag myself trough those sites so far,I´ll be trying to as soon as possible.

[RAF]

http://www.acupuncturetoday.com/archives2003/nov/11taichi.html
http://www.acupuncturetoday.com/forums/

http://www.acupuncturetoday.com/archives2003/nov/11mao.html

"Credit for the renaissance should be given to Mao Tse Tung. One of his noted quotations is, "Traditional Chinese medicine is a great treasure. It must be thoroughly studied and elevated to a higher level." "Credit" should also be given to the United States, which has imposed harsh economic sanctions and embargoes against China ever since the Korean War. Without adequate Western medical supplies, China had to rely on TCM and "barefoot doctors" to provide health care to its one billion citizens.

After the Zhou-Nixon summit in 1972, TCM was reintroduced to the West. Its popularity rose quickly. One out of ten adults in the U.S. tried TCM last year, and a number of TCM colleges have been established across the nation. The number of practitioners has increased more than tenfold in the past 20 years. China has played an important role by providing scholars and clinicians to become the backbone of TCM educators and practitioners worldwide. In the U.S., the National Institutes of Health has established the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. Its annual budget is now more than $100 million. Some major medical schools have set up offices for integrative medicine. Their larger mission is to integrate Eastern and Western medicine, which China started doing 40 years ago.

To prepare for the integration, TCM curriculum should incorporate more courses of Western clinical and basic science. The length of study should be increased to accommodate the additional training. It will help the graduates to conduct scientific research to find out why and how TCM works. This is important for the advancement and acceptance of TCM, not only by the public, but also the scientific community. Education and research through science are the driving forces for the eventual integration of Eastern and Western medicine. It is possible that one day there will be only one integrative health system, where practitioners of both fields will work side-by-side. "

Willie Mao, PhD, LAc
La Crescenta, California


http://www.acupuncturetoday.com/ask/

[vikinggoddess]

To prepare for the integration, TCM curriculum should incorporate more courses of Western clinical and basic science. The length of study should be increased to accommodate the additional training. It will help the graduates to conduct scientific research to find out why and how TCM works. This is important for the advancement and acceptance of TCM, not only by the public, but also the scientific community. Education and research through science are the driving forces for the eventual integration of Eastern and Western medicine. It is possible that one day there will be only one integrative health system, where practitioners of both fields will work side-by-side.

Integration is important and must occur carefully without preconceived notions to assimilate it into the western biomedical model. Though I do not disagree with that high standards of clinical and western science are valuable for Chinese medicine practitioners, I favor an emphasis on increased training and experience in clinical research philosophy, design and implementation, knowledge of statistics, analysis and presentation of research, professional collaborations, etc. To patients needing effective treatment the most important aspect for integration of Chinese medicine with Western medicine is not explaining things like how qi and acupuncture work at the basic science level but rather clinical studies showing the efficacy of particular treatment methods. I would like to see more a studies like the one by Cardini & Weixin in JAMA "Moxibustion for correction of breech presentation: a randomized controlled trial." Yes, moxa works very well to turn the breech baby, 75%. Every acupuncture student learns this simple treatment protocol. There are so many other long-taught methods that are calling out to be tested. I would like to see more simple practical-application clinical studies like this, coming from a purely Chinese medical perspective.

[ctoepker]

Originally posted by vikinggoddess
Integration is important and must occur carefully without preconceived notions to assimilate it into the western biomedical model. Though I do not disagree with that high standards of clinical and western science are valuable for Chinese medicine practitioners, I favor an emphasis on increased training and experience in clinical research philosophy, design and implementation, knowledge of statistics, analysis and presentation of research, professional collaborations, etc.

VikingGoddess,

I find this perspective most interesting...I too often wonder what the future of science might bring to us. I mean, as a historian I see Chinese medicine as developing and advancing as new information and tools are made available to Chinese scientists. Sadly, trends in TCM these days seem to be to look backwards for validity (e.g. statements often made like "The 'Yellow Emperor's Classic' is a time-tested methodology for cures because it is 5,000 years old.")

I believe that there may be something interesting in TCM outlook, but continuing to view it in isolation from other information and advancements is a mistake. Not only that, it is not a mistake the Chinese themselves made in researching to develop the knowledge to its current state. Perhaps clinical studies are useful.

Simply put, I look forward to a time in the future when both views will have fully informed each other and something new is understood...not 'eastern,' not 'western' but just useful in curing human suffering.

Currently it is my perception that 'Western' medicine is being rather open to investigating TCM claims. However, TCM is being very slow (resistant even) to absorbing cell theory, updated human anatomies, etc. I wonder how that will change if people who bring those issues up are treated as heretical, small minded and generally stuck in a 'backwards' mindset.


Sincerely,
CT

[vikinggoddess]

I understand what you mean about TCM being slow to acknowlege cell theory, etc. Closed mindedness never gets you anywhere no matter what your background though. I think this is probably actually more of an issue with TCM practitioners in the US, who often have had bad experience with biomedicine medicine practice, compared to Chinese TCM doctors who have, from what I understand, full western medical (at least by Chinese standards which I am not familiar with) and Chinese medical training. I don't agree that Western MD's are particularly open to TCM, but rather American patients are open to TCM, though I hope I am wrong about the MDs.

I think that a significant number, if not the majority, of MD's work from the biased assumption that high-tech biomedicine medicine always leads to better outcomes for the patient. This is simply not the case, as we see from the medical literature, for example, that midwifes acheive equally good or better outcomes in home births & birthcenters compared to obstetritions in hospitals. Another problem, actually is the continued belief-driven rather than research driven practices of Medical Doctors. For example, unneccessary episiotomies are still rather standard in hospital births, even though it is coming out that older women who received this procedure are the ones who are now having surgery to repair vaginal & uterine prolapse and urinary incontinence. There are many similar problematic practices related to childbirth at a hospital, for example not allowing women to drink and eat in childbirth, scheduled C-sections, higher C-section rates during the weekends, etc. I recommend the highly researched "The Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth" by Professional Labor Support-woman Henci Goer, which gives a lot of insight into problems coming form belief-driven medicine in Obstetrics.

It seems that TCM practitioners and Medical Doctors both can see the bad points of each others medical system. If each profession tried harder to follow through with clinical research and apply of proven clinical research methods, respectively, integration would naturally follow.

[cha kuen]

VKMID,

MD's are only required to study liek 200 hours of chinese medicine to be able to practice. Why? Because MD's rule the world. Many MD's who study TCM for 200 hours get only the very basics, the top 20 points to use.

There is not a set of points to use for this pain and that. It varies person to person, their life style, job, work, excercise, stress, worry, emotion - all of those are addressed in chinese medicine.

ANYWAYS, HERE"S A **** BRIGHT IDEA> Instead of arguing this and that, lets state our OWN experiences.

Former, you are ..17 years old? You need to get some experince or treatment and tell us how that goes for you. Have you ever had TCM treatment? Probably not..


My left shoulder has been fixed by TCM. My chronic neck pain and lower back has been treated and only gotten better with TCM. I've tried MD's and they said nothign is wrong with my neck and that my lower back would NEVER be the same. They told me to stretch and do situps, but that never released any of the pain or stiffness.

I have TMJ as well. MD's and chiropractors told me to get a mouth guard, custom made from a dentist. I did that and I wore it everynight, and it didnt' get any better. I have yet to try TCM for this yet, but the guys I know said that TMJ should go away with meditation or chi kung practice. I recently joined a tai chi classs so i'll update my OWN Experience with that later.



This post marks the end of the B/S of "this artcile says this and that." Lets post our experiences. then theres' no yada yada bull crap.

A friend of mine got into a car accident, after one chi kung treatment, he got all better. My teahcer in hong kong went to see this TCM dude for her long time neck problem. In one treatment, poof, gone! I waqs there to witness it. What else? name some experinces and lets put this arguing to sleep.

[vikinggoddess]

oh, you want some anecdotes...

i don't have allergies/chronic rhinitis (life long problem) anymore since i started following a chinese nutritional diet and taking chinese herbs. the main herb was huang qi/ astragalus + Spleen qi tonics like dan shen, shan yao, etc. took self-prescribed raw-herb formula every day for a few months, and now i just cook up huang qi a couple of times a month.

you want some other anecdotes? one of many... heard of 5 needle protocol ear acupuncture for relief from drug withdrawals. here's a twist: someone called me last week asking if i could teach them over the phone to do ear acupuncture for the girlfriend who was crying desperately in the back ground after having reduced her methadone dosage. ya, right, teach ear acupuncture over the phone. instead i suggested vigorous massage to the ears until they felt hot and were red. this is generally what is experienced by people coming off drugs after the ear acupuncture. turns out the his massage worked very well; she fell asleep right after. he also tried massaging his own ears, but could not achieve the hot/ red effect. thinking i should follow up on this. would be great if self ear massage is as effective as ear acupuncture for drug withdrawals. tempting to try to pull off a ghetto research study. definately no shortage of crack heads around here.

[GeneChing]

I used to teach experimental psychology, so the Placebo effect was a big issue. To me, it was this funny way science described something it couldn't really control, akin to hypnosis. It was the human element.

Now, I do volunteer work for the Haight Ashbury Free Medical Clinic and I use the theory of Placebo effect all the time when working with patients. It doesn't always work, but it works enough time for me to keep using it. It's not like it's a big investment, or that there are even any laws binding it. For example, I specialize in Intense Psychedelic Reaction treatments, and I have often given patients a "pill" to bring them down. That pill has been everything from aspirin to altoids. Now, under a doctor's supervision, we can actually give someone a valium or something, but why waste our precious resources when we have plenty of altoids and the effect is actually better. With valium, the patient may get to sleepy to get home. With altoids, they come down plus have fresh breath to boot!

The problem with science, especially in medicine, is that it's all about sterility. You cannot conduct any experiment without controllling all your variables. And humans are big variables. Science doesn't get down and dirty, on the street level, where the real healing must be done. Now this doesn't mean I reject science by any means. It just means that science is as contextually bound as anything else. If TCM is all faith healing, let me feel the faith. It's cheaper and more ethical.

[vikinggoddess]

Here's some interesting scientific theories from MD Acupuncturist Charles Shang:

http://acupuncture.com/Acup/Mech.htm

[RAF]

The Associated Press

Wednesday, January 14, 2004

Wichita — Recovering stroke patients benefited so much from acupuncture therapy that Wesley Rehabilitation Hospital cut short its study into the benefits of the ancient practice.

Now, acupuncture is offered to all patients who met the study's qualifications.

The small study, which began about two years ago and ended several months ago, was restricted to patients having their first stroke, with no more than six weeks having passed from the onset of symptoms.

Thirty-three patients participated in the study. They were assigned randomly, and 11 didn't get acupuncture. All got the more traditional speech, occupational and physical therapy six days a week.

Ninety percent of the patients who got acupuncture, and 33 percent of those who didn't, were able to go home rather than to another facility after leaving the hospital, said Dr. Blake Veenis, a rehabilitation medicine specialist.

Stroke patients who got acupuncture also showed more improvement toward being able to carry out such tasks as dressing, bathing, grooming, walking and changing position.

Cyndy Miller, director of clinical services at the hospital, said those involved in the study were writing up their research and hoped to have it accepted for publication in a medical journal.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright © 2003
Visit us at http://www.ljworld.com

[RAF]

Acupuncture put under spotlight

Scientists are to investigate whether psychological factors may boost the effectiveness of acupuncture.
A team from the University of Southampton has already shown that acupuncture treatment can reduce chronic neck pain by 60%.

Now they plan to recruit almost 300 patients suffering from hip or knee pain to see if it works for them too.

They also plan to examine whether the relationship the practitioner strikes up with the patient plays any effect.

Some patients will be given a sympathetic, caring consultation, others will be treated rather less empathetically.

The researchers will also investigate whether simply administering needles is enough to trigger an improvement in patients who think they are undergoing acupuncture.

Lead researcher Dr Peter White said his team were particularly interested in the whether the effects of acupuncture could be enhanced if the patient developed a good relationship with the practitioner.

He said: "To some extent, modern based medicine has failed to value this individual and very personal interaction between patient and therapist.

"Perhaps complementary and alternative medicine treatments can present a valuable model design through which we may understand this process."

Ancient theory

According to ancient Chinese medicine, acupuncture works by diverting energy channels that flow through the body.

Dr White said there was no evidence to support this theory, but there was evidence that acupuncture triggered the release of chemicals in the body.

These include serotonin, which plays a role in regulating mood, and endorphins, which are the body's natural painkillers.

Dr White suspects that acupuncture also triggers other, as yet unknown, responses in the body, which may have a physiological or psychological basis.

The three-year project is sponsored by the Department of Health.


Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/health/3402709.stm

Published: 2004/01/19 00:57:04 GMT

© BBC MMIV

[RAF]

Acupuncture's secret: Blood flow to brain
By Marilyn Elias, USA TODAY
Acupuncture on pain-relief points cuts blood flow to key areas of the brain within seconds, providing the clearest explanation to date for how the ancient technique might relieve pain and treat addictions, a Harvard scientist reports today.Although researchers still don't fully understand how acupuncture works, "our findings may connect the dots, showing how a common pathway in the brain could make acupuncture helpful for a variety of conditions," says radiologist Bruce Rosen of Harvard Medical School (news - web sites). He'll release the findings at the American Psychosomatic Society meeting in Orlando.Rosen's team used functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, or MRIs, on about 20 healthy volunteers before, during and after acupuncture. This type of brain scan shows changes in blood flow and the amount of oxygen in blood. Researchers applied acupuncture needles to points on the hand linked to pain relief in traditional Chinese medicine. Blood flow decreased in certain areas of the brain within seconds of volunteers reporting a heaviness in their hands, a sign the acupuncture is working correctly, Rosen says. The needle technique is not supposed to hurt if done correctly. When a few subjects reported pain, their scans showed an increase of blood to the same brain areas. "When there's less blood, the brain isn't working as hard, " Rosen says. "In effect, acupuncture is quieting down key regions of the brain." The specific brain areas affected are involved in mood, pain and cravings, Rosen says. This could help explain why some studies have found acupuncture helpful in treating depression, eating problems, addictions and pain. The brain regions involved also are loaded with dopamine, a "reward" chemical that surges in reaction to everything from cocaine to food, beautiful faces and money. The reduced blood flow could lead to dopamine changes that trigger a "cascade" effect, releasing endorphins, the brain's natural pain-relieving and comforting chemicals, Rosen says.Rosen's study "is a very exciting first step," says neurobiologist Richard Hammerschlag of the Oregon College of Oriental Medicine in Portland, but controlled research on pain and addiction patients will be needed to prove the point. Brain scans should be done on patients getting acupuncture at real and bogus points, he says, and patients shouldn't know which group they're in.The placebo effect is so powerful it could affect blood flow, says UCLA neurobiologist Christopher Evans, a pain expert. There's even some evidence that placebos can increase brain chemicals, such as endorphins, Hammerschlag says.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=676&u=/usatoday/20040304/ts_usatoday/acupuncturessecretbloodflowtobrain&printer=1

[TaiChiBob]

Greetings..

Many thanks and.. <humble bows>.. for your efforts to shed light on this controversial subject.. your articles are not the "proof" required by some.. but, they certainly indicate potential and sincere interest by the growing numbers of scientific minds willing to look at alternative therapies.. it also offers hope that someday the East and West will combine forces to truly care for health of the common person..

Thanks again, and... Be well..

[RAF]

Hello TaiChiBob:

Yeah, I just post them without comment simply because people already have their minds made up. Commentary simply ends up people twisting and inventing clever ways to show how "your" perspective is wrong and how their's is right.

I enjoy reading the articles and keeping a file and, of course, narcissistically believe others also do, so I post them (LOL for taking myself too seriously).

Thanks and its always a pleasure reading your posts!

[RAF]

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=594&u=/nm/20040315/hl_nm/health_acupuncture_dc&printer=1

Acupuncture Helps Chronic Headache Sufferers-Study
2 hours, 40 minutes ago Add Health - Reuters to My Yahoo!

By Patricia Reaney

LONDON (Reuters) - Acupuncture is a useful, cost-effective treatment for patients who suffer from chronic headaches or migraine, American researchers said on Monday.

In one of the largest randomized studies to assess the effectiveness of the ancient Chinese treatment, scientists found it worked better than just conventional treatments alone.

"People using acupuncture had fewer headaches, less severe headaches and they used less health resources over the course of the following year," Dr Andrew Vickers, of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, said in an interview.

The scientists compared acupuncture plus standard treatment to normal therapy alone in 401 patients in England and Wales who suffered from headaches several days each week. Their research is published online by the British Medical Journal.

Patients who had been assigned acupuncture plus standard treatment received up to 12 treatments over three months.

Initially there was not much difference between the two groups but at the end of the year-long trial the scientist noticed a big change.

Patients receiving acupuncture had 22 fewer days of headaches per year, used 15 percent less medication, made 25 percent fewer visits to their family doctors and took fewer days off sick than the other group.

There were not many side effects and Vickers and his colleagues also found that the treatment was cost effective.

"For severely affected patients, acupuncture reduced the severity and the frequency of their headaches to make a real difference in their lives," Vickers said.

Acupuncture was first used in China about 2,000 years ago, according to Vickers. It involves inserting very fine needles into the skin at specific points in the body. It is one of the most popular forms of complementary medicine and has been shown to relieve nausea and pain.

German researchers have also said it could help women undergoing fertility treatment to conceive.

[RAF]

Marin Independent Journal


Marin hospitals are taking an integrated approach with acupuncture
By Keri Brenner
IJ reporter

Monday, April 12, 2004 - Nurse Lisa Crespo's back pain started on her last day of work before New Year's Eve.

