The Mystery of Acupuncture Partly Explained In Rat Study

hackingbear writes: A biological mechanism explaining part of the mystery of acupuncture has been pinpointed by scientists studying rats. The research showed that applying electroacupuncture to an especially powerful acupuncture point known as stomach meridian point 36 (St36) affected a complex interaction between hormones known as the hypothalamus pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis. In stressed rats exposed to unpleasant cold stimulation, HPA activity was reduced (abstract). The findings provide the strongest evidence yet that the ancient Chinese therapy has more than a placebo effect when used to treat chronic stress, it is claimed. "Some antidepressants and anti-anxiety drugs exert their therapeutic effects on these same mechanisms," said lead investigator Dr Ladan Eshkevari, from Georgetown University medical center in Washington DC.

Comments

Not acupuncture

[smooth wombat]

The research showed that applying electroacupuncture

The Chinese did not have electricity nor does anyone claiming to be an acupuncturist use electricity.

Try again.

Re:Not acupuncture

[Anonymous Coward]

This. They can get back to me when they do it with just a plain steel needle.

Re:Not acupuncture

[ihtoit]

nerve connections use electricity. Acupuncture is the application of a needle into the nerve/bundle to interrupt or divert that impulse.

Re:Not acupuncture

[PopeRatzo]

The Chinese did not have electricity nor does anyone claiming to be an acupuncturist use electricity.

I like people who have strong opinions about things they know nothing about.

http://www.acupuncturetoday.co...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

http://www.news-medical.net/ne...

Re:Not acupuncture

[Anonymous Coward]

Plus another problem is that this is one "accupuncture pressure point". IIRC, there are scores, if not hundreds of the bastard things on a human body.

This study proves accupuncture is valid about as much as the fact that pork can transfer inimical biotic agents from pigs to humans causing the latter to become sick or even die is proof that the Old Testament is valid knowledge.

You know, not at all.

It may have gotten lucky. Or it may have extrapoleted a complete fiction out of a few observed facts and then felt fine with living with that "explanation".

Re:Not acupuncture

[Anonymous Coward]

So... More research needed. This seems to be a common theme in science.

I would have more of a problem with a study instantly validating something instead of, we found this observation and we are trying to spend more time validating what we observe.

Re:Not acupuncture

[king neckbeard]

Even if it's just luck, that doesn't mean it doesn't merit study, especially if some portion of the practices show promise. Imagine if we were able to turn acupuncture into a practice that actually has some science behind it. Real medicine could gain a new tool and people in general can be better protected from Charlatans.

Re:Not acupuncture

[nitehawk214]

Acupuncture Today says acupuncture works? Oh well that convinces me!

Also, your first article says that Electroacupuncture was developed until the 20th century, which kind of proves what the GP is saying.

Re:Not acupuncture

[Immerman]

If nerves were simple copper wires you'd undoubtedly be correct, but they're not, they're sophisticated biological computation and communication devices whose poorly-understood functioning might be disrupted in any number of ways.

Also, there's not actually any correlation between nerves and acupuncture points - *some* points are located at nerve clusters, or where nerves enter muscles, but far from all of them.

Re:Not acupuncture

[Immerman]

Actually, from what I can find there's not really any correlation between nerves and acupuncture points. Some points fall along nerves, but far from all of them.

Re:Not acupuncture

[PopeRatzo]

Also, your first article says that Electroacupuncture was developed until the 20th century, which kind of proves what the GP is saying.

Let's see what the GP is saying,

The Chinese did not have electricity nor does anyone claiming to be an acupuncturist use electricity.

OK, there are two statements there that we can evaluate.

1) The Chinese did not have electricity. China first got electricity about five years after the US.

2) "nor does anyone claiming to be an acupuncturist use electricity." Every acupuncturist now uses some amount of electroacupuncture

Also, your first article says that Electroacupuncture was developed until the 20th century

Electricity wasn't really all that widely available until the 20th century.

Acupuncture Today says acupuncture works? Oh well that convinces me!

My comment had nothing to do with whether or not acupuncture "works". It was just pointing out that the GP's comment was incorrect.

It amazes me that so many fans of pop skepticism still are unable to unpack a simple argument.

Re:Not acupuncture

[LeadSongDog]

Clearly what the poster intended was that When acupuncture first developed the Chinese did not have knowledge of electricity.
Not everyone is writing with the intent of addressing an audience of pedants.

Re:Not acupuncture

[sjames]

And acupuncturists didn't have rubber gloves back then, they touched the needle with bare fingers.

Re: Not acupuncture

[Anonymous Coward]

A few concerns:
1) The abstract didn't say what the sham was,
2) I don't recall the abstract saying the size of the group (which affects p a *lot* for this experiment due to publication bias),
3) the only reason I can imagine it wasn't double-blind (teach some researchers a sham technique) is if the researchers were already acolytes of acupuncture.

So they picked up cold rats and either carefully looked for the magic spot for a while in the warm lab/hands or quickly poked them and put them back into the cold. So many things wrong with what I *imagine* the experiment was like, since I only saw the abstract.

Re:Not acupuncture

[alex67500]

This. They can get back to me when they do it with just a plain steel needle.

From TFS:

A biological mechanism explaining part of the mystery of acupuncture has been pinpointed by scientists

Pin-point, steel needle, sounds all the same to me!!

Re:Not acupuncture

[umafuckit]

Clearly what the poster intended was that When acupuncture first developed the Chinese did not have knowledge of electricity.

And at the time they also knew no anatomy because they didn't conduct dissections. So acupuncture was practised in China by people who didn't even know what muscles were. Any credible modern research on acupuncture is conducted on the Western version, which is totally different.

