This data is so promising that in 2020, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services began covering acupuncture for chronic low back pain. Clinical trials over the past few decades suggest that acupuncture may be a beneficial treatment for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and other conditions such as constipation.
To determine whether acupuncture really works, researchers compared it to “sham” acupuncture.
Acupuncture is a treatment that consists of activating specific locations, or acupuncture points, on the body, usually using thin needles. In traditional East Asian medicine, activating acupuncture points is believed to restore the flow of Qi, the body’s vital energy.
In sham acupuncture, the acupuncturist inserts needles but intentionally avoids established acupuncture points. This is not a perfect double-blind system, as trained acupuncturists know they are administering a fake.
However, from the patient’s perspective, the experience is essentially the same. And if the effects of acupuncture were entirely due to the placebo effect, fake and real acupuncture would produce similar results.
In some cases, this may not be the case.
A 2018 meta-analysis of 39 high-quality randomized controlled trials involving more than 20,000 patients found that acupuncture was effective for back and neck pain, osteoarthritis, headaches, and shoulder pain. was found to be superior to both sham acupuncture and no acupuncture. These results persisted over time, in most cases even 12 months after receiving treatment.
But it’s not a magic panacea. As with any treatment, it is not suitable for everyone. For example, it is popular among people undergoing IVF treatment, but studies have shown that it does not improve fertility.
science of acupuncture
Some skepticism persists over the lack of explanation from a Western medical perspective about how acupuncture works. But scientists are beginning to uncover the answer: the brain.
“People talk about psychedelics reconfiguring the nervous system. Acupuncture does something similar,” said Richard Harris, professor and endowed chair of the UC Irvine Susan Samueli Institute for Integrative Health. said.
His group conducted a series of analyzes on acupuncture treatment for chronic pain patients. They found that acupuncture – and it’s not false – changes brain activity in terms of activating receptors that bind to opioids that help control pain in the body. Electroacupuncture, which stimulates needles with a weak electric current, also affected how different areas of the brain connected, essentially rewiring the brain’s pain networks.
please think about it. In his 2017 study of 80 patients with carpal tunnel syndrome, scientists found that electroacupuncture to the affected wrist reduced symptoms as much as acupuncture to the opposite ankle. I have found it to be effective.
Subjective recovery aside, both groups improved to the extent that the median nerve in the wrist was able to transmit electrical signals, but these changes did not occur in those who received the sham acupuncture treatment. . This suggests that acupuncture not only works locally at the site of needle insertion, but may also work on parts of the body other than those close to that location.
One way this can happen is through the central nervous system. So the scientists used functional MRI imaging to examine the subjects’ brains. They found that by placing needles in both the wrist and ankle, they produced significant changes in how stimulation to the fingers was mapped to the cerebral cortex.
Although further research is needed to further clarify how acupuncture affects the body, the study provides compelling evidence that it is much more than just a placebo effect. I am.
The World Health Organization consensus recognizes 361 standardized acupuncture points on the human body. Acupuncture points appear to respond to a variety of stimuli, including pressure, heat, and electricity.
There is still much we don’t know about the function of acupuncture points. Some studies have shown that traditional acupuncture points can have a high density of nerve endings and mast cells. Stimulating these areas can release chemicals in your body (such as hormones) that can ultimately affect your brain.
Piecing together the definition of acupuncture points, their relationship to each other, and their physiological significance is an important area of research funded by the National Institutes of Health.
If you are considering acupuncture, talk to your doctor about your options and about finding a qualified acupuncturist in your area.
Acupuncture is generally considered safe when performed by a well-trained physician. Serious complications and deaths associated with it are extremely rare. Fainting and pain at the needle insertion site are also rare.
The risk is not zero, but it may be lower than the risk associated with some painkillers.
What we want patients to know
Some people in the United States have a prejudice against treatments that are not based on Western medicine. But when doctors like me recommend acupuncture to our patients, which I often do to treat pain or constipation, it’s not because we’ve run out of ideas or are looking for a last resort. We recommend this because the data is very convincing.