"I was lifting a patient to help assist him in getting back to bed," said Crespo, who works in a medical surgical unit of Novato Community Hospital. "I made sort of a twisting motion, and I felt a twinge in my middle and upper back."

In January, after pain pills, muscle relaxants and a cortisone shot all failed to provide much relief, Crespo decided to try acupuncture. She didn't have to go far.

Crespo's acupuncturist was a fellow hospital employee: Pat Sanders, a nurse practitioner and licensed acupuncturist at Sutter@ Work, an occupational medicine clinic at Novato Community and at Marin General Hospital in Greenbrae.

With the introduction of acupuncture into a hospital setting, Marin is at the forefront of a growing national trend called "integrative medicine." A blend of conventional and non-conventional therapies, integrative medicine is expanding into major hospitals across the country - including Duke University Hospital in Durham, N.C., Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York and Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles - as research becomes available on applying alternative and complementary therapies to clinical practice.

"I was amazed at how well it worked and relieved the pain," said Crespo, who still is receiving regular treatments. "I actually believe in traditional medicine, where you take a pain pill if you're in pain, but the fact that you could stick a needle in and relieve pain, this is great."

Sanders, who started treating outpatients at the two Marin Sutter hospitals with acupuncture in March of last year, is the first full-time nurse practitioner/ acupuncturist on staff. At Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Terra Linda, licensed acupuncturist Elon Rosenfeld has been on staff for two and a half years, said Patricia Kendall, medical group administrator.

"A lot of people who are sent for acupuncture have been in pain for a long time, and nothing helped, so they really appreciate when it works," said Randee Allen, director of Kaiser Terra Linda's physical therapy department, where acupuncturist Rosenfeld is based. "It can be a life-changing thing for some people - they couldn't walk to the bus stop before, and now they can. It's a big thing for them."

Sanders was hired as a nurse practitioner at the two Marin Sutter hospitals in October 2000. An acupuncturist in private practice for more than 18 years, Sanders began developing the hospitals' acupuncture program protocols in December 2001. Approval for the program - which included reviews by more than a half-dozen hospital boards and committees - took more than two years after that.

Sanders primarily treats people with workplace injuries, such as Crespo. Those are patients with job-related conditions who are referred to the occupational health clinic, Sutter@Work, and who are covered by their employer's workers' compensation insurance.

This year, Sanders opened up the service to members of the public as well.

"The doctors were very excited," said Patrick Glover, director of Sutter's occupational health department, of Sanders' work. "Here was this actual nurse practitioner who also does this (acupuncture) - it helps her credibility in the physician community."

This summer, the occupational health clinics at the two Sutter hospitals will be consolidated into one facility at the new Sutter Terra Linda Health Plaza, planned for a 75,000-square-foot building at 4000 Civic Center Drive in San Rafael.

The Sutter hospitals also include acupuncture as a treatment option through the Institute of Health & Healing, a program operated in partnership with the California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco. Licensed acupuncturist Andy Seplow treats outpatients on a part-time basis at the institute's Marin office at 5 Bon Air Road in Larkspur.

Unlike Sanders, Rosenfeld works out of the Kaiser Terra Linda physical therapy department, not at Kaiser's 10-year-old occupational health clinic, called Kaiser On the Job. Acupuncture through Kaiser On the Job - as well as at the physical therapy department - is done on a referral basis from the patient's primary physician, Kaiser administrator Kendall said.

Although acupuncture use in hospitals is on the rise, most of the country has been slow to pick up. A May 2003 American Hospital Association survey found only 16.7 percent of 1,005 U.S. hospitals queried were using any form of complementary or alternative medicine in 2002.

Area experts say acceptance is slow in some places, because the mixture of a 5,000-year-old Eastern philosophy with conventional Western medical theory is, by nature, a challenge.

For starters, Eastern and Western medical theories are quite different from each other, said Karen Reynolds, an acupuncturist in private practice in Walnut Creek and San Francisco who is also a registered nurse at Kaiser in San Francisco.

Eastern medical theory is based on diagnosing various patterns within the body, mind and spirit of the patient, while Western theory tends to be based on diagnosis by symptoms, Reynolds said.

"What the lay public doesn't understand is that Oriental medicine treats many things, not just pain," Reynolds said. "Oriental medicine treats digestive and gynecological problems and shen (spirit) disorders - such as depression - and it is immensely effective."

Reynolds, a board member of the California State Oriental Medical Association, notes that difficulties in translation also slow the process of integrating Oriental Medicine into Western clinical practice.

"Since it's new in this country, and a lot of the research is from China and Japan, there's a barrier to getting the research and it's hard for the American Medical Association to endorse it fully," she said.

Even though Kaiser has staff acupuncturists at all its Bay Area medical centers, Reynolds said she didn't apply for the positions because she knew she would not be treating the full range of conditions that she is able to treat in private practice.

Sanders, at the Marin Sutter hospitals, also acknowledges that she has had to make accommodations. Sanders said she is trained in Chinese herbology, but does not use it with her Marin hospital outpatients because Oriental medicine herbal treatments would be too difficult to arrange in a hospital setting.

She also doesn't do moxabustion, an herbal heat treatment, in the hospitals for the same reason, but does employ a special heat lamp that works in a similar manner. She also uses an electronic microcurrent stimulator device that is easy to control in a hospital setting.

"I try to keep things simple," Sanders said.

At Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Southern California, however, many barriers to integrative medicine have dissolved. Evan Ross, a licensed acupuncturist on staff at Cedars Sinai since 2001, said he sees 90 to 100 inpatients and outpatients a week for everything from stroke hemiparesis - or partial motor impairment - to post-chemotherapy nausea and vomiting.

"I just did a lecture to the liver transplant team," said Ross, 34, who received staff privileges at the hospital in January of last year. "They're thinking of using acupuncture in surgery, for post-op pain, and for nausea, vomiting and bowel problems, post-op, for patients who don't tolerate medicines and drugs."

Ross, whose specialty is "integrative oncology" for treating cancer patients, is called in regularly by patients' primary physicians for acupuncture consultations.

"I go in the ICU, I go anywhere in the hospital," he said.

Dr. Martin Rossman of Mill Valley, who in 1972 was one of the first Marin physicians to begin practicing acupuncture, called the introduction of acupuncture in hospitals "wonderful."

"Every step like this brings us closer to a real integration of acupuncture and Western medicine," said Rossman, a founding member of the American Academy of Acupuncture. "I don't think it matters where a person gets treated - it's more important whom they get treated by, the person's qualifications, their experience."

According to Nicholas Broffman of Pine Street Clinic, an Oriental medicine facility in San Anselmo, the fact that Marin hospitals are adding acupuncturists is a reflection of the county's progressive attitudes.

"In terms of Western openness to Oriental medicine, it's probably higher in Marin than elsewhere, compared to other smaller suburban counties," said Broffman, whose father, Michael Broffman, is clinic director and a licensed acupuncturist.

Nicholas Broffman said Pine Street, since its inception in 1982, has had an integrative medicine approach, working closely with Western physicians.

"When we started, there were about five acupuncturists practicing in Marin, but now there's about 175," Broffman added. "Certainly, Marin is at the forefront of integrative medicine."

Contact Keri Brenner via e-mail at kbrenner@marinij.com

Copyright and permissions

[RAF]

Doctor Says New Acupuncture Treatment Improves Sight
Provided by Albuquerque Journal on 4/26/2004
by Jackie Jadrnak


SANTA FE Most people would cringe at the thought of a needle in their eye.

Yet, earlier this month, Irene von Horvath lay serenely in Dr. Alston Lundgren's examining room, her lids closed, with a pin-cushion-like cluster of eight needles sticking out around her eyes.

No, the long, flexible needles weren't piercing her eyeballs, but sliding around the globe to tickle the optic nerve underneath. "Very rarely does it hurt," the 85-year-old Santa Fean said.

She is one of the pioneers in something Lundgren calls the Santa Fe Protocol, which he uses to treat macular degeneration, a disease that leads to deteriorating eyesight.

Most accepted medical treatments simply slow the progression of the disease, but Lundgren claims many of his patients actually are seeing better.

A family physician and board-certified medical acupuncturist, Lundgren readily admits that his procedure is not accepted among ophthalmologists, the medical specialists who usually treat such eye diseases.

But that's why he's working so hard to refine his technique and conduct studies to document his results. In a preliminary study published in the journal Medical Acupuncture, Lundgren reported that eight out of 10 patients had improved vision as measured by two different tests.

More recent results, he said, show 25 out of 34 patients could read between two and 15 additional lines on an eye chart after the treatments. He said the U.S. Air Force has gotten interested enough to launch a study of his technique in 50 patients.

His approach combines three elements: a stud embedded in the ear to stimulate a nerve there; four needles inserted around each eye to stimulate the optic nerve; and two needles in the chest at points to access the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. The needles in the eyes and chests are attached to an electromagnetic current.

Lundgren said he started out by treating patients for 15 minutes, but now has extended the time to 35 minutes. Improvement seems to be cumulative the more total treatment time that people log, no matter how frequent the treatments, the better their eyesight seems to get, he said.

It works equally well in both the dry and wet forms of macular degeneration, according to Lundgren. In the dry form, reduced blood supply to the eye causes deterioration and a build-up of junk in the retina. In the wet form, blood vessels proliferate and leak blood into the retina.

Vitamin and mineral supplements have been tried to treat the dry form, and laser treatments have been used to cut off the leaking blood vessels in the wet form. In both cases, though, even if the treatments are successful, they generally only slow the progression of the disease without improving eyesight.

Lundgren, and some of his patients, say they have seen improvement.

Von Horvath said she is legally blind from the dry form of macular degeneration.

"I had gotten to the point I couldn't make out anything in reading material. I couldn't see the landscape anymore it all was quite blurred," she said.

She had several of Lundgren's treatments last summer, stopped when they didn't seem to be working, but then came back in the winter for more, getting two a week.

"Now I can make out the details in the trees. I can see the leaves, and whether they have big trunks or small trunks," von Horvath said. "I can see the outlines of the hills and mountains. It's very exciting to be able to see anything."

It's still a struggle to make out handwriting or to read more than a page or so of print, she said.

Carrie Piro of Rio Rancho calls her experience a success. She said her left eye was 20/80 and she couldn't see out of her right eye at all "everything was chopped up," she said in describing that eye's perceptions.

"I was driving, but I had gotten to where I didn't drive out of my neighborhood, because I didn't trust myself," said Piro, 73. "I couldn't use the sewing machine, because I couldn't see to thread the needle or see the stitches."

Outside the balcony of her apartment was a tree that had become very blurry when she looked at it, she said. The morning after her sixth acupuncture treatment, Piro said, "I walked out on my balcony, and I could see every leaf, every branch. It was amazing!"

Her left eye is now 20/30 and her right eye is 20/80, she said.

Piro said she asked her ophthalmologist about Lundgren's treatment and he advised her, "All you'll get out of it is a slim pocketbook."

When he saw her for a check-up after she had the treatments, she said, he told her, "I don't understand. Your vision is so much better."

Mary Hall, an Albuquerque woman who gives her age only as "over 80," said she had laser treatment on her one eye affected by macular degeneration, but didn't see any improvement in her vision after that.

After getting Lundgren's treatments, though, she said she has noticed her eyesight improve. "You feel as if you're a stuffed chicken," she said, laughing as she described the needles. But, in playing the piano, she can make out the difference between the flats and sharps better than she could before, she said.

When she looks out the front windows of her home, she still sees small waves in the usually smooth line of vision, but the distortion is far less than it used to be, Hall said.

"I'm hopeful," she said of the treatments, adding that she is a painter and would like to return to that pursuit.

Lundgren said there are a couple of possibilities about how the treatment might work. One is that the stimulation helps improve blood supply to the eye and revives visual cells that are dormant, but not destroyed.

Another is that the stimulation of the optic nerve actually sensitizes it so that it responds better to lower levels of visual stimulation.

Answering that question, though, would require researchers with more funding and more expensive equipment than he has, he said.

He noted that his studies don't meet the usual medical standard of double-blind, placebo-controlled research. That's when neither the health care provider nor the patient knows who is getting the real treatment and who is getting the dummy treatment. That works well with drugs, when you can use a dummy pill that looks the same as the real one, but doesn't apply well to acupuncture, he said.

Most physicians want to see such studies published in their peer-reviewed medical journals, though, before they will believe a treatment works.

With a wry smile, Lundgren said that he was trained as an engineer before he went into medicine.

"What I am doing is restoring function, and that's most important," he said.

And, he added, if a patient doesn't see improvement, he doesn't charge them for the treatments. Lundgren said his official price is $165 per treatment, but he usually gives patients their first five treatments at $40 each.

Medicare won't pay for the treatment, but some insurance companies are covering it for patients who don't qualify for Medicare, he said.

Information

Dr. Alston Lundgren will give a talk on his treatment for macular degeneration at 2 p.m. May 5 to the Macular Degeneration Support Group at Highland Senior Center, Monroe and Copper in Albuquerque.

Copyright 2004 Albuquerque Journal

[herb ox]

RAF

The last post re: macular degeneration is the most interesting report I've read in awhile - I've forwarded it to 2 of my dear friends, one with macular degeneration, the other an opthalmologist who specializes in treating the elderly. Perhaps they will investigate further.

peace

herb ox

[RAF]

Herb Ox:

I am really glad to hear that. I am doing research (academic) on the development and nature of TCM markets and collect the stories and research. I just post them here and hope they are interesting and maybe even useful.

Good luck with your friends!

[dwid]

It's interesting that these stories tend to back up what I've felt for a while now.

The dogmatic attachment to the theoretical foundation of TCM does it a disservice and if anything, hinders the process of mainstreaming the techniques. Western science is clearly not out to discredit this stuff wholesale. The research backs the efficacy of the techniques, it just tends to show that the mechanisms by which this stuff works are not those originally thought.

I think possibly the biggest obstacle to making much of traditional medicine a part of modern medicine is the zealots who say you can't have the baby without the bathwater, so to speak.

Good articles, by the way, RAF. Really interesting stuff.

[RAF]

dwid:

I've actually been pretty lucky to have known some elderly Chinese doctors, trained as MDs (John Hopkins), who have no problem embracing TCM, even within its own paradigm. The siply are pragmatic and open, especially if Western medicine fails. This controversy seems to me to be mainly found in the halls of Academia, where paradigms and models rule. Which is fine. Nothing wrong with a good healthy exchange except when it runs into political regulations and public policy.

I've actually had the opposite experience. A number of Western doctors simply throwing the baby out with the bathwater. They sort of take the approach that TCM is based on an antiquated system of beliefs, nothing can really come of it.

I try to strike a balance and remain open. Its pretty clear to me that there are a lot of unexplained mechanisms of Western medicine which is use is based on faith, intuitions, good guesses and not strict adherence to the scientific model. I like that opennes.

On the other hand, the TCM market is full of frauds and overall unsubstantiated claims that worry me sometimes.

I feel comfortable with TCM as a more or less means of preventative medicine, especially with regard to eating and liftestyle (check out yesterday's USA Today and see how the modern development of China, adopting developed countries eating patterns. is leading to a plethora of chronic diseases, including out of range levels of obesity.)

The two TCM practitioners I have known for years Dr. Chen Qing Ping (Canton, Ohio) and Dr. Ming Jin (Berea, Ohio) are both pretty sensible guys with fairly healthy views on Western medicine. In fact, they were both trained in Western medicine basics as part of their TCM curriculum.

Take care.

PS I hope you find your bagua. Maybe you can make it to our tournament in the fall, October. We are holding it on the campus of The University of Akron.

[dwid]

Sounds like you have a really healthy perspective on this stuff.

Thanks for the kind words at the end. I'm not really sure what I'm going to do regarding my continuing study.

I'll be in California from June to September, and then I start graduate school in Nursing in the Fall. I have a good feeling about things falling into place with my MA, so I'm pretty relaxed about it at the moment.

I'd love to attend the tourament in October. We'll see whether my schedule will permit it though. The first year of my program is supposed to be pretty **** grueling.

[RAF]

Firm Developing Accupuncture Pill

Thu Jul 29,10:36 PM ET

By ANSLEY NG, Associated Press Writer

SINGAPORE - A Singapore government-backed biotechnology firm says it is on track to developing an acupuncture pill, claiming to have put the traditional Asian method of using needles to address various physical ailments into a tiny capsule.

Tests on the pills are ongoing, and the pill is initially designed to cure migraines by "mimicking the effects of acupuncture," Molecular Acupuncture chief executive David Picard said.

Acupuncture has been used for thousands of years in many parts of Asia, where it's believed that *****ing a patient with stainless steel needles in strategic places helps nerve and circulatory functions. Oriental medicine views disease as a physical expression of imbalances in the body. Acupuncture and other treatments are designed to restore such balances.

By the end of the study in 2006, scientists would have collated blood samples from over 1,600 migraine sufferers in Singapore and China that will help identify genes and proteins that react to acupuncture, Picard said.

"The research is focused on understanding, from a biological standpoint, what acupuncture does in our body," he said.

The pill is designed to simulate a biological reaction similar that of acupuncture needles, he said.

Work began in Tianjin, China, last year, when an initial group of 60 migraine sufferers underwent acupuncture. Blood samples from those who responded were separated from those who did not respond to the needle treatment.

Research and development costs could reach US$20 million, Molecular Acupuncture said. The company received a grant from the city-state's Economic Development Board, said Picard, but declined to elaborate.

After years of relying on manufacturing, Singapore has been actively wooing biotechnology firms to set up base here as it tweaks its economy to cater to competition from China and India.