Re:Not acupuncture

[zedaroca]

Wrong on the second part. I know plenty of acupuncturists who does use electricity. In fact, I've never met one who wouldn't use it in certain cases. Just go to any university's doctor in China and you'll see it.
To explain, I lived almost 3 years in Beijing Sport's University and did spend some time in their nursery treating injuries, I have been to the Haidian Hospital and did an introduction to acupuncture course in Brazil. In all of those places there are people claiming to be acupuncturists using electricity.

Re:Not acupuncture

[AmiMoJo]

The study is trying to determine if modern acupuncture works. Since this is the way most modern acupuncture is performed, the objection seems irrelevant.

Re:Not acupuncture

[AmiMoJo]

It looks like there may be some relation between the Chinese idea of "chi", energy flowing through the body, and mitochondria, the little guys in our bodies that are responsible for delivering energy where it needs to go. Mine are broken so I feel tired all the time, and get a variety of problems stemming from that.

It really looks like they were on to something, even though they probably had no idea what it really was.

Re:Not acupuncture

[mynamestolen]

So... More research needed. This seems to be a common theme in science.

I would have more of a problem with a study instantly validating something instead of, we found this observation and we are trying to spend more time validating what we observe.

I don't usually respond to Anonymous Cowards but here we go. The "more research is needed" meme is a favourite from the loony altmed crowd. So I am guessing you are either Ms Ladan Eshkevari, Susan E. Mulroney, Rupert Egan, or Lixing Lao or some other loony who believes in this woo. What is needed is intelligent research. Not crap. And this "research" is, sadly, crap as I've demonstrated elsewhere in this discussion. But it is from Georgetown University, so I guess that's OK.

Re:Not acupuncture

[ceoyoyo]

If electricity is required to make acupuncture work it kind of shoots down the "credibility" provided by "used for thousands of years by the Chinese!"

It would be interesting to see if the electricity is necessary or not.

Re:Not acupuncture

[ceoyoyo]

Prophets use the same technique. Say something sufficiently vague, find a sufficiently credible audience, and all of a sudden you can't help but be right.

The Chinese concept of chi doesn't really match mitochondria very well. Except in very specific cases, mitochondria don't flow anywhere, and they aren't energy. The energy that does flow is in the form of glucose in the blood, and you can't change it much, nor the functioning of the mitochondria, by traditional methods of affecting chi.

Re:Not acupuncture

[AmiMoJo]

Sure, but we are now starting to understand that a lot of issues are caused by malfunctioning mitochondria. While you are correct that they don't migrate or flow, the basic idea that there is a problem with energy reaching certain parts of the body matches the poor operation of mitochondria in that area.

Re:Not acupuncture

[king neckbeard]

Religious laws in the past were actually subject to a lot of the same kinds of evolutionary pressures as genes themselves, and thus societies often end up with a set of practices that are by and large neutral or helpful. Sure, you have a lot of useless crap and even some harmful crap, but it's a pretty clever way of figuring out the world absent rigorous scientific models. The problem is when those practices interfere with further cultural evolution.

Re:Not acupuncture

[PopeRatzo]

If electricity is required to make acupuncture work it kind of shoots down the "credibility" provided by "used for thousands of years by the Chinese!"

Electricity can be made lots of ways. Even a lowly potato can make electricity. The way I understand it, an acupuncture needle of the proper metal, along with moxabustion, can give off a very low electrical charge.

According to practitioners, the electric charge that is now commonly applied to the needles is just to make it work faster. Fewer people these days have the time (or patience) to sit like a pincushion for over an hour.

[Note: I'm not endorsing acupuncture. I'm just explaining the theory practitioners use. Also, I'm explaining that despite what you may think, electricity existed and had a profound effect before Thomas Edison.

Re:Not acupuncture

[PopeRatzo]

Clearly what the poster intended...

Pop skeptics are well-known for their practice of mind-reading.

Not everyone is writing with the intent of addressing an audience of pedants.

Not everyone is writing with the intent of addressing an audience of people who can read and write, either.

Re:Not acupuncture

[parkinglot777]

And at the time they also knew no anatomy because they didn't conduct dissections. So acupuncture was practised in China by people who didn't even know what muscles were. Any credible modern research on acupuncture is conducted on the Western version, which is totally different.

Please define "anatomy" in your reply. If you don't know anything about Chinese history and/or medicines, you should at least research for some. Even though I am not a fan of acupuncture, I do not completely ignore and lump it up with other alternate medicines.

Re:Not acupuncture

[PopeRatzo]

And at the time they also knew no anatomy because they didn't conduct dissections.

The Chinese were studying anatomy when people in England were still painting their faces blue and worshiping the Sun, and for at least 100 years before Galen in Greece.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Not acupuncture

[ceoyoyo]

The problem in this case is when those practices interfere with further scientific evolution. The placebo effect is a wonderful thing, and exploiting it when you've got no other choices is a great idea. But when it starts interfering with the development of things that actually work better, it is a problem. Not to mention the other negative effects of a significant portion of a modern society believing in woo.

Re:Not acupuncture

[ceoyoyo]

Wikipedia says moxibustion is treatment with dried mugwort. I'm not sure how that helps you create an electric current.

Regardless of whether the Chinese may have made some small currents by accidentally using dissimilar metals or something, this study doesn't have anything to say about ancient Chinese acupuncture because the ancient Chinese didn't have the ability to create controlled currents of this kind, and there's no evidence they even tried. You can't do a study of prayer combined with chemotherapy and then claim the result supports prayer because "the chemo is just to make it work faster because everyone's in such a hurry these days!"

PS: Edison? I guess you're probably American? There were one or two minor people working on electricity before Edison got around to discovering it.

