Acupuncture wins BMA approval
This therapy is becoming more widely accepted by the medical profession in England.
bmj.com Silvert 321 (7252): 11b
Acupuncture
Acupuncture safety study: prospective survey of 34 000 treatments – (09-02-01)
Acupuncture safety study: prospective survey of 34 000 treatments
This article points out the incredible safety record of acupuncture performed in competent practitioners.
bmj.com MacPherson et al. 323 (7311): 486
Acupuncture Can Reduce Arthritis Pain – (03-08-01)
Acupuncture Can Reduce Arthritis Pain
I think positive results in trials of acupuncture are probably the hardest for mainstream medicine to follow. There is very little correlation between our Western beliefs and Eastern medicine. It requires an entirely different view. Just because we do not understand something, however, does not mean it is ineffective. Acupuncture has literally thousands of years of anecdotal evidence relating to its effectiveness and safety. Mainstream medicine barely has decades.
(article) Acupuncture offers a significant adjunct to conventional therapy in the management of osteoarthritis, according to the results of an NIH-supported study of complementary medicine in osteoarthritis pain management presented here at the 17th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Pain Medicine. Although more patients are turning to complementary medicine and more physicians want to integrate complementary medicine into their practices, evidence for the efficacy of these methods is lacking, according to Dr. Brian M. Berman, professor of family medicine and director of the complementary medicine program at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore. Dr. Berman and colleagues at the University of Maryland conducted a study to investigate the impact of acupuncture on pain levels in osteoarthritis of the knees in the elderly. In the first phase, the researchers evaluated 73 patients, all with moderate to severe osteoarthritis of the knees, who were not relieved by anti-inflammatory medications. The subjects were randomized to continue on anti-inflammatory drugs alone or anti-inflammatory drugs plus 8 weeks of acupuncture treatment. “We found on the 3-month follow-up that there were significant changes,” Dr. Berman told Reuters Health. “Acupuncture did reduce their pain, they had less stiffness and they were able to function better.”
Parental perceptions of the therapeutic effect from osteopathic manipulation – (06-10-04)
Parental perceptions of the therapeutic effect from osteopathic manipulation or acupuncture in children with spastic cerebral palsy
There is a clinic in Oklahoma City (www.chiropractic4kids.com) that has stories of treating patients that would bring tears to your eyes. There is no doubt that manipulative therapy (96% of which, I might add, is performed by chiropractors) has positive effects on the nervous system that lead to improvements in a wide variety of conditions such as autism, asthma, heart rate variations and in this study, cerebral palsy.
Acupuncture blocks stress on the heart – (11-26-01)
Acupuncture Blocks Sympathetic Nerve Activity to Heart
It is becoming more and more difficult to say that acupuncture has no effects on the human body… It is just so hard to accept the concept of a series of meridian, energy fields, etc… that can and do affect human health. I would go on to say that acupuncture is just one tool to be used in human disease management, but anyone who has studied traditional Chinese medicine already knows that they know this! TCM also includes herbal remedies and manipulation as well as acupuncture.
American Heart Association’s 2001 Scientific Sessions Dr. Holly R. Middlekauff of the Medical School of the University of California at Los Angeles pointed out that sympathetic nerve activity is two to three times higher in patients with heart failure. The higher the activity, the worse the prognosis. On the basis of animal studies that have shown acupuncture to be sympathoinhibitory, Dr. Middlekauff and colleagues selected 14 patients with advanced heart failure and randomized them to one of three treatment arms: traditional acupuncture with needles; acupuncture with needles but delivered to non-acupoints; and needleless acupuncture, in which patients were touched on the backs of their necks and believed they were receiving acupuncture. Investigators subjected the patients to 4 minutes of mental stress, having them perform math problems, “chastising them when they got the answers wrong,” and performing a color/word mismatch test, where they had to identify the correct color, while a written cue gave them the wrong answer (e.g., presenting the word “blue” in red letters). Stress testing was conducted prior to acupuncture and then again after a 20-minute session. During mental stress testing, sympathetic activity increased 25%, with increases in heart rate and blood pressure. However, a single 20-minute acupuncture session completely blocked these increases in the active treatment group. Patients in the non-acupoint and needleless acupuncture groups showed increased sympathetic activity as usual. “We would like to see what a full course of acupuncture would do,” Dr. Middlekauff commented. “Acupuncture could be adjunctive or complementary to beta-blocker therapy for heart failure patients.” She added that it could also be advantageous in patients intolerant of beta-blockade.
Acupuncture for chronic headache in primary care – (04-08-04)
Acupuncture for chronic headache in primary care
This was a relatively large study of patients with headaches being treated with acupuncture 12 times over the course of 3 months. Results were strong in favor of acupuncture. Just add this to the list of effective, non-drug, safe approaches to headache. Manipulation, soft tissue approaches, fever few are just a few others shown to be effective.
bmj.com Abstracts: Vickers et al. 328 (7442): 744
Electroacupuncture for Tension-type Headache – (04-22-04)
Electroacupuncture for Tension-type Headache on Distal Acupoints Only
Let the sticklers in acadamia figure this one out. Acupuncture is definitely gaining ground on the research front.
Electroacupuncture for Tension-type Headache on Distal Acupoints Only: A Randomized, Controlled, Crossover Trial – Headache, ..
Acupuncture to Prevent Migraines – (10-31-02)
Acupuncture in the Prophylactic Treatment of Migraine Without Aura
At least acupuncture isn’t getting the cold shoulder here. As an aside, although chiropractic care is remarkably safe, acupuncture appears to be even safer. But keep in mind that practitioners vary widely in their approach and competence. Synergy Abstract