If the acupuncture pill to cure migraines is successful, Picard said they would attempt another pill to treat depression and addiction by utilizing the same method.

Picard said the firm was not trying to undermine traditional acupuncturists.

"I don't intend to change mindsets. There are people, especially in Asia, who are eager not to put chemicals in their bodies," said Picard. "They can stick to acupuncture."

One acupuncturist agreed.

"A pill is a pill. It might not work on acupoints on the body," said Chen Keng Leong, who has been practising acupuncture for over 20 years in Singapore.

[CFT]

Acupuncture points to post-op comfort
by Andy Coghlan

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996210

Acupuncture is a cheap and safe way of preventing people who have just had an operation from being sick or feeling nauseous. That is the conclusion of a review of 26 trials involving over 3000 patients.

Anna Lee of the Chinese University of Hong Kong and Mary Done of the New Children's Hospital in Sydney, Australia, focused on trials that studied the effects of "P6" treatment - stimulation of the "pericardium" (P6) acupuncture point on the wrist.

Patients receiving P6 acupuncture were 28 per cent less likely to feel nauseous and 29 per cent less likely to be sick than patients receiving sham treatments, such as insertion of the needle at the wrong place or pretended stimulation of P6.

They were also 24 per cent less likely to ask for anti-sickness drugs. Without treatment, post-operative nausea and vomiting is estimated to affect four out of five people who have had anaesthetics.

In head-to-head comparisons with routine anti-sickness drugs, acupuncture was equally good at preventing nausea and vomiting. The authors report that there were minimal side effects, and advocate P6 acupuncture as a safe and effective means of preventing post-operative sickness and nausea.

Journal reference: The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2004 (DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD003281.pub2)

[RAF]

Acupuncture Helps Knee Pain, Study Finds

2 hours, 54 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Acupuncture can help boost the power of drugs in reducing the pain suffered by patients with arthritis in their knees, researchers report.

Patients who got three-months worth of regular acupuncture treatments along with their normal arthritis care reported less pain and better ability to move than patients who got a sham acupuncture treatment, the researchers said.

"These data show that traditional Chinese acupuncture provides clinically important relief of pain and improvement in function in patients with symptomatic knee osteoarthritis when added to background therapy," said Dr. Marc Hochberg, a rheumatologist at the University of Maryland School of Medicine who worked on the study.

Hochberg and colleagues studied 570 patients for their study, presented Sunday night to a meeting of the American College of Rheumatology in San Antonio, Texas.

The patients, with an average age of 65, got either traditional Chinese acupuncture involving needled, sham acupuncture with the needles tapped at certain points but not inserted, or basic care including anti-inflammatory drugs and analgesics.

The acupuncture patients got 23 treatments. Six months later the patients filled out a questionnaire called the WOMAC Osteoarthritis index. The sham acupuncture group reported a score of -2.92 for pain and -9.87 for movement, compared to -3.79 for pain and -12.42 for the group that got real acupuncture.

Osteoarthritis affects more than 17 million Americans over the age of 65 and in the knee is marked by a breakdown of cartilage.

[RAF]

Acupuncture, Herbs Ease Hay Fever

1 hour, 38 minutes ago

By Alison McCook

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Regular sessions of acupuncture and daily doses of Chinese herbal medicine may help ease the burden of seasonal allergies, new research indicates.

A group of German investigators found that hay fever sufferers who received weekly acupuncture treatments and took three doses of a Chinese herbal formula per day showed fewer symptoms and were less likely to say their allergy was infringing on their daily activities than people who received a placebo treatment.

"There are additional options to conventional medicine," lead author Dr. Benno Brinkhaus of the Charite University Medical Center in Berlin told Reuters Health.

Brinkhaus suggested that people with seasonal allergies should consider acupuncture and herbs, but added that they should use it with caution, given that every treatment has side effects.

According to the report, published in the journal Allergy, the number of people with hay fever is growing in industrialized countries, affecting between 10 and 20 percent of the population.

Many of these patients are now opting for alternative medicine, including Chinese remedies, but few studies have rigorously examined their effects, Brinkhaus and colleagues note.

To investigate, the researchers asked 52 adults with moderate hay fever to try a combination of acupuncture and Chinese herbs or a placebo treatment. People given the placebo regimen had needles applied to non-acupuncture sites, and were given a non-specific Chinese herbal formula.

After 6 weeks, Brinkhaus and colleagues found that 85 percent of treated participants showed overall improvements in their hay fever, compared with only 40 percent of the comparison group.

More specifically, subjects who received the real treatment were more likely to report that their symptoms had decreased. They also tended to say their allergies were having less of an impact on their daily activities, such as sleep, everyday problems and general health.

People who got the genuine treatment were also twice as likely to experience a remission of their allergy, and had a bigger decrease in the number of drugs they took to relieve hay fever symptoms during the study period.

Patients given the real and sham treatment were equally likely to report side effects.

Brinkhaus noted that this study focused on people who already had symptoms, and acupuncture and herbs may be more effective when used before hay fever kicks in.

SOURCE: Allergy, September 2004.

[RAF]

Acupuncture can improve chances of successful fertility treatment
By Maxine Frith Social Affairs Correspondent
21 October 2004


Acupuncture can improve a woman's chances of successful fertility treatment, research shows. Patients on needle therapy during IVF had higher rates of pregnancy and lower rates of miscarriage, the conference of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine in Philadelphia was told yesterday.

Doctors and scientists long sceptical about complementary therapies are increasingly convinced they can aid conventional medicine. Acupunct-ure and hypnosis are now available on the NHS.

Researchers from the Reproductive Medicine and Fertility Centre in Colorado Springs studied 114 women undergoing IVF. The transfer process can be uncomfortable and stressful, hampering the chances for a successful pregnancy.

Half of the women had acupuncture during the transfer, with needles in their ears and other areas; the other half had normal treatment without needles. Acupuncture is based on ancient Chinese theories about pressure points and how they affect health and well-being.

Only 36 per cent of the women on conventional treatment became pregnant, compared with 51 per cent of those who had acupuncture. Just 8 per cent of the acupuncture patients suffered a miscarriage, compared to 20 per cent of the other patients.

The therapy also reduced the risk of ectopic pregnancy, where the embryo develops in the fallopian tube rather than the womb. Live birth rates in the acupuncture women were 23 per cent higher for each IVF cycle.

Professor Edzard Ernst, professor of complementary med-icine at Exeter University said: "We are beginning to suspect acupuncture can have hormonal effects and it [could] influence fertility." He also said extra "tender, loving care" during treatment might have influenced results. He added: "These results deserve to be rigorously tested using placebo acupuncture to ensure the effect is real."
26 October 2004 08:00

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[RAF]

The Daily Camera

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URL: http://www.dailycamera.com/bdc/health_and_fitness/article/0,1713,BDC_2431_3223527,00.html

Joshua Lawton

Mary Saunders, a licensed acupuncturist at the Community Acupuncture Clinic in Boulder, performs a treatment on a patient as fellow practitioner Jennifer McLemore prepares for her patient Sasha Jacobs in the background.

Ancient medicine for the masses
New clinic offers low-cost acupuncture

By Lisa Marshall, Camera Staff Writer
October 4, 2004

In India, it is offered in drop-in, open-air clinics, where dozens of people are treated at once for little, if any, cost.

In China, it's available everywhere from urban hospitals to rural health centers where anyone, regardless of income, can afford as many sessions as they need. But in the United States, says Boulder acupuncturist Mary Saunders, the 2,000-year-old Chinese medicinal art she practices has taken an unfortunate turn as it has grown in acceptance and popularity: It has largely become a remedy for the rich, out of reach for the people who need it most.

"It has always been the medicine of the people. That is the nature of this medicine," says Saunders. "It is we, in this culture, that have turned it into this elitist, alternative thing. It is becoming so expensive that only people with lots of money or really good insurance can afford it."

Saunders aims to buck that national trend with the opening last month of the new Community Acupuncture Clinic, a Boulder facility that offers group acupuncture at a sharply reduced price. The clinic, nestled in the quiet basement of a restored Victorian house, features four cozy recliners, three massage tables and one straight-back chair in a peaceful space where as many as eight patients can be treated at once. As many as three licensed acupuncturists will be at the clinic at any given time.

Fees are based on a sliding scale — $30 to $60 for an initial visit and $15 to $45 for a follow-up. Private practitioners in the area charge anywhere from $55 to $85.

The clinic is modeled after a first-of-its-kind facility, Window of the Sky, which opened in Portland, Ore., two years ago with the aim of making regular acupuncture treatments available to low-income patients. That clinic now treats as many as 100 patients per week and has the capacity to see 15 at a time.

Window of the Sky founder Lisa Rohleder says she still makes a good living. "If you treat four people in an hour for $15, you still get $60, and they all get to come in," she says. "It's just not rewarding for me to get paid $85 a treatment but not be able to treat my neighbors."

After one visit to the Portland clinic, Saunders, a 20-year veteran of the trade and former director of the Southwest Acupuncture College in Boulder, spearheaded a community effort to get a clinic started here. She says almost every piece of furniture in the place was donated, and she was given a break on rent by Partners in Health, the complementary medicine practice that leased her the space.

She hopes to attract students and people of various economic and ethnic backgrounds who have yet to try acupuncture because of its cost. Saunders speaks fluent Spanish and has printed her fliers and delivered her answering machine message in both languages. She'd also like to see those who already get acupuncture but have a need for more frequent treatments able to get them.

"This is the way they do it in China. You want to make it so people can come often. Then they can get real results," she says. "It is not like you are getting lesser care because you are getting group treatment."

On a recent afternoon at the clinic, the quiet sounds of Native American flute echoed through the clinic as the smell of lavender essential oils and burning Moxa, a Chinese herb, wafted through the clinic.

At the massage table in one corner, Saunders gently removed a hair-thin, stainless steel acupuncture needle from the forehead of Veronique, a middle-aged woman who came to the clinic for help with chronic fatigue. Meanwhile, two other women and one man kicked back, eyes closed, acupuncture needles firmly in place, blankets covering them, in the lazy chairs across the room.

Meanwhile, Virginia Charnow, a 26-year-old who came to the clinic for help with hormonal problems, was making her next appointment.

"I felt like I got the same care here as what I received one-on-one at a private facility," said Charnow, who is unemployed right now. "For this cost, this is definitely doable."

Rohleder, of the Portland clinic, says she is thrilled to see another clinic following her lead, and she hopes to see the idea catch on nationally and filter into other forms of alternative medicine. Better access to such medicine, she believes, could translate to better preventive care and fewer costly visits to emergency rooms for the uninsured.

"Alternative medicine, the way it is taught, practiced, and put out in the community is not accessible to working-class people," Rohleder says. "This is really how it was meant to be. It is a radical social justice undertaking. We are trying to change the way medicine is being practiced in this country."

The Community Acupuncture Clinic will offer a free lecture on abdominal self-massage for women at 7 p.m. Oct. 12 at 2825 Marine St., Boulder. For more information on the clinic, call (303) 447-0443

Copyright 2004, The Daily Camera. All Rights Reserved.

[RAF]

Acupuncture Helps Treat Knee
37 minutes ago

FRIDAY, Nov. 19 (HealthDayNews) -- Acupuncture, used as a complementary therapy to drugs, is a more effective treatment for knee osteoarthritis than medication alone, says a Spanish study in this week's issue of the British Medical Journal.

The study included 88 people with knee osteoarthritis who received either acupuncture and the anti-inflammatory drug diclofenac or dummy acupuncture and the drug. The patients were treated for 12 weeks and their levels of stiffness, pain and physical function were measured by the researchers.

Patients in the acupuncture group had a greater reduction of pain and stiffness and improved functioning and quality of life compared to the patients in the placebo group.

The study authors said future research should include longer observation periods after treatment to evaluate the duration of improvement offered by the combination of acupuncture and drug therapy.

Knee osteoarthritis affects nearly 10 percent of people over age 55, the researchers said.

More information

The American Medical Association has more about knee osteoarthritis.

[RAF]

TCM holds promise in treating HIV/AIDS
Jia Hepeng
2004-11-23 06:05



When Lai Zuqin, a traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) doctor in Southwest China's Yunnan Province, tried in the late 1980s to develop a treatment for a strange syndrome which had a combination of symptoms - coughing, headaches, nausea, diarrhoea and hair-loss - he did not expect to become the inventor of China's first authorized anti-AIDS TCM: the Tang Herbal Tablet.

In the early 1990s, he knew the disease was called AIDS and that AIDS was fatal for all.

But to his astonishment, some of his AIDS patients were able to check the development of their illnesses after taking his medicine.

The discovery led Lai to give up all of his clinical work and focus on researching a new medicine based on his prescription.

He was joined by Qi Jieyuan, a Beijing-based pharmaceutical firm, in the medicine's research and development.

It took Lai and the company 10 years to obtain final approval from the State Food and Drug Administration in April 2004.

Like Lai, when TCM doctor teams of the Chinese Academy of TCM were sent to Tanzania to help treat local diseases in the early 1990s, they also thought of TCM.

The only difference is that Lai and the company developed the TCM into a tablet, while doctors from the Academy insisted on using various prescriptions of herbs.

More choices

"Chinese doctors, with little knowledge about AIDS at that time, found many of its symptoms could be treated with TCM. Later, they developed some effective prescriptions against AIDS," said Wei Jian'an, deputy director of the Centre of HIV/AIDS Treatment under the Academy.

Wei joined a Chinese TCM doctor team in Tanzania between 1999 and 2000, and chaired the research into using TCM when he returned to Beijing.

On October 30, a TCM prescription - CATCM-II - developed by Wei and his colleagues and based on their experience in Tanzania, was ranked as a major scientific innovation by the Ministry of Science and Technology.

Yet CATCM-II and the Tang Herbal Tablet are only a small part of nationwide efforts to treat HIV/AIDS with TCM.

In March, SH - another TCM theories-based herbal medicine invented by Chinese researchers in Kunming, Yunnan Province - was approved by Thai drug authorities as a new drug.

She Jing, vice-minister of health and the director of the State Administration of TCM, said at a news conference last month that another two were undergoing clinical trials.

They are TCM, called Ke'aite, literally "the drug that overcomes AIDS," and Qiankunning, produced by the Chengdu-based Enwei Pharmaceutical Co Ltd.

On October 31, Ke'aite reportedly passed the first stage of the trials and was approved by the Drug Administration to launch clinical trial II.

Director of the research centre at Enwei said Qiankunning was in the third phase of a clinical trial and may get the approval from drug authorities within one or two years.

Major advantages

"All the development illustrates that TCM has great potential to deal with HIV/AIDS," Wei said.

The disease is a new one to human beings as far as studies go, but its symptoms are not.

TCM theories are based on the analysis of the whole human body at the onset of the virus or bacteria attacks from the symptoms. The prescriptions are then developed to improve bodily functions to fight attacks and relieve symptoms.

Jin Lu, executive director of the Hong Kong-listed Golden Meditech Co Ltd, said that 200 AIDS patients were treated with TCM during the three clinical trial stages of the TCM, alongside another 200 in five hospitals in Beijing and Kunming.

Golden Meditech acquired Qi Jieyuan in June this year after the latter obtained new drug licence for its Tang Herbal Tablet.

All of the 200 AIDS patients taking the tablet during this trial are still alive, and most of their clinical symptoms have been reduced or even disappeared.

Ninety per cent of them improved their CD4 - a major index used to evaluate immunology against HIV/AIDS - with 51 per cent of them increasing their CD4 by more than 30 per cent.

Wei says one major advantage of using TCM to treat AIDS is its fewer side-effects, early treatment and lower cost.

The commonly used ****tail therapy - using a combination of different AIDS drugs and antibiotics - can control HIV and prolong life for AIDS sufferers.

But doctors say the therapy also has strong side-effects such as anorexia, insomnia and hair-loss.

"In certain cases, some AIDS patients give up the treatments because of these strong side-effects," Jin said.

The ****tail therapy has very strict standards on when to start treatment. If it is too early, the virus might develop strong drug-resistance.

It is often difficult for AIDS patients to know when they contracted the disease, so many of them lose the best chance to receive treatment at the right time. But TCM prescriptions can be used at any time during the disease's development, Jin told China Daily.

TCM researchers say the cost of using CATCM-II and the Tang Herbal Tablet is no more than 3,000 yuan (US$362.32) a year, and it could be lowered further when production costs are cut.

In contrast, using generic chemical medicines - such as Zidovudine, Stavudine, Didanosine and Zalcitabine - produced by Chinese drug makers for ****tail therapy - costs about 10,000 yuan per year (US$1,210), including the drugs and necessary medical checks.

For some poor countries which do not have the capability of producing generic chemical medicine against AIDS at a low cost, the expenditure is much higher.

Thailand's drug authorities are fully supportive of the development of SH in a bid to meet the urgency for inexpensive AIDS drugs, according to Luo Shide, the inventor of SH and a professor at the Kunming Institute of Botany under the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Developing SH

Luo has been researching AIDS medicine based on the combination of TCM theories and modern chemical techniques since the late 1980s, after he returned to China from Germany.

His method is to first determine and purify the vital elements of herbal plants recorded by classic TCM books that treat poisons, and then to combine them into dozens of TCM prescriptions. In the end, some of these prescriptions proved effective in significantly reducing HIV levels.

Luo said his research has not been done at the molecular level, however. It is still difficult to make sure exactly what a single herbal plant's chemical content is, let alone a compound consisting of 20 plants.

He did not receive any government or company's financial support on his work for the first eight years.

"At that time, it was widely considered that HIV/AIDS was not a big problem for China. And anyway, no one believed TCM could be really used to treat HIV/AIDS," Luo said.