Re:Not acupuncture

[shaitand]

"The Chinese did not have electricity nor does anyone claiming to be an acupuncturist use electricity. "

Didn't have, did they go somewhere? It is still in routine use throughout China for the successful treatment of many illnesses. What I still don't understand is why so much time is still spent trying to beat placebo when the placebo effect is very powerful medicine even getting better over time vs drugs that crushed it in controlled trials previously. Provided it has the raw materials the cells in the body can trigger almost every physiological response we accomplish with medications. Why not spend more time focusing on ways to get it to accomplish the placebo effect in some systematic and consistent way without the use of external medications and their side effects?

In any case, acupuncture has continued to advance and there are no shortage of practitioners using https://www.google.com/search?q=electroacupuncture&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

Re:Not acupuncture

[cstacy]

The Chinese concept of chi doesn't really match mitochondria very well.

He meant midichlorians.

Re:Not acupuncture

[ThatsDrDangerToYou]

It looks like there may be some relation between the Chinese idea of "chi", energy flowing through the body, and mitochondria, the little guys in our bodies that are responsible for delivering energy where it needs to go. Mine are broken so I feel tired all the time, and get a variety of problems stemming from that.

It really looks like they were on to something, even though they probably had no idea what it really was.

It sounds like you could use some alternative therapies actually. Basically, it boils down to finding what works for you. Find a really good practitioner who will work with you on: diet, exercise, posture, and hopefully including some hands-on bodywork. You could have a sleep disorder, some dietary/digestion issues, or .. any number of things going on. Anyway, my overall advice is to find someone willing to take the time to effectively diagnose your condition(s).

(Disclosure: my wife is a chiropractor/acupuncturist, so yes, I have my bias...)

Re:Not acupuncture

[shaitand]

How does the study using newer techniques used by modern acupuncturists debunk the study or the technique with regard to the mechanism by which acupuncture would function if treated with it today?

The GP's point is he is anti-acupuncture and making up criteria that must be met randomly. Which "then" is it he's referring to and which Chinese? There isn't even a single consistent set of points over time, just like we've adjusted treatments in western medicine. And just like we used to bleed patients and doctors in western medicine at one point based a large part of their medicine on what were metaphysically derived ideas of what happened in the body and how it functioned I have no doubt Chinese practitioners have adapted their techniques quite a bit. Especially as they've been able to communicate more effectively and share experiences. After all, they've been doing it much longer and treat a dramatically larger sample size.

Re:Not acupuncture

[umafuckit]

They weren't doing dissections and studying structure. i.e. no anatomy. I don't see a refutation of this in the other dude's link. I'm not lumping acupuncture in with other alternatives medicines, I agree it's likely different and there's probably more to it.

Re:Not acupuncture

[PopeRatzo]

Wikipedia says moxibustion is treatment with dried mugwort. I'm not sure how that helps you create an electric current.

Well, the mugwort (whatever that is) is treated and place in a ball on top of the needle and then burned, heating the needle.

Again, I don't endorse acupuncture. But if you're going to do the pop skeptic routine, you should at least know what you're talking about.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Not acupuncture

[Chalnoth]

Passing electrical currents through living tissue has real biological effects. Sticking needles in people at random locations around the body does not (aside from the possibility of infection and other complications).

Real therapies that use electricity are Electroconvulsive Therapy and Electric Muscle Stimulation. There's no need to puncture the skin. These quacks are just adding some risk of infection to what would otherwise be an almost perfectly safe therapy.

Re:Not acupuncture

[Anonymous Coward]

The Chinese did not have electricity nor does anyone claiming to be an acupuncturist use electricity. Try again.

The majority of times I have received acupuncture, across a number of different acupuncturists, they have hooked the needles up to a voltage source. To clarify though, I get acupuncture in trigger points, not acupuncture points (there is some overlap between the two categories, but not much). The pulsed electric charge causes the muscles to contract repeatedly for a couple of minutes, until the muscle suddenly relaxes.

Traditional acupuncture does nothing for me, probably because I don't believe in it. The most ridiculous example of this was when a practitioner of Japanese acupuncture connected two pairs of needles in a criss-cross across my back using wires with a diode halfway along, "to equalize my energy flow". Note that there was no power source involved, these were simply needles, wires and diodes. Total bunk.

Re:Not acupuncture

[snowgirl]

Not everyone is writing with the intent of addressing an audience of pedants.

I thought this was slashdot... when did the target audience STOP being pedants.

TL;DR: THIS... IS... SLASHDOT!!!

Re:Not acupuncture

[snowgirl]

Sticking needles in people at random locations around the body does not...

Actually, that's precisely the problem with acupuncture working better than placebo. Acupuncture works whether you're following their "rules" or just randomly sticking needles into people...

Basically, it turns out, that forcing a person to lay still for a long time has the same benefits of destressing as just laying on a sofa and chilling... or a massage, or any other relaxing activity...

Re:Not acupuncture

[Anonymous Coward]

Clay vessels containing two metals filled with acid have been found at ancient sites. These are capable of generating small electric currents. So it's possible electrodes could have been used with acupuncture.

Re:Not acupuncture

[ceoyoyo]

Yeah, that one matches up a little closer to chi all right. All except for the little tester device.

Re:Not acupuncture

[ceoyoyo]

Lighting some dried up weed on fire doesn't make electricity. Perhaps you should be a little more cautious with your last sentence?

Re:Not acupuncture

[tlhIngan]

The Chinese did not have electricity nor does anyone claiming to be an acupuncturist use electricity.

The "science" of acupuncture is not sticking needles in the body, it's sticking needles in the body and stimulating them. Traditionally, it was done by sticking the needles in your body and then using a candle to heat the needle.

More modern acupuncture uses needles with a bit of flammable material opposite the pointy end - the needle Is inserted into the body, and the material lit, which channels the heat to the point.