In 1998, Luo's research made some major progress and the achievement was posted in his institute's newspaper.

"A visiting Thai public health official found the report and immediately contacted me," Luo said.

The Thailand Government decided to finance Luo's research and offer the necessary equipment for clinical trials to take place.

In China, encouraged by TCM's potential to treat AIDS, China's health authorities have launched a programme to offer free TCM-based treatments to AIDS sufferers.

So far, the programme, chaired by Wei, covers 2,300 patients across five Chinese provinces. The number may double over next year.

The Ministry of Health estimates there were 840,000 HIV/AIDS patients in China in 2003. Experts warn that without effective control measures, the number of HIV carriers may exceed 10 million by 2010.

Challenges remain

Despite the promises, David Ho at New York-based Rockefeller University and the inventor of ****tail therapy, said there was no compelling evidence published in internationally recognized journals that TCM actually enhances immunity.

"I see no reason why TCM would not have some benefits for the immune system or for stopping the spread of HIV. But these claims must be supported by scientific studies. Too few of them have been done properly," Ho says.

Wei and Jin say they have not published their clinical reports in international journals, partly because it is difficult to explain TCM in Western scientific jargon.

They also say their medicines are so far better at improving immunity than directly stopping disease progression.

Luo said TCM may not be powerful enough to kill the virus because many vital elements may be lost during the traditional processing methods.

Luo said some purification work has been done in the United States to insure better purification of active ingredients of TCM. Jin said her company has been negotiating with the World Health Organization and another South Asian country to perform wider clinical research there.

"Based on our current very limited knowledge of TCM at the molecular level, it is impossible for TCM to pass the evaluation process of the US Food and Drug Administration and the European Union's drug authorities," Jin said.

There are still few regulations on using traditional Chinese medicine to treat HIV/AIDS. Any search on the Internet for TCM and AIDS will come up with dozens of websites claiming effective treatments. Even Ke'aite is sold online, yet this is still undergoing clinical trials.

Wei admitted there was little national standardization in using TCM to treat AIDS. "To solve the problem, there should be some official indices to evaluate the true effects of TCM," Wei says.


(China Daily 11/23/2004 page13)

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Acupuncture Increases Nocturnal Melatonin Secretion And Reduces Insomnia And Anxiety: a Preliminary Report: Part I.

Provided by The Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences on 12/1/2004
by Spence, D Warren; Kayumov, Leonid; Chen, Adam; Lowe, Alan; Et al

Originally Published:20040101.

The incidence of insomnia is estimated to be 35% to 40% of the adult population. It currently affects more than 60 million Americans, and this figure is expected to grow to 100 million by the middle of the 21st century.1,2 The defining characteristic of insomnia in the context of anxiety is a pattern of multiple arousals from sleep. Anxious subjects have difficulty maintaining sleep, spend less time in deep sleep, and their sleep is more fragmented than that of normal subjects.3-5 Conversely, sleep deprivation may produce symptoms that fall within the total complex of anxiety.4 Although current opinion suggests that insomnia and anxiety are separate entities, their symptoms overlap considerably. Individuals with insomnia and individuals with anxiety have elevated psychosomatic profiles on psychological tests,6-8 maintain chronically high states of arousal, and rely on an "internalizing" style of conflict resolution (DSM-IV, 4th Edition).9 These commonalities have prompted speculation10 that a common thread underlies the conditions, although their exact relationship, namely whether insomnia is the product of or simply a correlate of anxiety, is still inconsistently viewed in current diagnostic systems (i.e., the ICD-IO, DSM-IV and ICSD [International Classification of Sleep Disorders]).11 It is nevertheless true that the dual diagnostic pattern of anxious insomnia is the most commonly seen problem in sleep disorder clinics today.12 The high rate of comorbidity between anxiety and insomnia, coupled with the high population incidence of insomnia, undoubtedly account for this phenomenon. Although we are unaware of any epidemiological studies on the incidence of anxiety which does not fulfill the criteria for a defined anxiety disorder, it is reasonable to infer that a large segment of the population may have "subsyndromal" anxiety, symptoms that are not associated with debilitating psychopathology, but which nevertheless produce a significant degree of mental discomfort.

Traditional treatment strategies for anxious insomnia have emphasized benzodiazepines. The useful anxiolytic effects of these agents have made them the most widely prescribed of all pharmaceuticals.13 The risks of benzodiazepines, however, are well documented and involve physical as well as psychological effects. These include their potential to promote dependence or acute toxicity in overdose.14,15 Other adverse effects include sedation, psyc****tor and cognitive impairment, memory loss, potentiation of other CNS depressants, and treatment-emergent depression.16 Acupuncture, which relies on the release of neurally active agents from endogenous stores, has been shown to have a superior side effect profile compared to some psychoactive drugs17,18 and may thus represent a means for addressing the concerns about benzodiazepine therapy.

Evidence supporting acupuncture's utility as a treatment for insomnia has come from a variety of sources, including the non-western scientific literature. Among these, investigations by Nan and Qingming,19 Jiarong,20 and Cangliang21 showed positive results. The shortcoming of these studies, however, is that their dependent measures have usually been inexact, relying mainly on subjective accounts of sleep experience or duration, and consequently, despite the consistency of their support for acupuncture, they are difficult to evaluate. Several European studies22-24 used polysomnography to measure acupuncture effects on sleep disorders, but all failed to monitor nocturnal neurochemical changes which would have strengthened their experimental design.

It is known that stress mediation is multifactorial and strongly influenced by GABAergic25 and dopaminergic neurotransmission.26-27 The neurohormone melatonin may also be involved in these effects. Melatonin is a CNS depressant with anxiolytic,28-29 mild hypnotic30 and anticonvulsant actions31 which may be related to its enhancements of GABAergic32-33 and striatal dopaminergic34-35 transmission. The effect of melatonin on mood and chronobiological functions has been established in a number of studies. The pattern of melatonin secretion over a 24-hour period is widely accepted as a measure of circadian activity in humans.36"37 This pattern is disrupted in insomnia. Compared to normal patients, those with insomnia have suppressed nocturnal outputs of melatonin38-39 and are more likely to have histories of depression.40 As noted above, the anxiolytic effects of melatonin have been recently established in rodent models.41-43 In humans, abnormalities in melatonin secretion have been confirmed in patients with bipolar I disorder.44 Taken together these findings support the inference that melatonin deficiency may play a key role in anxiety-associated insomnia.

Some evidence has also been provided that melatonin interacts with the opioid peptides.45-46 Melatonin is both utilized and synthesized following acute pain episodes in humans,47 the function of which may be to modulate fluctuations in opioid receptor expression and levels of beta-endorphin.48 The relationship of melatonin with the opioidergic system is complex and not completely understood, although there is evidence that it has mixed opioid receptor agonist-antagonist activity.49 In aggregate these findings lend support to the postulate of a "melatonin-opioid axis"48 possibly serving a variety of protectant functions.

[RAF]

Part II:

Evidence of the endogenous opioid basis of acupuncture analgesia has been supported both in human50"51 and animal studies.52-53 These have shown that acupuncture analgesia treatment increases CSF levels of met-enkephalin, beta-endorphin, and dynorphin and can be reversed by the opiate receptor blocker naloxone. These findings are relevant to the present study inasmuch as the opioids not only mediate analgesia they also play a central role in subjectively experienced stress. In normal human subjects plasma beta endorphin levels are increased just before or after a stressful experience,54-55 and are associated with feelings of euphoria that is reported following, for example, bungee jumping.56 In depressed patients elevated plasma beta endorphin levels are positively correlated with severe stress and phobia,57 while anxious subjects show increases in beta endorphin immediately before and after cognitive and social Stressors.58 There is thus a reasonable basis for the inference that acupuncture modulates anxious responses and that these effects are mediated by the endogenous opioid system.

At the present time there have been only a few studies of acupuncture's effects on melatonin. In one of these however59 acupuncture was found to promote increases in melatonin in the pineal, the hippocampus, and in serum in rats.

The present study sought to use objective measures, including an analysis of 24-hour melatonin levels in urine, to evaluate acupuncture's effects on insomnia and anxiety. The hypotheses for this study were that a 5-week regimen of acupuncture would promote statistically significant improvements in polysomnographic markers of sleep quality, reduce anxiety (scores on the STAI), and enhance endogenous melatonin production in individuals scoring high on measures of anxiety and insomnia.

METHODS

Eighteen adult volunteers served as subjects in the study. To fulfill the inclusion criteria they had to report having symptoms of insomnia for at least two continuous years immediately prior to the study and to score above 50 (anxiety range) on the Zung Anxiety Self Rating Scale. The Zung is a validated self-administered rating scale60 employing a 20-item list of symptoms in a Likert scale response format. The selected subjects had symptoms of anxiety but did not fulfill DSM-IV criteria for any particular anxiety disorder (i.e., their condition was subsyndromal). Of the 18 subjects 11 were women and 7 were men. all subjects were between the ages of 18 and 55. Their mean age was 39.0 ± 9.6 years. One was of Chinese descent, two were black, and 15 were Caucasian. Prior to participation in the study all had heard of acupuncture and three reported having had acupuncture treatment in the past for conditions unrelated to their sleep problems. In no instance did any of the subjects have acupuncture treatment in the two years prior to participation in the study. The subjects were recruited through several sources, including newspaper advertising, posters placed on hospital bulletin boards, announcements made through the local chapter of an independent sleep-wake disorders patient support group, and occasional notices on a public service program of a local television station.

An initial screening interview was carried out by a psychiatrist or by an associate qualified in psychological interviewing. A preliminary diagnosis for inclusion in the study was made on the basis of the International Classification of Sleep Disorders. The subjects had to report having at least two symptoms of insomnia (fragmented sleep, frequent awakenings, early morning awakenings followed by an inability to fall back to sleep, feeling tired in the morning despite having spent a normal period of time in bed) for at least two years duration and that this experience was not related to an obvious environmental stressor. Potential participants with any concurrent medical, psychological, or psychiatric factors which might account for their sleep difficulties were excluded from the study. Other exclusion criteria were: a history of shift work within five years prior to the study, presence of other sleep disorders, age of less than 18 or greater than 55, a history of alcohol or drug abuse, current use of neurally active medications, or concurrently undergoing psychotherapy. The study protocol was approved by the Human Ethics Committee of the University of Toronto, and written informed consent was obtained from all participants after the procedures had been fully explained. all subjects were asked to sign a Committee-approved consent form confirming that they understood the goals, risks, and potential benefits of the study and their right to withdraw from the study at any time.

The study investigated the use of traditional (symptomatic) acupuncture without augmentation from herbs, pharmaceuticals or hormonal agents. Concentrations of a major melatonin metabolite 6-sulpha toxymelatonin (aMT6s) in urine were measured before and after the study (as described below). This was to evaluate changes in the neurohormone as released from endogenous sources (melatonin was not administered as an experimental treatment). For each subject the trial was conducted over a 7-week period during which the active phase of acupuncture therapy was 5 weeks (two sessions per week, 10 sessions in total). The acupuncture was administered by a master acupuncturist (AC) who was also the director of an acupuncture training program and clinic. The acupuncture needles were disposed of immediately after use and sterile technique was strictly observed. Each acupuncture session lasted approximately one hour. During the 1-week period preceding and following the active treatment phase, subjects were tested with polysomnography at an administratively convenient time in the Sleep Research Laboratory of the University Health Network, Toronto Western Hospital site. Figure 1 illustrates the design of the study.

Two consecutive overnight polysomnographic studies were performed at baseline (before treatment) and at the end of the 5 weeks of treatment with acupuncture. Polysomnographic results obtained on the first night during the before and after stages of the experiment were not included in the analysis to avoid a possible "first-night" effect.61 The sleep parameters included the sleep latency, sleep efficiency, the total sleep time, the arousal index, the percentage of REM sleep and REM latency, and the amount of time spent in stages 1 through 4. Additionally data were collected on the Alpha rating, an evaluative index of sleep quality62 which included an assessment of sleep fragmentation. For the baseline recordings, subjects chose their own retiring and wake up times as was consistent with their normal routine. just before retiring on the second night of polysomnographic testing subjects were also asked to fill out several paper and pencil tests of mood and cognitive efficiency. These included the Toronto Alexithymia Scale,63 a standard pre-sleep questionnaire; the Stanford Sleepiness Scale (SSS)64; and a seven-item Fatigue Scale. Additionally they were asked to fill out the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory65 to gauge the effect of acupuncture on anxiety. The Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D)66 was used to assess the presence of depressive symptoms.

[RAF]

Part III:

On the following morning, immediately after awakening, each subject completed a standard post-sleep questionnaire, the SSS, and the Fatigue Scale. Approximately 20 minutes after awakening, subjects assessed their level of fatigue and sleepiness using the following scales: the Fatigue Severity Scale, the Epworth Sleepiness Scale,67 the Toronto Western Hospital Fatigue Questionnaire, the Fatigue Scale, and the FaST Adjective Checklist. The results from testing were consolidated to form a composite fatigue score (comfatigue), which has been validated in studies on patients with multiple sclerosis.68

After completing the fatigue questionnaires, the subjects were asked to complete a complex verbal reasoning task.69 Accuracy and tune to complete the test were assessed.

During both the pre- and posttest assessment phases urine samples were collected and the concentration changes of aMT6s (which reflects the changes in endogenous levels of melatonin) were subsequently measured with a commercially available competitive immunoassay ELISA kit (Buhlmann Laboratories AG, Allschwil, Switzerland). At aMT6s concentrations 2.0 and 12.5 ng/ml the intraassay coefficients of variation were 5.5% and 3.5%; at concentrations 5.0 and 40.0 rig/ml the interassay coefficients of variation were 0.7% and 9.7%. As discussed above, the pattern of melatonin secretion has been widely accepted as a measure of circadian activity in humans,36,37 and there is further evidence of decreases in melatonin output in patients suffering from insomnia. 39,40,70
Statistical Analysis

The results of the polysomnographic recordings and psychometric testing were compared on a before and after basis for all subjects and are shown here as mean, scores. The matched pairs t test was used to assess the statistical significance of these changes. The melatonin analysis was treated as a "two within-subjects variables experiment," a type of multiple repeated measures test, where the two within-subject factors were (a) "time of day" and (b) "phase of the experiment" (i.e., before or after the experiment). These comparisons were carried out using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences software (SPSS for Windows). The null hypothesis was rejected if the differences were significant at the 5% level.

RESULTS

The major objective and subjective measures obtained in the before and after stages of the experiment are displayed separately for convenience in Table 1 and Table 2. Objective measures (i.e., the polysomnographic recordings) are separated into three categories: sleep continuity, sleep architecture, and REM sleep, as shown in Table 1. The subjective variables, based on self-report questionnaires and performance tests, are separately identified in Table 2. The means, their differences, standard deviations, and two-tailed significance levels are also shown for each sleep and test variable.

Sleep Duration and Sleep Quality Variables

The acupuncture treatment used in this study improved several polysomnographic parameters of sleep architecture. Among the sleep continuity variables, sleep onset latency (SOL) and the arousal index dropped significantly (p = 0.003 and p = 0.001, respectively), reflecting improvements in both sleep initiation and maintenance. The total sleep time (TST) and sleep efficiency similarly increased (p = 0.001 and p = 0.002, respectively). The Alpha index also improved significantly (p = 0.017). Some improvement in sleep quality was confirmed by the increase in the amount of time spent in stage three (slow wave) sleep (p = 0.023), but the amount of time spent in stage four sleep did not significantly change in the before-after comparison. The percentage of REM sleep and REM sleep latency, as well as the amount of time spent in stages one and two sleep remained unchanged following acupuncture.

Subjective Variables: Psychological Factors, Sleepiness, Fatigue, and Alertness

As shown in Table 2, both state and trait anxiety scores significantly improved (p = 0.049 and p = 0.004, respectively) following acupuncture. Additionally, scores on the CES-D showed significant improvements (p = 0.001). Scores on the Alexithymia Scale did not change significantly.

Scores on the Stanford Sleepiness Scale (SSS) indicated no significant differences (in the before and after comparison) when the test was administered just before the second night of sleep, but did show significant improvements (p = 0.019) when subjects were asked to report on their subjective sleepiness in the morning after the second night of sleep. The Fatigue Scale scores revealed a somewhat similar profile, with scores before sleep not showing any significant differences, but scores on the following morning indicated a significant improvement (p = 0.045) after 5 weeks of acupuncture. The improvement in fatigue scores were not paralleled by increases in alertness however: the ZOGlM-A, a test which measures alertness, indicated that the subjects felt significantly (p - 0.004) less alert following acupuncture. The composite fatigue scores (comfatigue) did not indicate any significant change. The timed test of cognitive skill indicated that subjects were able to perform the test more quickly (p = 0.001) following acupuncture, but the performance accuracy, while showing a small improvement, was not statistically significant.

6-Sulphatoxymelatonin Analysis

Urine analysis showed that nocturnal physiological levels of aMT6s increased following acupuncture and decreased during the morning and early afternoon (Figure 2).

Analysis of the main effects showed a significant (p = 0.001) interaction between the two variables "time of day" (representing the four measurement periods 9 p.m. to midnight; midnight to 8 a.m.; 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. and 3 p.m. to 9 p.m.) and "phase of the experiment" (before versus after acupuncture), thus supporting the validity of individual time period comparisons on a pre- and post-treatment basis. No detectable changes (in urinary concentrations of aMT6s) were found for pairwise comparisons of periods 1 and 4 (9 p.m. to midnight, and 3 p.m. to 9 p.m.). Differences for periods 2 (midnight to 8 a.m.) and 3 (8 a.m. to 3 p.m.) however were significant (p = 0.002 and p = 0.037) reflecting postacupuncture increases in melatonin production at night and decreases during the morning and afternoon.

DISCUSSION

Our initial hypotheses were confirmed by the results of the present investigation. In an open clinical trial of 18 subjects, the administration of 5 weeks of acupuncture, totaling ten treatment sessions, was associated with normalization in a 24-hour profile of urinary aMT6s and a number of objectively measured improvements in sleep continuity and sleep architecture. Additionally, significant improvements in self-reported fatigue and sleepiness paralleled these changes. The exception to this trend was the reduction in alertness as measured by the ZOGIM-A test. As discussed below the apparent inconsistency of reduced alertness following improvements in sleep quality may possibly have been the result of a transition into a more adaptive and qualitatively different type of alertness. Self assessed feelings of anxiety and depression decreased following acupuncture. These findings are fairly consistent with the results of previous investigations showing that acupuncture has a generalized anxiolytic effect,71"73 and with other polysomnographic studies of acupuncture effects in insomnia.22"24

[RAF]

Part IV:

The findings of nocturnal elevations in urinary aMT6s, indicating increased melatonin secretion, paralleled these changes. Melatonin regulates the rhythm of many functions and alterations in its secretory pattern have been found in a number of psychiatric disorders. These have included seasonal affective disorder, bipolar disorder, unipolar depression, bulimia, anorexia, schizophrenia, panic disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder,74 but at present it has not been confirmed if these changes are causal to or simply a marker of other neurochemical dysfunctionalities. Further, it is not known if melatonin is equally involved in the development of the pathophysiology of each of these disorders. Due to practical limitations we were able to investigate changes in only one neurally active agent, but clearly it would have been desirable to study acupuncture's effects on a range of neurotransmitters which are known to be closely linked to the etiology of anxiety or insomnia. Dysregulation of catecholamine secretion for instance has circadian variations which correlate closely with pathological anxiety states75 and moreover have been shown to be regulated by melatonin injections.76 Our findings thus raise intriguing questions about the nature and course of acupuncture effects at the neurochemical level. Studies are needed to further elucidate the role of norepinephrine as well as that of serotonin, dopamine, GABA in the changes we observed in melatonin secretion.

The results for the sleep architecture measurements showed no increases in the percentage of time spent in stages one or two, findings which have doubtful relevance for this clinical sample. Large improvements were seen however in the subjects' transition to stage three or slow wave sleep, reflective of significant gains in the quality of their sleep. A wide variability of responses in this observation reduced the significance level to p = 0.023. The percent of stage three sleep increased from a mean of 4.2% before treatment to a mean of 6.1% following treatment, closely approximating the normal mean of 7%. There was considerable variability in the amount of time spent in stage four sleep, with a number of subjects showing no improvement at all, thus accounting for the lack of statistical significance. The variability in responsiveness to acupuncture seen in, for instance, acupuncture analgesia treatment77 has been known clinically and in scientific studies for some time. Although this variability has not been satisfactorily accounted for, one hypothesis is that psychological factors may be an impediment to treatment effectiveness. This is consistent with the findings of Widerstrom-Noga78 and Creamer79 showing that trait anxiety (measured by the STAI) can interfere with the effectiveness of acupuncture analgesia treatment. In this context our findings that, despite the variability of response, acupuncture improved overall sleep quality and had significant effects on anxiety are therefore noteworthy. The possibility that extreme scorers on trait anxiety are poor treatment candidates, or perhaps require additional treatment to show measurable changes, needs to be explored further with a sample that is larger than the one used in the present study.

In the present study subjects were screened to exclude those with clinical levels of psychopathology, including depression. Nevertheless a number of subjects showed elevated scores on the CES-D (depression) scale. This is in accordance with other findings showing that patients with insomnia may have symptoms of anxiety or depression which do not meet criteria for a specific mental disorder (DSM-IV, 4th Edition).9 In fact, symptom cooccurrence of anxiety and depression frequently exists in non-clinical samples which do not show serious sleep disturbance.80 These symptoms were nevertheless reduced by acupuncture and are consistent with previous reports of acupuncture's effectiveness in treating mood disorders.81^82

A finding that merits closer examination is the apparent lack of consistency implied in the failure of improvements in sleep quality to be accompanied by increasing alertness during the day. In our sample daytime alertness, as evaluated by self assessments or indirectly through measures of performance accuracy, either became worse or showed no improvement even though sleep quality was enhanced. Generally there is a positive correlation between tests of sleepiness (such as the Multiple Sleep Latency Test or MSLT) and daytime alertness (e.g., the Maintenance of Wakefulness Test, the MWT) (i.e., the better the nighttime sleep the greater the alertness during the day). In depressed patients however a negative relationship between the two tests is sometimes found.83 Kayumov et al.84 investigated this phenomenon in clinically depressed patients who also scored high on anxiety measures. In the depressed group the sleep latency on the MWT showed paradoxical increases (i.e., was reflective of alertness) in concordance with the severity of sleep disturbance, whereas in the non-depressed group this did not occur. Our own findings are consistent with these previous studies and support the view84 that in depressed or anxious subjects the underlying factors which cause sleep disturbance will also produce heightened alertness during the day. This view emphasizes that qualitative differences exist in the "adaptive" alertness of non-anxious subjects, which is mobilized by relevant environmental Stressors, and the accentuated or "vigilant" alertness of individuals suffering from excess emotional tension. In this group alertness is chronic and preferentially driven by internal rather than environmental demands, thus conferring to it a more invariant and non-discriminatory quality. Our finding therefore that alertness actually decreased following acupuncture may imply the substitution of one type of alertness for another rather than representing a decrement in cognitive efficiency. This possibility needs to be explored with testing instruments which are sensitive to these differences.

In this preliminary study acupuncture was shown to be of value as a therapeutic intervention for insomnia in anxious subjects and may therefore represent an alternative to pharmaceutical therapy for some categories of patients. Further, the central role attributed by classical and modern theories of personality to anxiety as the basis of most psychological defense mechanisms,85'86 as well as the evidence that abnormalities in melatonin secretion are involved in a number of psychiatric conditions,74 suggest that acupuncture may have broad applicability to other types of psychopathology in which quality of sleep is impaired. An important shortcoming of this study however was its lack of a control group with a placebo acupuncture condition. The findings therefore need to be confirmed with a study employing a more rigorous design.

The authors gratefully acknowledge the help of Dr. Raed J. Hawa of the Department of Psychiatry, University Health Network, Toronto, Ontario, in interviewing ana screening patients and for his thoughtful suggestions in reviewing the manuscript.

This investigation was supported by REST Foundation, Scotland

[RAF]

Acupuncture Improves Osteoarthritis, Trial Shows

2 hours, 39 minutes ago

By Karla Gale

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Acupuncture added to conventional therapy for osteoarthritis of the knee improves function and reduces pain, according to a clinical trial conducted at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore.

"We now have a result that suggests, in the largest, longest and most rigorously conducted study of acupuncture ever, that we have a new (add-on) therapy for millions of patients with degenerative arthritis," Dr. Stephen E. Straus, director of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, said at a press conference.

The study, led by Dr. Brian M. Berman and reported in the Archives of Internal Medicine (news - web sites), involved 570 patients with moderate to severe osteoarthritis, all of whom continued with their prescription treatments.

They were also assigned to 23 sessions of traditional Chinese acupuncture or sham non-piercing acupuncture over the course of 26 weeks, or to a control group that received 6 two-hour education sessions over 12 weeks.

After eight weeks, participants in the true acupuncture group had a 10.77-point improvement in a standard osteoarthritis function score, significantly greater than those in sham acupuncture group (7.84-point improvement) or the education-only group (5.30 points).

After 26 weeks, both pain and function scores were significantly more improved in the true acupuncture group than in the sham group.

At the press conference, researcher Dr. Marc C. Hochberg said that "the maximum improvement in the sham group was about 30 percent in terms of calculated pain score and also the calculated score on functional impairment." In the true acupuncture group, the improvement was "between 40 percent and 45 percent in both pain and function scores."

Moreover, added Dr. Berman -- particularly in light of recent news about arthritis drugs -- "there were very few adverse events reported, none on which was thought to be treatment related."

SOURCE: Archives of Internal Medicine, December 21, 2004.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=594&u=/nm/20041220/hl_nm/arthritis_acupuncture_dc&printer=1

[RAF]

Special Acupuncture Lowers Blood Pressure -- Study

1 hour, 38 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A specialized acupuncture treatment that uses low levels of electrical stimulation can lower blood pressure dramatically in rats, U.S. researchers reported on Monday.

"This study suggests that acupuncture can be an excellent complement to other medical treatments, especially for those treating the cardiac system," said Dr. John Longhurst of the University of California, Irvine, who led the study.

"The Western world is waiting for a clear scientific basis for using acupuncture, and we hope that this research ultimately will lead to the integration of ancient healing practices into modern medical treatment."

Writing in the March issue of the Journal of Applied Physiology, Longhurst and colleagues said they inserted acupuncture needles at specific points on the front legs of rats with artificially elevated blood pressure rates.

This is equivalent to the inside of the forearms, slightly above the wrists in people.

Acupuncture alone had no effect on blood pressure in the rats, Longhurst's team found. But adding electrical stimulation at low frequencies lowered the blood pressure, although it did not bring it to normal.

The effects lasted for up to two hours.

"This type of electroacupuncture is only effective on elevated blood pressure levels, such as those present in hypertension, and the treatment has no impact on standing blood pressure rates," said Longhurst, a cardiologist .

"Our goal is to help establish a standard of acupuncture treatment that can benefit everyone who has hypertension and other cardiac ailments."

His team is now testing the technique on people.

High blood pressure is a major cause of heart disease, and can lead to heart failure, stroke, kidney failure and other conditions.

Yahoo! Health
Have questions about your health?
Find answers here.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=594&ncid=594&e=2&u=/nm/20050328/hl_nm/health_acupuncture_dc

[RAF]

Acupuncture Therapy Rapidly Terminates Intractable Hiccups Complicating Acute Myocardial Infarction


Feng-Cheng Liu, MD; Chiou-An Chen, MD; Sung-Sen Yang, MD; Shih-Hua Lin, MD

South Med J. 2005; 98 (3): 385-387. ©2005 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins
Abstract and Introduction

Abstract

Acupuncture is a well-known alternative therapy in practice worldwide. Its dramatic effect on hiccups has been rarely reported. We describe a 77-year-old male who had hiccups after an acute myocardial infarction. Despite aggressive treatment including breath-holding to interrupt the respiratory rhythm, continuous positive airway pressure, and medication with metoclopramine, prochlorperazine, chlorpromazine, haloperidol, mephenesin, diphenylhydantoin, baclofen, and phenobarbital, the hiccups persisted for 7 days. Eventually, the hiccups were rapidly terminated by acupuncture at acupoint GV14 (Da zhui). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of acupuncture's reversing intractable hiccups after an acute myocardial infarction. Acupuncture may be considered for patients with hiccups refractory to conventional therapy.

[JohnnyMnemonic]

I think possibly the biggest obstacle to making much of traditional medicine a part of modern medicine is the zealots who say you can't have the baby without the bathwater, so to speak.

.

I think the biggest obstacle is western doctors and insurance companies.

Acupuncture costs nothing compared to western therapies. Doctors will not get rich doing acupuncture unless they have a rich clientele.

Acupuncture is like chiropractic. It is something that goes on and on. Insurance companies are in the business of making money. They can't be paying for regular acupuncture treatments and still make money. Insurers have been fighting covering chiropractic treatments for decades.

They only make money if you pay them insurance all year long and only go in for a checkup where the doctor tells you to go away until next year.

[RAF]

Acupuncture 'more than a placebo'


Scientists say they have proof that acupuncture works in its own right.

Sceptics have said that any benefits gained from acupuncture are merely down to a person's expectation that the treatment will work.

But researchers at University College London and Southampton University say they have separated out this placebo effect.

Their findings, based on a series of experiments and brain scan results, are published in the journal NeuroImage.

Dummy treatment

The researchers used positron emission tomography (PET) scans to see what was happening in the brains of people having acupuncture treatment for arthritis pain.


The great bulk of trials to date do not provide convincing evidence of pain relief over placebo [dummy pill]
Professor Henry McQuay, University of Oxford

Each of the 14 volunteers underwent each of three interventions in a random order.

In one intervention, patients were touched with blunt needles but were aware that the needle would not pierce the skin and that it did not have any therapeutic value.

Another intervention involved treatment with specially developed "trick" needles that give the impression that the skin was being penetrated even though the needles never actually pierced the skin.

The needles worked like stage daggers, with the tip disappearing into the body of the needle when pressure is applied. This was designed to make the patients believed that the treatment was real.

The third intervention was real acupuncture.

Brain activity

When the researchers analysed the patients' PET scan results they found marked differences between the three interventions.

Only the brain areas associated with the sensation of touch were activated when the volunteers were touched with the blunt needles.

During the trick needle treatment, an area of the brain associated with the production of natural opiates - substances that act in a non-specific way to relieve pain - were activated.

This same area was activated with the real acupuncture but, in addition, another region of the brain, the insular, was excited by the treatment.

This was a pathway known to be associated with acupuncture treatment and thought to be involved in pain modulation.

Sarah Williams of the British Acupuncture Council said: "This is very positive news for acupuncture and this latest research is an exciting illustration of what acupuncturists have known for a long time - that acupuncture works and its effectiveness goes beyond the placebo effect."

Professor Henry McQuay, professor of pain relief at the University of Oxford and member of the Bandolier group that looks at the evidence behind different medical treatments, said: "The great bulk of the randomised controlled trials to date do not provide convincing evidence of pain relief over placebo.

"Some people do report that acupuncture makes them feel better.

"But it is extremely difficult, technically, to study acupuncture and tease out the placebo effect."

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/health/4493011.stm

Published: 2005/04/30 22:57:58 GMT

[RAF]

Fake acupuncture 'aids migraines'

Fake acupuncture works just as well as the real thing in relieving migraines, scientists have found.
In a study of more than 300 patients, both genuine and sham acupuncture reduced the intensity of headache compared with no treatment at all.

But real acupuncture was no better than needles placed at non-acupuncture points on the body, the Journal of the American Medical Association reports.

It goes against recent research showing acupuncture works in its own right.

Placebo effect

It has long been debated whether acupuncture works in a unique way or whether any benefits gained are merely down to a person's expectation that the treatment will work.

The latter is called the placebo effect.

To investigate this, Dr Klaus Linde and colleagues randomly assigned 302 people with migraines to one of three groups.

One group received 12 sessions of genuine acupuncture over eight weeks.

Another group received 12 similar sessions of acupuncture, except the needles administered were not placed in parts of the body thought to relieve migraine pain, hence any benefit would likely be placebo rather than real, according to the researchers.

The third group received no treatment but were placed on a waiting list to see a migraine doctor.

Less pain

All of the patients kept diaries about their migraine symptoms.

While the patients on the waiting list continued to have headaches just as often, the ones who received acupuncture - sham or real - had fewer headaches.

The average number of days blighted by a headache went down from about five to two.


Something else could have been going on
Dr George Lewith of Southampton University

This may be due to "non-specific physiological effects of needling, to a powerful placebo effect or a combination of both", said the researchers.

But Dr George Lewith, who recently published work suggesting acupuncture has an effect above and beyond placebo, said although the present study was well conducted, it did not truly test the placebo effect.

"We do not know whether this sham acupuncture is active or not. To test for placebo effect you have to use an intervention that only raises a patient's expectations.

"The authors note themselves that something else could have been going on as well."

The British Acupuncture Council said that using pre-prescribed acupuncture points for all patients might have skewed the results.

"Acupuncture treatment is different for each person. The formulaic treatment part of the study would be inappropriate for some patients. This would reduce the apparent effectiveness in the acupuncture group."

The council said there was good evidence to suggest acupuncture was helpful for treating migraine.

Ann Turner of the Migraine Action Association said: "Acupuncture may be a good treatment option for migraine sufferers to explore."

More than one-in-10 people in the UK experience migraines, two-thirds of whom are women.







Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/health/4508597.

[RAF]

Acupuncture helps victims of dry mouth

United Press International

Thursday, June 16, 2005

BALTIMORE, Jun 16, 2005 (United Press International via COMTEX) -- People who suffer from dry mouth -- a chronic condition caused by malfunctioning salivary glands -- get long-term relief from acupuncture, U.S. researchers say.

Improperly functioning salivary glands cause xerostomia, or dry mouth, which can lead to painful sores, tooth decay, difficulty eating and other problems.

University of Maryland researchers said acupuncture combined with head and neck radiation therapy helped seven patients achieve long-term relief from dry mouth symptoms.

Researchers reported their findings in the Academy of Dentistry's journal General Dentistry.

Lead author Warren Morganstein of the university's Baltimore College of Dental Surgery said most treatments provide only short-term relief while acupuncture provided longer-term help.

After eight months, he said, the patients had increased saliva flow and greater ability to eat, speak and sleep.

[RAF]

Acupuncture Can Ease Headaches
By Amanda Gardner
HealthDay Reporter
59 minutes ago

FRIDAY, July 29 (HealthDay News) -- Acupuncture treatments cut the frequency of tension headaches in half in individuals prone to the ailment, a new study found.

But the researchers also point out that minimal acupuncture -- defined as "superficial needling at non-acupuncture points" and considered a sham treatment -- was just as effective, according to a German study appearing in this week's issue of the British Medical Journal.