Electro-acupuncture stimulates using electricity, using probes connected to the needles.

Acupuncture is about the stimulation, not just the jabbing of needles.

Plus another problem is that this is one "accupuncture pressure point". IIRC, there are scores, if not hundreds of the bastard things on a human body.

This study proves accupuncture is valid about as much as the fact that pork can transfer inimical biotic agents from pigs to humans causing the latter to become sick or even die is proof that the Old Testament is valid knowledge.

Actually, there's plenty of scientific studies done to show acupuncture does work. The real question is no one knows why. Western medicine thought it was the placebo effect (which is a valid explanation).

And the science of acupuncture isn't jabbing needles randomly into the body - but jabbing the needle and stimulating them at the right locations. Traditionally, this was called intersections of chi, but that's just like explaining it as the aether. These intersections did not come about instantly - it's happened over many thousands of years of jabbing people until things started happening and it got studied. (The scientific method is old, acupuncture is just as old.). Now, everyone's explained it as "chi" and the balance of life, but that doesn't mean there's no valid scientific reason for it.

Again, we do not know why. You have to remember that acupuncture, also called Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is actually regarded by western medicine as a potentially valid form of treatment.

Re:Not acupuncture

[david_thornley]

Sure you can do such a study. You have a bunch of people using chemo, and you select half randomly to be prayed for. It's been done, and the results seem to be that prayer doesn't help (however, telling a patient people are praying for him or her can have an adverse result). If the prayed-for people did significantly better on their chemo, it would be evidence that praying for someone helps them get better.

FWIW, I don't regard this as evidence against any helpful effects of prayer, since the protocols that I glanced at seemed to be pretty cold-hearted in effect. I don't think the experiments should affect one's estimation of whether prayer works in any way.

Re:Not acupuncture

[david_thornley]

Alternative medicine can be valid, and can be confirmed by sufficient research. Once it's confirmed, it isn't "alternative" any more, and it can be further refined. This shows that acupuncture can have a significant effect other than what you'd expect from just sticking a needle into a rat. That's promising, but it doesn't really prove that some form of acupuncture works, and I'd say (as a guy who wants the best medical science he can get when sick) that this warrants further research.

Re:Not acupuncture

[david_thornley]

I keep trying to forget this whole midichlorian thing, so I can go back to enjoying Star Wars, but people keep reminding me.

Re:Not acupuncture

[PopeRatzo]

Lighting some dried up weed on fire doesn't make electricity. Perhaps you should be a little more cautious with your last sentence?

It's back to high school physics for you, son. We;re talking about tiny levels of current (which according to acupuncture theory is all that's needed, I've learned), but heating one end of a piece of metal (like a needle) can definitely produce electricity. (See "Seebeck effect" and "Peltier effect") If you watch traditional acupuncture being performed, you'll see right away how the "circuit" is created.

[And before you show your ignorance again, yes, the Chinese were doing pretty advanced metallurgy before Jesus grew a beard]

http://powerpractical.com/page...

"Thermoelectric power is the conversion of a temperature differential directly into electrical power. Thermoelectric power results primarily from two physical effects: the Seebeck effect, and Peltier effect.

The Seebeck effect is named after Thomas J. Seebeck, who first discovered the phenomenon in 1821. Seebeck noticed that when a loop comprised of two dissimilar materials was heated on one side, an electromagnetic field was created. He actually discovered the EM field directly with a compass! He noted that the strength of the electromagnetic field, and therefore the voltage, is proportional to the temperature difference between the hot and cold sides of the material. The magnitude of the Seebeck coefficient (S) varies with material and temperature of operation.

In this equation V is the voltage difference between the hot and cold sides, T is the temperature difference between the hot and cold sides. The negative sign comes from the negative charge of the electron, and the conventions of current flow. A negative Seebeck coefficient results in electrons being the dominant charge carriers (n-type), whereas holes are the dominant carrier (p-type) in materials with a positive Seebeck coefficient. The majority charge carriers are said to move away from the heated side toward the cooler side. Minority charge carriers move in the opposite direction, but at a slower rate due to phonon drag and charge carrier diffusion rates. Thus, both n-type and p-type materials are required to realize current flow in a device.

Things to remember about the Seebeck effect:

Solids have charge carriers that facilitate the flow of electrical power
The charge carriers come in two flavors negative electrons "n-type" and positive "holes" that we use to keep track of mobile positive charge in "p-type" solids
Heating one end of a conducting solid pushes on the charge carriers concentration and the distribution of charge creates voltage that can be measured this is called the Seebeck effect
The Peltier effect was first discovered in 1834 by Jean C.A. Peltier, for whom it was named. Peltier discovered that whenever a circuit of two dissimilar materials passes current, heat is absorbed at one end of the junction and released at the other. This is a linearly dependent and thermodynamically reversible process, unlike Joule heating which is irreversible and quadratic in nature mean. This process forms the basis for thermoelectric cooling and temperature control, these are currently the widest applications of thermoelectric devices. "

Re:Not acupuncture

[PopeRatzo]

They weren't doing dissections and studying structure. i.e. no anatomy.

Yet somehow, there are Chinese anatomical drawings from the third century C.E. that show "meridians" that are almost an exact replica of the human nervous system and "vessels" that are a near exact replica of the circulatory system.

You think they did that by guessing?

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pu...

Though I suppose their backward understanding of health care is the reason there are so few Chinese left in the world.

Re:Not acupuncture

[gzuckier]

The research showed that applying electroacupuncture The Chinese did not have electricity nor does anyone claiming to be an acupuncturist use electricity. Back then they had to use Steamacupuncture. Try again.

Re:Not acupuncture

[gzuckier]

nerve connections use electricity. Acupuncture is the application of a needle into the nerve/bundle to interrupt or divert that impulse.