"Based on the results of our trial, as well as of yet-unpublished observational data from a larger number of patients in routine care, it seems that many (German) patients benefit definitively, so I see no reason to discourage patients from trying it," said Dr. Klaus Linde, senior author of the study and an epidemiologist with the Institute of Medical Statistics and Epidemiology at the Technical University of Munich.

But he added, "As there was no relevant effect over an inadequate acupuncture intervention, I would be a bit cautious to actively recommend it widely."

According to the study authors, in a given year, 38 percent of Americans have episodic tension-type headaches and 2 percent have chronic, tension-type headaches. In 1997, a consensus statement issued by an expert panel at the U.S. National Institutes of Health, included headache as one of a number of conditions that might be helped by acupuncture.

While acupuncture is widely used for different types of headaches, experts remain conflicted over how effective it really is.

In traditional Chinese medicine, acupuncture is practiced to restore the flow of energy in the body. The technique most widely studied by scientists involves penetrating the skin with thin, solid, metallic needles that are manipulated by hand or electrical stimulation.

For the randomized, controlled trial at 28 outpatient centers in Germany, 270 mostly female patients experiencing tension headaches were divided into three groups.

One group was treated with traditional acupuncture and another with minimal acupuncture, while the control group received no acupuncture at all. Those in the two acupuncture groups received 12 sessions each spread over eight weeks.

Headache rates among those in the traditional acupuncture group fell by almost half: The number of days with headache decreased by 7.2, compared with 6.6 in the minimal acupuncture group. Those in the control group experienced only 1.5 fewer days with headaches. Improvements in the traditional acupuncture group were similar to improvement seen with accepted treatments.

About a fifth of those in the traditional acupuncture group reported side effects, such as dizziness, other headaches and bruising.

Interestingly, the improvements continued for months after the intervention, rising slightly as time progressed.

After the main study segment had ended, individuals in the control group were given acupuncture for eight weeks and also experienced improvements, albeit less than the original study participants.

The fact that traditional and minimal acupuncture had such similar results may indicate that the location of needles don't have a huge impact on how effective the treatment is, the study authors wrote.
Even though apparent sham acupuncture and real acupuncture have similar effects, Dr. Charles Kim, a pain medicine specialist at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City who also practices acupuncture, thinks something must be happening.

"The research to date has somehow shown that acupuncture does stimulate the release of endorphins, but, more specifically, I do treatments with electrostimulation and a lot of the research has shown that certain frequencies of stimulation with acupuncture induces beta-endorphins at certain frequencies," he said.

It's also possible that both acupuncture and the sham treatment are associated with strong placebo effects. A similar phenomenon was seen in a trial on acupuncture and migraines, which Linde was also involved with and which was published in May.

"As the large response to minimal acupuncture was so impressive, it would be extremely interesting to see whether similar results are obtained in other countries, and if so, what the reasons are," Linde said. "There is some evidence that any repetitive needling might influence pain perception and memory, and also that the whole ritual and setting of acupuncture is powerful. Research in this direction could be extremely interesting."

More information

The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine has more on

[PlumDragon]

Some good reads RAF, thanks for the posts!

For those of you who want more info, there are a myriad of studies like this, on TCM in general, in some of the textbooks and books available on the market. One such is called "The Web That Has No Weaver", Kaptchuk, 1947, 2000.

[RAF]

If anyone finds relatively good studies, both positive and negative, please post.

Its an interesting development in medicine.

[Vasquez]

have u tried using injection needles instead

[Vajramusti]

DON'T

Acupuncture is a serious skill.... not for dilletantes

[Vasquez]

If have accu charts right - like following a road map LOL on don't.

[RAF]

Acupuncture Effective for Fibromyalgia

By Alan Mozes

HealthDay Reporter
6 minutes ago



THURSDAY, Aug. 25 (HealthDay News) -- A brief regimen of acupuncture appears to offer more than a month of relief from some of the most debilitating symptoms of moderate-to-severe fibromyalgia, a new study suggests.

The findings are to be presented Thursday by Mayo Clinic researchers at the 11th World Congress on Pain, the meeting of the International Association for the Study of Pain, in Sydney, Australia.

The scientists cautioned that while acupuncture seems to alleviate some of the pain, chronic fatigue and anxiety that many fibromyalgia patients experience, the treatment should not be viewed as a cure.

They further stressed that even with improved energy levels and reduced stress, patients did not demonstrate improvements in either short-term or long-term physical functions after treatment.

Nonetheless, the Mayo team expressed hope that further studies will demonstrate that a sustained regimen of acupuncture treatments may offer fibromyalgia patients a shot at significant quality-of-life benefits over the long-term.

"We found that acupuncture helps with the symptoms, and might be particularly attractive to patients that might not be able to take a range of medications because of side effects," said study lead author Dr. David P. Martin, of the department of anesthesiology at the Mayo Clinic's division of pain medicine.

Fibromyalgia, which has no known cause, can provoke pain, fatigue, stiffness, headaches, numbness, tingling, sleep disturbances, sensitivity to heat and cold, and cognitive and memory problems, according to the National Institutes of Health.

The NIH estimates that between 3 percent and 6 percent of Americans suffer from the often-disabling disorder. While 80 percent to 90 percent of all victims are women, fibromyalgia can strike men, women and children of any age or race.

Doctors typically treat the condition with a combination of symptom-based approaches that offer piecemeal pain management, such as stress and sleep counseling, aerobic exercise, and the tricyclic family of antidepressants.

But, antidepressants are only partially effective and can sometimes provoke side effects, such as excessive sleepiness, dry mouth, constipation and weight gain, Martin said.

Seeking to expand treatment options, the Mayo team tested the benefit of acupuncture on 50 fibromyalgia patients who were described as "moderately debilitated."

The patients -- all of whom had failed to achieve symptom relief with traditional treatments -- were divided into two groups. The first group received six sessions of acupuncture over a two- to three-week period. The second group received six sessions of simulated acupuncture in the same time frame.

Both before and immediately after the acupuncture and simulated sessions, all the patients completed questionnaires regarding their specific symptoms, their level of related pain, and the impact of fibromyalgia on their daily routines. The surveys were also offered one and seven months after treatment.

Martin and his team found that symptoms -- particularly in terms of pain, fatigue and anxiety -- improved significantly and in larger measure among real acupuncture patients compared with the simulated acupuncture patients. The most dramatic symptom improvements were noted at one month after acupuncture.

Yet physical function did not improve. And seven months after acupuncture, pain, fatigue and anxiety symptoms had all returned to pretreatment levels.

Martin suggested that offering acupuncture to patients on an ongoing basis may provide more sustained benefit. And, he added, he would recommend acupuncture to fibromyalgia patients who are open to the notion.

"We need further studies with a larger population," he said. "But the kind of acupuncture we offered was not incredibly unique. You could probably get it at many locations across the country. So I'd recommend patients discuss it with their family physician, and get a referral because people come to acupuncture through all different courses of training."

Dr. Stuart L. Silverman, a professor of medicine and rheumatology, and the medical director of the Fibromyalgia Rehabilitation Program at Cedars-Sinai/University of California, Los Angeles, cautioned that the jury is still out on the potential benefit of acupuncture for fibromyalgia.

"While it's certainly possible and encouraging that in some hands acupuncture works, we have to wait for further study," Silverman said. "Fibromyalgia is a question of central pain -- not peripheral pain. It's as if a person's pain fuse in the brain is broken. They have a problem with the processing of sensory information. They perceive almost any sensation as being painful.

"So while we do know that acupuncture is helpful for peripheral pain, for tennis elbow, for example, it's much harder when we ask acupuncture to treat a pain in the brain -- to treat brain modulation of pain. I think it might be able to do it. But we don't yet know," he added.

Understanding, identifying and treating fibromyalgia can be challenging and confusing for both patients and physicians. NIH researchers point out, for example, that although fibromyalgia is a rheumatic condition -- causing the onset of chronic pain due to joint and soft tissue impairment -- it is not actually a disease of the joints, and is therefore not officially considered a form of arthritis.

An official fibromyalgia diagnosis is typically based solely on reported symptoms, medical exams and the patient's history, since no current lab test or X-ray can effectively screen for the disorder.

"These patients often have to leave their social obligations early and are not able to meet all the expectations of friends and family or be able to do their fair share of the housework," said Martin. "Yet when they go to the doctor, the doctor says that everything's normal -- and it's very frustrating for the patient. These people get pretty desperate."

More information

For more on fibromyalgia, visit the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases.

[Vasquez]

I've read that in china the ppl there take regular injections of antibiotics. this must be an improvement from accupuncture. accupuncture at best is a placebo because medicine is not being administered from the needle.

[TaiChiBob]

Greetings..


accupuncture at best is a placebo because medicine is not being administered from the needle. Yep, and don't sail off the edge of the world, either.. Acupuncture is simply approaching health from an unfamiliar perspective to many westerners.. simply because someone doesn't understand it doesn't invalidate it. There is far too much evidence of its effectiveness to discount it as a placebo..

Be well..

[Vasquez]

Oh no, I think accupuncture works - but now chinese ppl in china are taking regular antibiotic shots. Doesn't it mean that injections are better? This is not a westerner speaking, it is what eastern chinese in china are doing.

[TaiChiBob]

Greetings..

I don't think its's one or the other.. i think it's merging of east and west health systems that will have the best benefit for humanity.. in the east people are beginning to use western methods and in the west we are beginning to use eastern methods.. and, i know of several M.D.s that practice both systems with great success.. we need to look past artificial social and cultural boundaries and use the best of all available systems.. we are a unified civilization, fragmented only by conceptual weaknesses..

Oh no, I think accupuncture works - but now chinese ppl in china are taking regular antibiotic shots. Doesn't it mean that injections are better? This is not a westerner speaking, it is what eastern chinese in china are doing. It means that antibiotics serve a purpose after symptoms create problems for the sufferer.. Chinese medicine and medical philosophy is much better at preventing disease, western medicine is pretty good at controlling the disease after we have it.. wisdom suggests that prevention is favorable over treatment..

Be well..

[Vasquez]

Why not inject antibiotics at all the accupuncture points. Then you get the prevention AND the cure

[GeneChing]

..at least compared to conventional Western care for back pain.


Researchers: Even Fake Acupuncture Works (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/09/24/national/a130057D87.DTL)
By CARLA K. JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer
Monday, September 24, 2007
(09-24) 13:00 PDT CHICAGO, (AP) --

Fake acupuncture works nearly as well as the real thing for low back pain, and either kind performs much better than usual care, German researchers have found.

Almost half the patients treated with acupuncture needles felt relief that lasted months. In contrast, only about a quarter of the patients receiving medications and other Western medical treatments felt better.

Even fake acupuncture worked better than conventional care, leading researchers to wonder whether pain relief came from the body's reactions to any thin needle *****s or, possibly, the placebo effect.

"Acupuncture represents a highly promising and effective treatment option for chronic back pain," study co-author Dr. Heinz Endres of Ruhr University Bochum in Bochum, Germany, said in an e-mail. "Patients experienced not only reduced pain intensity, but also reported improvements in the disability that often results from back pain and therefore in their quality of life."

Although the study was not designed to determine how acupuncture works, Endres said, its findings are in line with a theory that pain messages to the brain can be blocked by competing stimuli.

Positive expectations the patients held about acupuncture — or negative expectations about conventional medicine — also could have led to a placebo effect and explain the findings, he said.

In the largest experiment on acupuncture for back pain to date, more than 1,100 patients were randomly assigned to receive either acupuncture, sham acupuncture or conventional therapy. For the sham acupuncture, needles were inserted, but not as deeply as for the real thing. The sham acupuncture also did not insert needles in traditional acupuncture points on the body and the needles were not manually moved and rotated.

After six months, patients answered questions about pain and functional ability and their scores determined how well each of the therapies worked.

In the real acupuncture group, 47 percent of patients improved. In the sham acupuncture group, 44 percent did. In the usual care group, 27 percent got relief.

"We don't understand the mechanisms of these so-called alternative treatments, but that doesn't mean they don't work," said Dr. James Young of Chicago's Rush University Medical Center, who wasn't involved in the research. Young often treats low back pain with acupuncture, combined with exercises and stretches.

Chinese medicine holds that there are hundreds of points on the body that link to invisible pathways for the body's vital energy, or qi. The theory goes that stimulating the correct points with acupuncture needles can release blocked qi.

Dr. Brian Berman, the University of Maryland's director of complementary medicine, said the real and the sham acupuncture may have worked for reasons that can be explained in Western terms: by changing the way the brain processes pain signals or by releasing natural painkillers in the body.

In the study, the conventional treatment included many methods: painkillers, injections, physical therapy, massage, heat therapy or other treatments. Like the acupuncture patients, the patients getting usual care received about 10 sessions of 30 minutes each.

The study, appearing in Monday's Archives of Internal Medicine, used a broad definition for low back pain, but ruled out people with back pain caused by spinal fractures, tumors, scoliosis and pregnancy.

Funding came from German health insurance companies, and the findings already have led to more coverage in Germany of acupuncture.

In the United States, some health plans cover acupuncture for some conditions, but may require pre-approval, according to the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. An acupuncture session can cost $45 to $100, Young said.

[Scott Meneely]

That study also made the bbc and new york times, could be a big blow for the accupuncture community.

[herb ox]

A big blow? Not likely. There is much discussion among the community, of course, but the general conclusion is that needling helps. Fake or "sham" acupuncture does not really exist, as the entire body is covered with smaller channels that join the large channels, so no matter where you put a needle, you're going to be stimulating the meridian. So, overall this study shows that acupuncture works.

yours in health

herb ox

[bodhitree]

A big blow? Not likely. There is much discussion among the community, of course, but the general conclusion is that needling helps. Fake or "sham" acupuncture does not really exist, as the entire body is covered with smaller channels that join the large channels, so no matter where you put a needle, you're going to be stimulating the meridian. So, overall this study shows that acupuncture works.

yours in health

herb ox

Interesting perspective!


IMO backpain is another 'lifestyle' problem. If people exercised, stretched regularly, and payed attention to their posture by and large most backpain can be avoided (I know there are exceptions: e.g. injuries). So many of our health issues in the western world are by choice? That's sad.

[PlumDragon]

Anyone watch "Private Practice"?
Its a spin off from Greys Anatomy, I watched it last night with my wife. They have on the show, an acupuncturist who is in a flirty struggle with the surgeon on whether or not Eastern Medicine works. Ironically, its this setting that will probably prove to be more beneficial in the reputation of such "tools" than most of the legitimate studies out there...




IMO backpain is another 'lifestyle' problem. If people exercised, stretched regularly, and payed attention to their posture by and large most backpain can be avoided (I know there are exceptions: e.g. injuries). So many of our health issues in the western world are by choice? That's sad.Backpain (and sinus issues and intestinal and hernial isues, etc etc etc) is also often times the result of an "incomplete design". While theres no question that good diet, posture, exercise, etc etc drastically lowers the chances of back pain, among other things, our body is not a flawless shiny figurine on a pedastal that many people seem to think--we are a work in progress.

[AJM]

Maybe the idiots should be using Tui Na and not accupunture for lower back pain.
Accupunture is not for everything and in most cases in my opinion accupressure is more effective.

[herb ox]

AJM, those are some pretty strong words there... would you care to elaborate as to how you have arrived at that conclusion? I certainly agree that manual pressure created by tuina and acupressure may have a stronger effect when it comes to mechanical / structural malformations, but if you read the study thoroughly, you will find that the study comes out in favor of acupuncture as an effective treatment for treating low back pain.

I'm with PD re: "incomplete design" - in TCM we understand that everyone is born with a certain "congenital essence" that we really cannot alter - we get it from our parents and is what gives the wondrous variations in our species. So, for one person to assume all back issues are due to lifestyle is likely because that person does not suffer from structural malformations that cause intractable pain.

Also I agree with PD's comments about the portrayal of acupuncture in popular media having an effect on the general consensus. Oprah has hosted an acupuncturist on her show twice now (generally favorable) and when you crunch the numbers, that WILL be a huge boost for our profession. Only time will tell just how much, though...

cheers

herb ox

[couch]

What's a Chinese Medicine Practitioner to do? Just keep making miracles happen in my own backyard.

Sham acupuncture? Five Element tradition believes that by placing needles in very shallow will act on the more spiritual side of people.

Sham acupuncture? No such thing. That's why the western medical side can't measure what we do. You can't really have a double-blind study.

And at the end of the day, I'm okay with that. When a client walks into my clinic and walks out after a course of treatment with a better & stronger back, stable emotions and also seems to have found a life purpose - you can't tell me that the client and I didn't do a good job.

You can't measure that kind of progress.

There's a wonderful quote inside Brian Greenwood's book Braving The Void from an M.D. that I will paraphrase: "...medicine is going in the direction of high tech for diagnostic evaluation when people are crying out to just have someone to listen to them."

Regarding the backpain being a lifestyle problem (posture/improper lifting/etc) I agree somewhat. But when we have an aging woman going through menopause and she starts to develop back pain...we have a Kidney deficiency - and just by stimulating her Kidney energy (even without local points, etc) I can achieve balance and pain relief.

Best,
Kenton Sefcik, R.Ac

[GeneChing]

...and if the treatment doesn't work, you can always pin the flaky skin back on...:p

Acupuncture may ease the itch of eczema (http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5BL3J320091222)
Amy Norton
Tue Dec 22, 2009 1:22pm EST

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - An acupuncture session may bring some itch relief to people with the allergic skin condition known as atopic eczema, a preliminary study suggests.

Health

Eczema is a general term for conditions marked by inflammation and dry, red, itchy patches on the skin. The most common form, atopic eczema, is seen in people with a predisposition to allergies, like hay fever or asthma.

In the new study, German researchers looked at the short-term effects of acupuncture on skin inflammation and itching in 30 people with atopic eczema.

They found that the therapy, when done minutes after patients' skin was exposed to an allergen (either pollen or dust mites), appeared to soothe subjective feelings of itchiness.

In addition, when patients were exposed to the allergen for a second time shortly after the acupuncture session, they tended to have a less-severe skin reaction, the researchers report in the journal Allergy.

The findings show that in this "experimental setting," acupuncture seems to ease the itch of atopic eczema, lead researcher Dr. Florian Pfab, of the Technical University of Munich, told Reuters Health in an email.

The study does not, however, answer the question of whether acupuncture as practiced in the real world would have similar benefits.

For the study, Pfab and his colleagues looked at all 30 patients under three different test conditions.

In one, patients had their skin exposed to either pollen or dust-mite allergens, then received true, or "point-specific," acupuncture -- in which needles were placed in traditional acupuncture points that, according to Chinese medicine, are related to itchy skin.

In another condition, the allergen exposure was followed by "placebo-point" acupuncture, where the needles were inserted into skin areas not used in traditional Chinese medicine. In the third condition, patients received no treatment.

Overall, Pfab's team found, patients' itchiness ratings were lower after they received true acupuncture, compared with both no treatment and placebo acupuncture.

Then, when the researchers exposed patients' skin to the allergens a second time, skin flare-ups tended to be less-severe following the point-specific acupuncture. As for itchiness, however, both the true and placebo therapies had similar benefits compared with no treatment.

Acupuncture has been used for more than 2,000 years in Chinese medicine to treat a wide variety of ailments. According to traditional medicine, specific acupuncture points on the skin are connected to internal pathways that conduct energy, or qi ("chee"), and stimulating these points with a fine needle promotes the healthy flow of qi.

Modern research has suggested that acupuncture may help ease pain by altering signals among nerve cells or affecting the release of various chemicals of the central nervous system.

Pfab explained that pain and itchiness have similarities in their underlying mechanisms, so acupuncture's effects on pain mechanisms may also account for the benefits seen in this study.

The researcher pointed out, however, that more research is needed to see whether and why acupuncture might be helpful for people with eczema.

SOURCE: Allergy, online December 11, 2009.

[kfson]

Several months ago, floss became stuck between the last two molars on the bottom left side of my mouth. My jaw was already moved forward to make room for my fingers. With frustration, I yanked on the floss and the jaw came out of joint. It was loose and when I bit down the joint gorund on itself, bone on bone or cartilage. It wouldn't stay in joint. Finally late the next day, I saw my doctor of oriental medicine. A 30 minute acupuncture session with electrical stimulation improved the condition to about 90% of normal. In other words the jaw stayed in place but was still a little loose and clicked at times. 3 weeks later is was back to normal.

30 minutes brought me from greatly concerned to not dwelling on major surgery.

[chusauli]

Sham acupuncture is a sham.

Wherever you touch the body, the acupuncture channels correspond, so you are still doing acupuncture, even if you are off the actual location of points. This is why acupressure, gua sha, cupping, and other methodologies work.

Because I teach the Tung Acupuncture system in addition to TCM, i know of many points are off the standard TCM acupuncture locations - these researchers may have accidently hit another point.

At any rate the channel or meridian is more important in treatment than the point. Points are merely access routes to the channels.

The research is inconclusive and further research is needed.

[Lee Chiang Po]

How does one go about learning or training accupuncture? And how does one go about choosing an accupuncturist? What are their requirements in order to learn or train to be an accupuncturist? Surely there are checks and balances? Just say I wanted to become a licensed accupuncturist, how would I go about that? Not that I am wanting to do so, but it would give me some idea as to how serious a person has to be. These are serious questons and I hope you don't ignore me.

[sanjuro_ronin]

I had some done on my shoulder while rehabing it, it worked great.

[Xiao3 Meng4]

Assuming you want to practice ethically, the first thing to do is decide where you want to practice, and research the local laws which govern acupuncture. If there are no laws governing your area, take a quick look at any bills or acts that are currently in the government pipeline to see whether or not any laws are being drawn up. If you find nothing, then pick a school that is accredited by the NCCAOM. If the laws require licensing, then find a school or accredited teacher who is able to prepare you for the exams specific to your local licensing body.

In general, acupuncture programs in North America range from 1500 hours on the low end (much too little in my opinion) to 3000 hours on the high end (barely enough, really,) with varying mixes of theory, science and practice.

Licensed states and provinces require acupuncture curriculums to have a good chunk of Western Medical theory ranging from anatomy, physiology and pathology to neurology and myology. Curriculums will vary in their inclusion of modern scientific research on the effects and application of acupuncture.

The NCCAOM, which is the oldest licensing body for oriental medicine in North America, has had the experience of accommodating and testing the competence of practitioners from many different styles of acupuncture - 8 principle acupuncture, 5 element acupuncture, classical acupuncture and Japanese acupuncture. Other licensing bodies have not been around as long and unless they've taken all acupuncture styles into account, they may not be prepared to test the competency of certain styles and practitioners. It's therefore best to directly ask the licensing body which texts are used as source materials for the competencies and then use that information to help you pick a school.

As it stands now, acupuncture and Chinese medicine is still very diverse and stylistically ecclectic, with different licensing bodies favouring different acupuncture styles and methods. This needs to be addressed, and it is being addressed, albeit very very slowly. As time goes on, the various licensing bodies are evolving towards inter-compatibility. I hope this will encourage useful, valid science and will help remove more of the distortions being passed along in the schools today. It will be difficult, though, since people like to cling to ways and ideas and status.

[mawali]

Sham acupuncture working does not mean any quack can do acupuncture!
From the point of view of the specific trials that show this, it only means that neurological mechanisms through bi-directional/biochemical transformation that goes far beyond the 'diseased' location. This is not necessarilty a negative conclusion but there are those who can and will attempt to use it as such.

In clinical trials in North America, placebo controlled trials are the sine qua non of drug development! Active drug vs an inert control and depending on the class of drug(s) being tested, placebos come out ahead. Any astute individual who sees this should consider how placebo controls can be used for benefit instead of saying it show negative results and go on to the next drug product!

[kfson]

How does one go about learning or training accupuncture? And how does one go about choosing an accupuncturist? What are their requirements in order to learn or train to be an accupuncturist? Surely there are checks and balances? Just say I wanted to become a licensed accupuncturist, how would I go about that? Not that I am wanting to do so, but it would give me some idea as to how serious a person has to be. These are serious questons and I hope you don't ignore me.

http://www.aoma.edu/
It's in Austin, Texas

[GeneChing]

Acupuncture fails to boost IVF success in study
(http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE66C66D20100713)
NEW YORK | Tue Jul 13, 2010 5:15pm EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - While some studies have suggested that acupuncture might boost a woman's chances of becoming pregnant through in-vitro fertilization (IVF), new findings question whether there is a true benefit.

In a study of 160 women who underwent IVF at one infertility clinic, researchers found that those who were randomly assigned to have acupuncture right before and after their treatment were no more likely to become pregnant than those who had a "sham" version of acupuncture.

Of women in the acupuncture group, 45 percent were found to be pregnant five to six weeks after their IVF cycle. The rate was 53 percent among those who received the sham procedure.

Acupuncture has been used for more than 2,000 years in Chinese medicine to treat a wide variety of ailments. According to traditional medicine, specific acupuncture points on the skin are connected to internal pathways that conduct energy, or qi ("chee"), and stimulating these points with a fine needle promotes the healthy flow of qi.

IVF involves fertilizing a woman's eggs in a lab dish, then transferring the resulting embryos to her uterus.

Some past studies have found that acupuncture, performed around the time of the embryo transfer, may boost a woman's chances of becoming pregnant. But it was unclear whether that reflected a true effect of acupuncture or some "non-specific" effect of having an additional therapy.

So for the new study, Dr. Irene Moy and colleagues at Northwestern University in Chicago randomly assigned women undergoing IVF at their fertility clinic to one of two treatment groups. In one, women received two sessions of "true" acupuncture, delivered to points that are connected to fertility, according to traditional Chinese medicine; women in the other group received needle stimulation to body sites not used in acupuncture.

In both groups, the sessions were performed right before and after the embryo transfer.

In the end, Moy's team found, women who received the sham acupuncture had a higher pregnancy rate -- though the difference was not significant in statistical terms.

The findings are not the final word on acupuncture and IVF, however, according to Moy and her colleagues.

One possibility, they note, is that acupuncture needling, even performed at non-acupuncture sites, has some sort of effect on IVF pregnancy rates that is outside of the principles of traditional Chinese medicine. If that's the case, effects of the sham acupuncture used in this study might have masked any benefit of the traditional version.

The researchers say that future studies could compare true acupuncture with "placebo" needles that do not penetrate the skin.

They also note that the protocol used in this and other clinical trials -- acupuncture sessions only on the day of the embryo transfer -- may not be adequate. In real-world practice, acupuncturists treating women with fertility problems would typically perform several sessions over weeks or months.
I want to be a SHAM acupuncturist. How would you say 'sham' in Chinese?

[taai gihk yahn]

the fact that there was a non-significant differeance suggests that further study is indicated - the non-statistical difference suggests that there maybe needs to b greater differentiation btw groups - it would also seem to suggest the validity of "sham" acup in terms of there being some effect on the system, but without the degree of specificity from non-sham rx.; and of course, 2 treats in context of what is trying to be impacted is a bit a minima - they should have looked at extant acup protocols and designed the rx protocol accordingly (e.g. - at least 8 treats wud seem to b reasonable) - and also they should have done it with a non-acup ctrl group versus a comprehensive protocol;

of course, this may have just been a pilot study, perhaps the results will encourage something more along the lines of what I suggested

[GeneChing]

...because nothing makes me forget my headache faster than sticking needles in my butt. :p


Acupuncture for tension-type headache (http://www.cochrane.org/CD007587/SYMPT_acupuncture-tension-type-headache)

Published:
19 April 2016
Authors:
Linde K, Allais G, Brinkhaus B, Fei Y, Mehring M, Shin B, Vickers A, White AR
Primary Review Group:
Pain, Palliative and Supportive Care Group

Bottom line

The available evidence suggests that a course of acupuncture consisting of at least six treatment sessions can be a valuable option for people with frequent tension-type headache.

Background

Tension-type headache is a common type of headache. Mild episodes may be treated adequately by pain-killers. In some individuals, however, tension-type headache occurs frequently and significantly impairs their quality of life. Acupuncture is a therapy in which thin needles are inserted into the skin at particular points. It originated in China and is now used in many countries to treat tension-type headache. We found randomised controlled trials to evaluate whether acupuncture prevents tension-type headache. We looked mainly at the numbers of people who responded to treatment, which means a halving of the number of days on which they experienced a headache.

Key results

We reviewed 12 trials with 2349 adults, published up to January 2016. One new trial is included in this updated review.

Acupuncture added to usual care or treatment of headaches only on onset (usually with pain-killers) in two large trials resulted in 48 in 100 participants having headache frequency at least halved, compared to 17 of 100 participants given usual care only.

Acupuncture was compared with 'fake' acupuncture, where needles are inserted at incorrect points or do not penetrate the skin, in six trials. Headache frequency halved in 52 of 100 participants receiving true acupuncture compared with 43 of 100 participants receiving 'fake' acupuncture. The results were dominated by one large, good quality trial (with about 400 participants), which showed that the effect of true acupuncture was still present after six months. There were no differences in the number of side effects of real and 'fake' acupuncture, or the numbers dropping out because of side effects.

Acupuncture was compared with other treatments such as physiotherapy, massage or relaxation in four trials, but these had no useful information.

Quality of the evidence

Overall the quality of the evidence was moderate.

Authors' conclusions:
The available results suggest that acupuncture is effective for treating frequent episodic or chronic tension-type headaches, but further trials - particularly comparing acupuncture with other treatment options - are needed.

Background:
Acupuncture is often used for prevention of tension-type headache but its effectiveness is still controversial. This is an update of our Cochrane review originally published in Issue 1, 2009 of The Cochrane Library.

Objectives:
To investigate whether acupuncture is a) more effective than no prophylactic treatment/routine care only; b) more effective than 'sham' (placebo) acupuncture; and c) as effective as other interventions in reducing headache frequency in adults with episodic or chronic tension-type headache.

Search strategy:
We searched CENTRAL, MEDLINE, EMBASE and AMED to 19 January 2016. We searched the World Health Organization (WHO) International Clinical Trials Registry Platform to 10 February 2016 for ongoing and unpublished trials.

Selection criteria:
We included randomised trials with a post-randomisation observation period of at least eight weeks, which compared the clinical effects of an acupuncture intervention with a control (treatment of acute headaches only or routine care), a sham acupuncture intervention or another prophylactic intervention in adults with episodic or chronic tension-type headache.

Data collection and analysis:
Two review authors checked eligibility; extracted information on participants, interventions, methods and results; and assessed study risk of bias and the quality of the acupuncture intervention. The main efficacy outcome measure was response (at least 50% reduction of headache frequency) after completion of treatment (three to four months after randomisation). To assess safety/acceptability we extracted the number of participants dropping out due to adverse effects and the number of participants reporting adverse effects. We assessed the quality of the evidence using GRADE (Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation).

Main results:
Twelve trials (11 included in the previous version and one newly identified) with 2349 participants (median 56, range 10 to 1265) met the inclusion criteria.

Acupuncture was compared with routine care or treatment of acute headaches only in two large trials (1265 and 207 participants), but they had quite different baseline headache frequency and management in the control groups. Neither trial was blinded but trial quality was otherwise high (low risk of bias). While effect size estimates of the two trials differed considerably, the proportion of participants experiencing at least 50% reduction of headache frequency was much higher in groups receiving acupuncture than in control groups (moderate quality evidence; trial 1: 302/629 (48%) versus 121/636 (19%); risk ratio (RR) 2.5; 95% confidence interval (CI) 2.1 to 3.0; trial 2: 60/132 (45%) versus 3/75 (4%); RR 11; 95% CI 3.7 to 35). Long-term effects (beyond four months) were not investigated.

Acupuncture was compared with sham acupuncture in seven trials of moderate to high quality (low risk of bias); five large studies provided data for one or more meta-analyses. Among participants receiving acupuncture, 205 of 391 (51%) had at least 50% reduction of headache frequency compared to 133 of 312 (43%) in the sham group after treatment (RR 1.3; 95% CI 1.09 to 1.5; four trials; moderate quality evidence). Results six months after randomisation were similar. Withdrawals were low: 1 of 420 participants receiving acupuncture dropped out due to adverse effects and 0 of 343 receiving sham (six trials; low quality evidence). Three trials reported the number of participants reporting adverse effects: 29 of 174 (17%) with acupuncture versus 12 of 103 with sham (12%; odds ratio (OR) 1.3; 95% CI 0.60 to 2.7; low quality evidence).

Acupuncture was compared with physiotherapy, massage or exercise in four trials of low to moderate quality (high risk of bias); study findings were inadequately reported. No trial found a significant superiority of acupuncture and for some outcomes the results slightly favoured the comparison therapy. None of these trials reported the number of participants dropping out due to adverse effects or the number of participants reporting adverse effects.

Overall, the quality of the evidence assessed using GRADE was moderate or low, downgraded mainly due to a lack of blinding and variable effect sizes.


But srsly, I have got some really good results with acupuncture for headaches and some other pain alleviation. :)

[herb ox]

From http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27475042/?ncbi_mmode=std
Waiting for my full text copy to arrive so I can give it a more thorough review.

Published in American Journal of Emergency Medicine - acupuncture performed significantly better than intravenous morphine, and with much lower percentage of adverse events.


Am J Emerg Med. 2016 Jul 20. pii: S0735-6757(16)30422-3. doi: 10.1016/j.ajem.2016.07.028. [Epub ahead of print]
Acupuncture vs intravenous morphine in the management of acute pain in the ED.
Grissa MH, Baccouche H, Boubaker H, Beltaief K, Bzeouich N, Fredj N, Msolli MA, Boukef R, Bouida W, Nouira S.

Abstract

BACKGROUND:
Acupuncture is one of the oldest techniques to treat pain and is commonly used for a large number of indications. However, there is no sufficient evidence to support its application in acute medical settings.

METHODS:
This was a prospective, randomized trial of acupuncture vs morphine to treat ED patients with acute onset moderate to severe pain. Primary outcome consists of the degree of pain relief with significant pain reduction defined as a pain score reduction ≥50% of its initial value. We also analyzed the pain reduction time and the occurrence of short-term adverse effects. We included in the protocol 300 patients with acute pain: 150 in each group.

RESULTS:
Success rate was significantly different between the 2 groups (92% in the acupuncture group vs 78% in the morphine group P<.001). Resolution time was 16±8 minutes in the acupuncture group vs 28±14 minutes in the morphine group (P<.005). Overall, 89 patients (29.6%) experienced minor adverse effects: 85 (56.6%) in morphine group and 4 (2.6%) in acupuncture group (P<.001). No major adverse effects were recorded during the study protocol. In patients with acute pain presenting to the ED, acupuncture was associated with more effective and faster analgesia with better tolerance.

CONCLUSION:
This article provides an update on one of the oldest pain relief techniques (acupuncture) that could find a central place in the management of acute care settings. This should be considered especially in today's increasingly complicated and polymedicated patients to avoid adverse drug reactions.

Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

PMID:
27475042
DOI:
10.1016/j.ajem.2016.07.028

[herb ox]

Effect of acupuncture on house dust mite specific IgE, substance P, and symptoms in persistent allergic rhinitis.
McDonald JL, et al. Ann Allergy Asthma Immunol. 2016.