It's The Matrix!!!

Re:Not acupuncture

[gzuckier]

Lighting some dried up weed on fire doesn't make electricity. Perhaps you should be a little more cautious with your last sentence?

Insert medical marijuana humorous reference here.

Re:Not acupuncture

[gzuckier]

Sure you can do such a study. You have a bunch of people using chemo, and you select half randomly to be prayed for. It's been done, and the results seem to be that prayer doesn't help (however, telling a patient people are praying for him or her can have an adverse result). If the prayed-for people did significantly better on their chemo, it would be evidence that praying for someone helps them get better.

FWIW, I don't regard this as evidence against any helpful effects of prayer, since the protocols that I glanced at seemed to be pretty cold-hearted in effect. I don't think the experiments should affect one's estimation of whether prayer works in any way.

To be complete you should also have a group where somebody is diligently praying for them to get sicker.

Re:Not acupuncture

[gzuckier]

Prophets use the same technique. Say something sufficiently vague, find a sufficiently credible audience, and all of a sudden you can't help but be right.

The Chinese concept of chi doesn't really match mitochondria very well. Except in very specific cases, mitochondria don't flow anywhere, and they aren't energy. The energy that does flow is in the form of glucose in the blood, and you can't change it much, nor the functioning of the mitochondria, by traditional methods of affecting chi.

Or Midi-chlorians

Re:Not acupuncture

[gzuckier]

I keep trying to forget this whole midichlorian thing, so I can go back to enjoying Star Wars, but people keep reminding me.

How many mitochondria could a midichlorian chlorinate if a midichlorian could chlorinate mitochondria?

Re: Not acupuncture

[Anonymous Coward]

Define "studying". It certainly wasn't anything as rigorous as the modern scientific process.

Confused

[Anonymous Coward]

How does this help me to configure my HOSTS file?

Re:Confused

[Anonymous Coward]

Press a needle into your hard drive at the 0x542d4123 address and apply a small electric current. This should protect you from all unwanted internet content.

Re:Confused

[Anonymous Coward]

Bah! Real programmers use butterflies.

Electroacupuncture != acupuncture

[Anonymous Coward]

Electroacupuncture is not the same thing as Ancient Chinese Acupuncture, unless the ancient Chinese invented batteries and didn't tell us.

Re:Electroacupuncture != acupuncture

[sjames]

Or if the metal in the needles reacted with the interstitial fluids in the body and generated a small current. If you don't think that can happen, chew on some aluminum foil.

Mystery

[Krymzn]

The main mystery is how acupuncture is anything other than a historical footnote.

Re:Mystery

[Anonymous Coward]

It might be because it, uh, you know....uh...works?

Re:Mystery

[Anonymous Coward]

The main mystery is how the placebo effect is so damn powerful, tbh. Another question is whether acupuncture has a better effect than placebo, and if not, is it not worthwhile for the placebo effect alone? This is a treatment for stress/pain relief, which is pretty fucking welcome to anyone who suffers either chronically.

N.B. The placebo effect still works if you know you're taking a placebo.

Re:Mystery

[Anonymous Coward]

There is "alternative medicine" and then there's alternative medicine.

For example, someone using homeopathy is misguided, uninformed, and/or an idiot. Any effect they are getting is purely placebo, or possibly from increased hydration. Someone using acupuncture may actually be getting some effect out of it. There is weak scientific evidence that it does something, just not much, and we're not sure how or what yet.

Someone using a chiropractor is getting actual short-term pain relief (not treatment) at the risk of permanent injury or death. Someone going to a physical therapist who does stretches/exercises, conversely, is getting long-term pain relief and likely actual treatment.

Someone using only alternative medicine without also using modern medicine is not going to cure anything. See Steve Jobs.

Re:Mystery

[Anonymous Coward]

With psychosomatic pain and/or stress, any placebo will do just fine.

Re:Mystery

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, some may work better than others: a placebo requiring complex rituals tends to work better; a placebo which the patient is convinced is more than a placebo tends to work better; etc. Also interesting is that non-psychosomatic pain often responds to the placebo effect - this would make sense, as pain is the brain's interpretation of information from other parts of the body, and the brain can be programmed to interpret this information in different ways.

IOW, pain is much more than just some nerve sending a particular message to the brain.

Re:Mystery

[Anonymous Coward]

Emotions and stress have a tremendous effect on how the body functions.

I wouldn't be surprised if the only reason acupuncture is such a good placebo is because a) by virtue of how it's done, it's a great stress reliever which causes real results, and b) you feel like you've "endured" something (even if it's pleasant) rather than quickly take a pill so it has to be more effective.

Meditation, mindfulness, yoga, etc, all have proven effects as well. I would imagine acupuncture falls into the same category, even if a bit more indirectly.

Re:Mystery

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell that to Steve Jobs.

Re:Mystery

[ThatsDrDangerToYou]

Someone using a chiropractor is getting actual short-term pain relief (not treatment) at the risk of permanent injury or death.

Have you compared insurance rates for chiropractors to medical doctors? Those numbers would be a reliable indicator of the relative risk of chiropractic treatment.

Re:Mystery

[ibpooks]

Not really, because unlike real medicine, chiropractic has no standard of care from which one can expect or anticipate a particular outcome nor judge the performance of the practitioner. Anything that goes right or wrong in the course of "treatment" can be handwaved away with nonsense explanations about misalignments, energies, chi or whatever other subjective crap absolves the chiropractor of any responsibility to reality, while simultaneously allowing him to sell snake oil vitamins and smoothie mixes and to schedule "tune up" and "adjustment" appointments for as long as the patient still has money in his wallet and faith in the charlatanism.

Re:Mystery

[Anonymous Coward]

Check out http://whatstheharm.net/chiropractic.html for some actual examples.

Re:Mystery

[ibpooks]

The question of whether acupuncture (in any of its hundred or thousands of forms) is more effective than control (a.k.a. "placebo effect") has been answered conclusively -- it is not. Acupuncture is indistinguishable from sham acupuncture in numerous, well controlled studies. It is the theatre, not the treatment that has any effect; and those effects are only measurable in the short-term against subjective outcomes. In other words, it's risky (infection, organ/vessel piercing), has no more benefit than just talking to someone or sitting quietly for a half hour, and does not improve health in any known objective measure.

The placebo effect "works" for a very narrow definition of "works", which is far less than what practitioners of these worthless treatments claim.

Re:Mystery

[Anonymous Coward]

pain is much more than just some nerve sending a particular message to the brain.

That is exactly what pain is.

Re:Mystery

[Anonymous Coward]

The only reason some insurance plans will even cover it is because of patient demand, not because insurance companies see it as a valid form of treatment.

Re:Mystery

[ThatsDrDangerToYou]

What I am saying is that "risk of permanent injury or death" is a quantifiable risk. Those are pretty strong words, and those who insure chiropractors know damn well what that risk is in terms of insurance liability. So, what is the relative risk of seeing a chiropractor for back pain, for example, vs. back surgery? In short, where is the trail of mangled and dead bodies leading from chiropractic offices?

Effectiveness, appropriate care, and so on, is another topic that deserves discussion. ... and I don't have the time at the moment. Maybe later though.

Re:Mystery

[Anonymous Coward]

Any placebo treatment that you are charged for is bad a one, and better ones should be sought.

Re:Mystery

[ceoyoyo]

You were right until you got to the end. The placebo effect works incredibly well, which is why the only medical study that's credible at all is a placebo controlled, double blind one. Placebos can shrink tumours and cure real, physically verifiable diseases. Billions aren't spent recruiting twice the number of subjects so you can administer placebos because people somehow haven't figured out how to use objective outcome measures.

Re:Mystery

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, see, when the chiropractor fails to fix a problem through voodoo, people eventually give up and go to real doctors.

Re:Mystery

[Beerdood]

The study, reported in the journal Endocrinology, compared stressed rats given electroacupuncture, [with?] a sham therapy in which needles were not inserted in a meridian point, or no treatment. A fourth group of rats were not exposed to stress and did not receive acupuncture.

Except that this study seems to have accounted for that. There's a specific mention of one group having sham therapy where needles were inserted into the rats, but NOT into the meridian points described. At least that's what I understand from the quoted statement there (there seems to be a minor grammatical error there and the word [with] or [to] may be missing, hence the paraphrasing).

Re:Mystery

[ThatsDrDangerToYou]

Again, I'm not, for now, addressing effectiveness of treatment. That is a complicated issue and deserves a response, and well, a lot more research no doubt. My question is: if there is a high risk of permanent injury or death from chiropractic, WHERE IS THE EVIDENCE?

Re:Mystery

[Agent0013]

Actually, the cost of the placebo you are taking can make a difference on how well it works. There are plenty of links on a simple Google search, but here is one.

I also remember seeing two or three differently colored bottles of drugs that had different prices, but were all placebo. Doctors can prescribe these if they feel it would help.

Re:Mystery

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you need to understand the place a placebo has in an experiment. It was not the placebo effect that shrinked a tumour that would otherwise be shrank by the immune system.

Re:Mystery

[cheesybagel]

I never heard of him using it. What I did hear was that he did some stupid vegetarian diet. I wouldn't use acuptuncture to treat cancer.

The WHO considers the use of acupuncture is acceptable in the treatment and management of pain. Everything else is basically quackery.

Re:Mystery

[sjames]

It's the back surgery that has the trail of crippled bodies and lack of evidence behind it.

Re:Mystery

[ThatsDrDangerToYou]

Well yes, there's that uncomfortable fact, but we accept a certain percentage of failure in medical procedures without question. It's understood that once you start cutting/fusing/etc, well, you can't uncut.

Anyway, I can type all day on this, but the gist is: for any condition there is a continuum of care and intervention. In any of the medical/therapeutic professions there are good and bad practitioners, and lots in between. "Your mileage may vary."

Re:Mystery

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, see, when the chiropractor fails to fix a problem through voodoo, people eventually give up and go to real doctors.

And when the real doctors fail with their voodoo, people eventually give up and go to a chiropractor. Considering the amount of whining from real doctors, where more people end up going seems to be obvious.

Re:Mystery

[Anonymous Coward]

The only reason some insurance plans will even cover it is because of patient demand, not because insurance companies see it as a valid form of treatment.

Are these the same insurance companies trying to avoid payment even of lifesaving "standard medicine" procedures?

Re:Mystery

[Anonymous Coward]

The placebo effect works only if your definition of "works" is "causes people making subjective measurements to produce numbers that align with the expected outcome."

Ask someone to rate their pain on a scale of 1 to 10. Just how accurate do you think their answer is? Can they look at a pain meter in their brain and just read off a number? They're essentially just guessing, and if they expect that they should have improved, they'll guess better numbers. It doesn't mean they're experiencing less pain, it just means that subjective measurements are far more difficult than people realize.

I once was working on a project that required me to listen to music samples and rate how much I liked them on a scale of 1 to 5. It took a week of work to develop a paragraph of text for each of the 5 points on that scale to explain exactly what each point meant before I could semi-reliably give samples the same score that I had given them just 30 minutes earlier. Yet most studies will ask people to rate their pain on a scale from 1 to 10 with zero guidance about what each point on that scale means, then wait a week and ask them to repeat that activity, and expect that any change in their response actually means that their pain is different.