Abstract
BACKGROUND: Clinical evidence suggests that acupuncture improves symptoms in persistent allergic rhinitis, but the physiologic basis of these improvements is not well understood.

OBJECTIVE: A randomized, sham-controlled trial of acupuncture for persistent allergic rhinitis in adults investigated possible modulation of mucosal immune responses.

METHODS: A total of 151 individuals were randomized into real and sham acupuncture groups (who received twice-weekly treatments for 8 weeks) and a no acupuncture group. Various cytokines, neurotrophins, proinflammatory neuropeptides, and immunoglobulins were measured in saliva or plasma from baseline to 4-week follow-up.

RESULTS: Statistically significant reduction in allergen specific IgE for house dust mite was seen only in the real acupuncture group, from 18.87 kU/L (95% CI, 10.16-27.58 kU/L) to 17.82 kU/L (95% CI, 9.81-25.83 kU/L) (P = .04). A mean (SE) statistically significant down-regulation was also seen in proinflammatory neuropeptide substance P (SP) 18 to 24 hours after the first treatment from 408.74 (299.12) pg/mL to 90.77 (22.54) pg/mL (P = .04). No significant changes were seen in the other neuropeptides, neurotrophins, or cytokines tested. Nasal obstruction, nasal itch, sneezing, runny nose, eye itch, and unrefreshed sleep improved significantly in the real acupuncture group (postnasal drip and sinus pain did not) and continued to improve up to 4-week follow-up.

CONCLUSION: Acupuncture modulated mucosal immune response in the upper airway in adults with persistent allergic rhinitis. This modulation appears to be associated with down-regulation of allergen specific IgE for house dust mite, which this study is the first to report. Improvements in nasal itch, eye itch, and sneezing after acupuncture are suggestive of down-regulation of transient receptor potential vanilloid 1.

TRIAL REGISTRATION: Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry Identifier: ACTRN 12610001052022.

[GeneChing]

Military Researchers Collaborate With University on Opioid Crisis (https://www.defense.gov/News/Article/Article/1289925/military-researchers-collaborate-with-university-on-opioid-crisis/)
By Sarah Marshall Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences

BETHESDA, Md., Aug. 25, 2017 — Opioids are the main driver of drug overdose deaths across the United States, and West Virginia has been among the hardest hit by the crisis, experiencing the highest overdose death rates in the country.

https://media.defense.gov/2017/Aug/25/2001798237/400/400/0/170825-D-ZZ999-0825.JPG
With the military, West Virginia and the nation experiencing over-reliance on opioids for pain management, the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences and West Virginia University have established an official collaboration to pool their resources to help in solving the problem. Graphic courtesy of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences

With a shared vision of combating this growing epidemic, health care providers and researchers from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences here and West Virginia University have established an official collaboration to pool their resources.

In 2015, the overdose death rate in West Virginia was an estimated 41.5 per 100,000 people, an increase of about 17 percent from the year prior, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Cabell County in southern West Virginia has a population of 96,000, and an estimated 10,000 of those residents are addicted to opioids.

Additionally, the state's indigent burial fund, which helps families pay for a funeral when they can't afford one, reportedly ran out of money this year for the sixth consecutive year, largely due to the high number of overdose deaths.

As the opioid epidemic continues to have a substantial impact on the state, leaders from WVU reached out to USU's Defense and Veterans Center for Integrative Pain Management, aware of their efforts to successfully combat opioid misuse in the military over the last several years with the idea that lessons learned in the military would be applicable to their state's current crisis. Earlier this year, leaders from both universities developed a cooperative research and development agreement allowing them to formally share pain management resources developed by DVCIPM.

Adding Value to Civilian, Military Medicine

The agreement also allows the DVCIPM an opportunity to measure the efficacy of the tools they've developed in a new environment – a collaboration that these leaders believe already is adding value to both civilian and military medicine.

Nearly a decade ago, at the height of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, physicians were seeking to help troops get their chronic pain levels to zero as they survived combat injuries in record numbers. This was often achieved by using opioids – and using opioids as a single modality – which the military quickly realized was not effective, because this approach was affecting many service members and their relationships with loved ones, work, and daily living.

In 2009, then-Army Surgeon General Lt. Gen. (Dr.) Eric Schoomaker chartered the Army Pain Management Task Force, which sought to make recommendations for a comprehensive pain management strategy, ensuring an optimal quality of life for service members and other patients dealing with pain. It became clear to the military that pain should be viewed as more than just a number, and over the last several years, the military has been dedicated to researching and developing more effective tools for pain management, ultimately reducing the number of those potentially exposed to opioid addiction.

The task force's efforts led to the development of DVCIPM, which was designated as a Defense Department Center of Excellence last year.

Schoomaker, now retired, continues to lead these efforts, serving as vice chair for leadership, centers and programs for USU's department of military and emergency medicine, which oversees DVCIPM.

"We now have good evidence for the use of non-pharmacologic, non-opioid treatments, such as yoga, guided imagery, medical massage, chiropractic, acupuncture, Tai Chi, as well as a closely related movement therapy called Qigong, and music therapy," he said. "We have pretty good research to endorse their use."

Because these practices might not work the same for each person, he added, it's important to use a variety of these modalities as part of a comprehensive program, tailored to the needs of an individual with chronic pain. Now, thanks to the official collaboration between USU and WVU, DVCIPM will have the opportunity to continue researching the efficacy of various integrative modalities and the pain management tools and resources they've developed.

"We owe it to our patients, and we owe it to practitioners, to only use tools that have good evidence for their use," Schoomaker said.

Gathering, Measuring Data

DVCIPM Director Dr. Chester "Trip" Buckenmaier said the center's tools and resources have mainly been used in a fairly selective population within the military. Studying their efficacy in a smaller system within a state's civilian infrastructure will allow them to gather and measure data on how successful they can be in a broader population, which will continue to help illustrate the potential these tools have.

https://media.defense.gov/2017/Aug/25/2001798247/400/400/0/170825-D-ZZ999-2508.JPG
Battlefield acupuncture is a unique auricular (ear) acupuncture procedure providing an integrative modality to help treat chronic pain. It’s being taught to qualified providers in the military. Now, thanks to a new collaboration between Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences and West Virginia University, it’s also being employed in a new pain management center in West Virginia to help combat the opioid crisis. Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences photo by Sarah Marshall

"It's important to have relationships like we have with West Virginia. … They pay off in so many different ways that you can never anticipate," Schoomaker said.

Dr. Mike Brumage, WVU's assistant dean for Public Health Practice and Service, initiated the collaborative effort by reaching out to USU about two years ago, wanting to do something about the issue affecting his native West Virginia. At the time, he had just retired after a 25-year career in the U.S. Army Medical Corps, and was able to connect with former military health colleagues, including Schoomaker and then-Army Maj. Gen. (Dr.) Richard Thomas, who was serving as the Defense Health Agency's chief medical officer. Thomas is an alumnus of WVU's undergraduate, dental and medical programs, and is now USU's president.

This quickly led to several more meetings and discussions, led by Dr. Clay Marsh, vice president and executive dean of WVU's Health Sciences Center, and Dr. Bill Ramsey, assistant vice president of coordination and logistics for the center. Ultimately, they arrived at a CRADA, signed off by Thomas and Marsh, and have since continued looking for ways to make the most out of their collaboration.

The hope is that this joint effort will galvanize further interest from other entities, Schoomaker said, leading to other similar collaborations, ultimately continuing the fight against a crisis that's impacting the entire nation.

Medicinal Qigong (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?55537-Qigong-as-Medicine) & Tai Chi (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?50553-Tai-Chi-as-medicine) may ultimately be their greatest gifts (Acupuncture (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?27878-Acupuncture-Study) is intrinsically medicinal).

[GeneChing]

Acupuncture Carpal Tunnel Cure Mystery Solved (http://www.healthcmi.com/Acupuncture-Continuing-Education-News/1731-acupuncture-carpal-tunnel-cure-mystery-solved)
13 APRIL 2017
Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (Boston) researchers find acupuncture effective for the treatment of carpal tunnel syndrome, an entrapment neuropathy affecting the arm, wrist, and hand. Results were published in Brain, a journal founded in 1878 that is dedicated to the publication of landmark findings in both clinical neurology and translational neuroscience. Additional members of the research team hailed from Logan University (Missouri), Korean Institute of Oriental Medicine (Daejeon, South Korea), Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital (Medford, Massachusetts), and Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates (Boston, Massachusetts).

http://www.healthcmi.com/images/4ceu/LI4-CTS.jpg

The research team used subjective and objective instruments to measure patient outcomes. The Boston Carpal Tunnel Syndrome Questionnaire assessed pain and paraesthesia. Nerve conduction studies assessed median nerve improvements. Brain imaging data using fMRIs (functional magnetic resonance imaging) was used to measure somatotopic arrangements. Somatotopy maps the correspondence of specific points on the body to specific areas of the brain and other areas of the central nervous system.

In a landmark finding, the researchers find that acupuncture “may improve median nerve function at the wrist by somatotopically distinct neuroplasticity in the primary somatosensory cortex following therapy.” Essentially, acupuncture elicits measurable improvements in brain areas correlated with positive patient outcomes for patients with carpal tunnel syndrome. The researchers add that somatotopic improvements elicited by acupuncture “can predict long-term clinical outcomes for carpal tunnel syndrome.”

True acupuncture (verum acupuncture) produced improvements in the median nerve that were directly correlated with reductions of fractional anisotropy (i.e., MRI scans measured specific improvements in white matter fiber tracts of the brain that regulate positive patient outcomes for carpal tunnel patients). This discovery reveals an important neurophysiological mechanism activated by acupuncture stimulation. Acupuncture produces positive patient outcomes in the wrist by improving specific areas of the brain.

Fake acupuncture (sham acupuncture), used as a control, did not produce results in the brain correlated with median nerve improvements, as measured by MRIs. This dispels a great mystery. Medical procedures often produce short-term placebo effects, including sham acupuncture. However, the long-term clinical benefits of true acupuncture are quantifiable in terms of improvements in specific areas of the brain. In other words, sham acupuncture is only capable of producing minor short-term placebo benefits because it does not produce the central nervous system improvements produced by true acupuncture.

True acupuncture produces superior patient neurophysiological outcomes in the wrist and brain over sham acupuncture. True acupuncture produces quantifiable improvements in median nerve conduction and digit cortical separation distances. The researchers discovered that interdigit cortical separation distances are predictive of long-term symptomatic improvements achievable with true acupuncture (and not with sham acupuncture). The results are published in the research entitled Rewiring the primary somatosensory cortex in carpal tunnel syndrome with acupuncture. Results were based on comparative outcomes of baseline to acupuncture treatments (16 sessions over 8 weeks).

Li et al. and Wang et al. confirm that acupuncture is effective for the treatment of carpal tunnel syndrome. Li et al. find that acupuncture produces a 95.2% total effective rate. Wang et al. find that acupuncture produces an 86.67% total effective rate for the treatment of carpal tunnel syndrome.

Let’s take a look at both studies. Shandong University of Traditional Chinese Medicine researchers (Li et al.) find acupuncture effective for the treatment of carpal tunnel syndrome, producing a 95.2% total effective rate. The results are published in a research paper entitled Acupuncture in Treating Carpal Tunnel Syndrome: a Study of 21 Cases. A total of 21 patients with carpal tunnel syndrome were treated and evaluated in this study.

The patients were diagnosed with carpal tunnel syndrome between November 2013 and September 2014. There were 9 males and 12 females participating in the study. The youngest patient was 25 years of age, the oldest was 72. The shortest course of the disease was 1 week, the longest was 2 years. In a breakdown of etiologies, 5 cases of CTS were caused by carpometacarpal joint ganglion cysts, 9 were caused by repetitive strain injuries, and 7 by wrist sprains. The primary acupoints selected for all patients were the following:

TB4 (Yangchi)
SI5 (Yanggu)
LI5 (Yangxi)
LI4 (Hegu)
LI11 (Quchi)
TB5 (Waiguan)
Ashi

Additional acupoints were administered based on individual symptoms. For finger paresthesia, the following acupoints were added:

Sifeng
Shixuan

For atrophy of the thenar muscles, the following acupoints were added:

LU10 (Yuji)
PC8 (Laogong)
SI3 (Houxi)

For wrist pain, the following acupoints were added:

PC7 (Daling)
SI6 (Yanglao)
LU7 (Lieque)

For pain radiating to the forearm, the following acupoints were added:

LI10 (Shousanli)
PC3 (Quze)

continued next post

[GeneChing]

Treatment commenced with patients in a sitting position, with the arms, wrists, and fingers relaxed and the palms facing downwards. After disinfection of the acupoint sites, a 0.30 mm x 40 mm disposable filiform needle was inserted into each acupoint. TB4 was pierced to a depth of 10–15 mm with the triple acupuncture technique. SI5, LI5, LI4, TB5, LU10, PC8, SI3, PC7, SI6, and Ashi points were perpendicularly needled to a depth of 10–15 mm. For Sifeng points, needles were inserted rapidly to a depth of 3–6mm and then immediately withdrawn. LI11, LI10 and PC3 were pierced to a depth of 15–25 mm. Next, 3–5 Shixuan points were selected and were needled with the bleeding technique. Shixuan (translated as 10 dispersions) acupoints are located on the fingers, 0.1 cun distal to the fingernails. Each hand has ten Shixuan acupoints.

A deqi sensation was elicited at all acupoints. A TDP (Teding Diancibo Pu) heat lamp was applied to warm the acupoints. The TDP heat lamp emits far infrared radiation (2–50 micrometers).

A needle retention time of 20 minutes was observed for each acupuncture session. On week 1, the acupuncture treatments were applied once daily for 6 consecutive days. Starting at week 2, the treatments were applied every other day. Each treatment course consisted of 6 acupuncture treatments. All patients received a total of 4 treatment courses. After treatment, the treatment efficacy for each patient was categorized into 1 of 4 tiers:

Full recovery: Complete absence of symptoms. Physical movement of the upper limbs regained completely.
Significantly effective: Absence of most symptoms. Physical movement of the upper limbs regained. Discomfort reoccurs only under strenuous exercise.
Effective: Elimination of symptoms. Pain or discomfort present.
Not effective: No improvement in symptoms.

After four courses of care, the total effective rate was 95.2% with the following breakdown of improvement tiers: 66.7% fully recovered, 19.0% significantly effective, 9.5% effective, 4.8% not effective. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) falls under the Bi Zheng class of disorders. CTS is caused by weak qi and blood circulation, blood stasis, plus tendon and muscle malnourishment. Thus, researchers selected local acupuncture points to improve qi and blood circulation, including SI5, LI5, LI4, TB5, PC8, and PC7. The researchers note that the bleeding technique was applied to Shixuan points for the relief of finger paraesthesia.

Wang et al. produced similar patient outcomes by using a different acupoint prescription. Their independent investigation was published in the Journal of Clinical Acupuncture and Moxibustion. Patients receiving acupuncture had an 86.67% total effective rate for the treatment of CTS. Primary acupoints for all patients included the following:

PC7 (Daling)
PC6 (Neiguan)

Secondary acupoints included the following:

PC5 (Jianshi)
LI4 (Hegu)
PC8 (Laogong)

The patients rested in a supine position. Upon disinfection of the acupoint sites, a 0.25 mm x 40 mm filiform acupuncture needle was inserted into the acupoints with a rapid entry speed. For PC7, a mild manual stimulation was applied until a deqi sensation was achieved. For PC6, PC5, and PC8, a moderate to strong stimulation was applied until a deqi sensation was achieved. A needle retention time of 40 minutes was observed. During needle retention, the needle was manipulated every 5 minutes. Treatment was conducted once daily for 20 consecutive days. The total effective rate was 86.67% with the following breakdown of improvement tiers: 16 cases fully recovered, 6 cases significant improvements, 4 cases slight improvements, 4 no improvements.

PC6 and PC7 are mentioned in this study as particularly helpful for the treatment of CTS. PC6 is a Luo-Connecting point on the pericardium meridian. In the Zheng Jiu Da Cheng (Compendium of Acupuncture and Moxibustion), it is said that PC6 is indicated for the treatment of “swelling and spasm of the hand which is caused by the attack of wind and heat.” PC7 is also on the the pericardium meridian. According to the Zhen Jiu Jia Yi Jing (Jia–Yi Classic of Acupuncture and Moxibustion), it is effective for “hand spasms, hemiparesis of upper limbs, as well as hand spasms with slight tendon convulsion.”

Continuing acupuncture education investigations reveal that acupuncture is clinically effective for the treatment of carpal tunnel syndrome. The research published in the journal Brain provides insight into the neurophysiological mechanisms responsible for acupuncture’s therapeutic actions. The best way for patients with carpal tunnel syndrome to learn more and receive treatment is to contact licensed acupuncturists in their area.

References
Maeda, Y., Kim, H., Kettner, N., Kim, J., Cina, S., Malatesta, C., Gerber, J., McManus, C., Ong-Sutherland, R., Mezzacappa, P. and Libby, A., 2017. Rewiring the primary somatosensory cortex in carpal tunnel syndrome with acupuncture. Brain, 140(4), pp.914-927.

Li Q, Hou SW. Acupuncture in Treating Carpal Tunnel Syndrome: a Study of 21 Cases [J]. Shanghai Journal of Acupuncture and Moxibustion, 2015(12):1229–1229.2.

Wang W, Tang W, Chi HT et al. Acupuncture in Treating Carpal Tunnel Syndrome: a Study of 30 Cases [J]. Journal of Clinical Acupuncture and Moxibustion, 2016, 32(5):28–29.




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