The placebo effect isn't an actual result, it is merely bad methodology.

Re:Mystery

[Anonymous Coward]

This study wasn't blinded in any way, and the authors don't claim statistical significance in the difference between sham and electro acupuncture, only between electro vs control and not sham vs control. If there was a significant difference between electro and sham, don't you think they would have pointed that out? If sham had an effect of .4 (vs .1 for control), and electro had an effect of .5m (made up numbers as example), electro could be significant vs control while sham wouldn't, but statistically there would be no difference at all between sham and electro, which seems to be the case here (they provide the raw data, so feel free to do the math for yourself).

Tiny sample size (42 rats in total ARE YOU KIDDING?????), minuscule effect, no blinding, researcher with likely bias (acupuncturist), use of electricity as opposed to "traditional" acupuncture, when electricity has long been known to have legitimate therapeutic effects..... this study shows nothing at all.

I see what you did there

[mwn3d]

"Pinpointed". Nice.

antidepressants?

[ihtoit]

you mean they actually figured out how SSRIs fuck the body up aside the claimed (and still not proven) therapeutic effects?

I could tell you. HPA misalignment is just the beginning.

do not believe

[Anonymous Coward]

Chinese medicine is so steeped in unfettered loads of made up pie in the sky crap with minor pieces that operate, it can not ever be trusted.

I met a girl from china once, she was very passionate in insiting that chinese were the first people on earth, that all humans came from china, that china was the first civilzation and that it's likely all culture came from china.

I trust this study about as much as I trust donald trump in a business deal.

Re:do not believe

[Anonymous Coward]

exactly .. stupid Chinese .. All people came from the US of course and McDonalds is the most medicinal food on earth .. hehe just kiddin man

Re:do not believe

[Anonymous Coward]

The Garden of Eden was in the middle of the USA. Or so said our great prophet of the LDS Joseph Smith.

cue over weight western engineer ranting

[Anonymous Coward]

Acupuncture has to be a sham because my impeccable powers of logic refute 20+ centuries of success stories. We've already explained how the body works and until these Oriental con men and women can do a double blind test with at least twenty identical subjects for a sample set acupuncture will just be unproven nonsense.

Re:cue over weight western engineer ranting

[Anonymous Coward]

You forget about the 20+ centuries of failure stories. Until you know the proportion your success stories mean nothing - this is what clinical studies are for.
Oh, and the fact that acupuncture of 20+ centuries ago bears no similarity to what we call acupuncture today, which was developed in the last 100 years.

You also forget that you are using the logical fallacy of Argument from Antiquity and Argument from Popularity.
Also, the plural of anecdote != data.

"Meridians"

[bradgoodman]

I thought it was all about controlling the "flow of energy" through the "Body's meridians"...

Ohh Ohh, do a rat study with healing crystals!

[gabebear]

By "mystery of acupuncture" do you mean "why are people throwing money at obvious bunk"? http://sci-ence.org/the-ghosts...

Re:Ohh Ohh, do a rat study with healing crystals!

[PopeRatzo]

"why are people throwing money at obvious bunk"?

I ask myself that every time I drive past the Apple Store.

Re:Ohh Ohh, do a rat study with healing crystals!

[tshawkins]

In other news just in, a scientific basis for for homeopathy has been discovered, ........... ... ..

No, not really, its still a load of bollocks......

Re:Ohh Ohh, do a rat study with healing crystals!

[david_thornley]

C'mon, I'd bet that homeopathic remedies can cure dehydration.

Rubbish

[mynamestolen]

I hate rubbish research and I hate rubbish research on slashdot.
Stick needles in anyone and you affect HPA axis. Doh!
Blast adrenal glands with electricity and you affect HPA axis. Another no brainer.
The real test, if these woo believers wanted to test the magic scientific meridian whacko superpoint stomach meridian point 36 (St36) [help me stop laughing], is to do the magic at various points on the poor bloody rats and see what happens (including the little itty bitty points close to the magic St36).
I sincerely hope no taxpayer money went into this particular egregious piece of flam. Check out this for NZ subsidy of this religion:
https://kmccready.wordpress.co...

Re:Rubbish

[Anonymous Coward]

Spewing out vitriol against something you seemingly know very little about is a great way to hinder progress in these areas of "scientific" pursuit. Not only does it not help the trope of the angry humano-science nerd (PR is important, ask the Koch brothers), it also is an affront to emerging areas of research, whether or not they are worthy of funding.

Either way, I hope the community starts standing against such self-presumption under the banner of science.

But alas, this is Slashdot...

Re:Rubbish

[mynamestolen]

Dear AC, I know that's you [editorial team for Ladan Eshkevari, Susan E. Mulroney, Rupert Egan, and Lixing Lao.] Since when is comedy vitriol? Filter the logic of my comment for comedy and you might learn something. Hey I just learned something else. Georgetown University is a hotbed for this sort of crap. Amazing how such poor "science" gets past the checkers.

Re:Rubbish

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not reassuring how closed-mindedness seems to be the norm on /. either, but of course nobody of these same people are going to actually discover or invent anything NEW either. LOLZ and XXX (comedy!)

Re:Rubbish

[baka_toroi]

For how many years have you studied acupuncture?

Re:Rubbish

[Beerdood]

"There's no scientific proof that acupuncture actually works, the whole idea is rubbish!"
*Study is done, finds correlation between acupuncture and hormones / stress*
"What is this shit study? We all know acupuncture doesn't work, why waste time studying this rubbish"?

That's a nice no-win situation there for anyone trying to discover validity in acupuncture.

"The real test, if these woo believers wanted to test the magic scientific meridian whacko superpoint stomach meridian point 36 (St36) [help me stop laughing], is to do the magic at various points on the poor bloody rats and see what happens (including the little itty bitty points close to the magic St36)."

If you real the actual article (I know, crazy request for a slashdotter!) you'll see that "The study, reported in the journal Endocrinology, compared stressed rats given electroacupuncture,[to] a sham therapy in which needles were not inserted in a meridian point, or no treatment. A fourth group of rats were not exposed to stress and did not receive acupuncture. ". Hey look, they actually did that thing you said they would have to to be considered *real* science. And they still found a correlation. The whole purpose of the sham acupuncture was to eliminate the possibility of the placebo effect (which apparently can be seen in animals too) or to eliminate the possibility that random needling produces the same results

Acupuncture isn't homeopathy or healing crystals (concepts that contradict our entire understanding of physics and biology). I'm no medical expert, but the basic concepts are at least believable. You stick some needles in you, get relief from physical pain in the area. What's so "mystical" or "voodoo-like" about that? Nothing. Maybe the neurons from the specific area of pain can't transmit that information properly to the brain if there's pain from a meridian point (or elsewhere) that jams that connection. Or the scraping ("Gua-sha" or something) practice doesn't seem so far fetched either, and quite medically plausible. You move waste material from deep inside your body towards the skin, and you end up sweating it out faster. Nothing quacky about that, at least from an initial perspective. Now if your acupuncturist can claim to cure cancer or other nonsense like that, then I might have a hard time believing that crap. But some of these specific techniques don't seem so far fetched, and may be plausible.

Re:Rubbish

[Smidge204]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Fake acupuncture, where the skin isn't penetrated at all, was found to be much more effective than real penetrative acupuncture and acupuncture improperly applied (needles in the "wrong" locations).

And the tests were done on human volunteers. Citations in the video description.
=Smidge=

Re:Rubbish

[mynamestolen]

So you are now claiming, unlike the authors of this bullshit, that EA is not A? Is so, this is not unusual. Woo merchants of acupuncture usually misquote and misunderstand "studies" dressed up as science which they claim support their brainless religion.

Re:Rubbish

[Beerdood]

There was no such claim in anything that I said. There were three points being made here:

1) The fact that you're pooh-poohing what appears to be a legitimate study (what you called "rubbish research") shows you're already biased and not going to take any study legitimately. Given that scientific research is really the only way to move anything in the realm of "alternative medicine" to actual medicine, that's a rather incredulous attitude.
2) The "sham acupuncture" scenario appears to have been considered in the experiment, as there was a group of rats that received the sham acupuncture, which I indicated with the quote & bolding. This was the only factor of the study that you used to support the idea that this study is BS; yet it was actually considered in the study
3) The concept of acupuncture isn't that far fetched; at least not in the same realm of homeopathy or astrology; which contradicts our current understanding of physics and biology.

None of what I said has anything to do with EA vs A. In fact, it really doesn't matter since you seem to discount both versions. If the study was done with just needles and no electricity, would you have thought the study was any more legitimate or believed acupuncture works any more or less than you did before reading this? Of course not, this is just some weird strawman you're injecting here. The whole point of a scientific study is to move us closer to the truth, so studies on homeopathy or astrology or acupuncture aren't worthless in that sense, even if you know or feel the practice is bogus. The results of these studies help to greater understanding of the area (whether they show a correlation or not), and help sway public opinion. Your original comment is neither insightful nor informative.

Re:Rubbish

[Anonymous Coward]

Poor study design, inadequate understanding of acupuncture/Asian medicine. I know a Japanese acupuncturist who does predominantly cutaneous needling (i.e. does not puncture the skin).

It's not a caucasian discovery, and will tend to be given higher expectations, and harsher criticism when it doesn't meet said expectations. And western science doesn't cope well with concepts that resist reductionism, which feeds into the situation.

Re:Rubbish

[Smidge204]

The only expectation is that it works better than placebo. It doesn't even do that.

=Smidge=

Re:Rubbish

[Anonymous Coward]

Research is about inter-professional respect, and will not change life for practitioners or patients.

Re:Acupuncture is for cows.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi user:sexconker (1179573), we know it's you, you forgot to check the "Post Anonymously" box earlier:

http://news.slashdot.org/comme...

The same people who deny acupuncture

[Anonymous Coward]

will eventually start denying the effects of physical massage.

Re:The same people who deny acupuncture

[mynamestolen]

LOL. Massage in the hands of conmen and conwomen and congenderneutral can injure, kill, debilitate.
https://kmccready.wordpress.co...

Re:The same people who deny acupuncture

[Anonymous Coward]

So can a glass of water. Your point?

I don't care

[The-Ixian]

How much scientific evidence there is to support this... There are better ways to relax than sticking me full of needles... As a matter of fact, I cannot think of anything that would raise my stress level more...

Re:I don't care

[PolygamousRanchKid]

There are better ways to relax than sticking me full of needles.

I dunno. I'm thinking that acupuncture is kinda sorta an S&M type thing. The "S" folks relax by sticking needles into other folks. The "M" folks relax by getting needles stuck into them.

Not my scene, but if it works for both, it sounds like a Win/Win situation.

Does Obamacare cover acupuncture? If so, the government might be sponsoring sexual S&M hanky-panky . . . I'd pay mucho dollares to see the US presidential candidates comment on this. It would be a hoot and a half!

Mod parent up!

[LeadSongDog]

Exxxzzzaaaaaccccttttllllyyyy!!! A proper test on "St-36" would include stabbing of nearby non-"St-36" points. Randomly select which stab to electrify. Vary over time. Cross-correlate the measured response series to each of the stabs' selection series. Repeat until p=.05. The experiment may have to be prematurely terminated if the supply of rat chow (or grant money) is extinguished.

Re:Mod parent up!

[Martin Blank]

They did use non-St-36 locations. There were four groups, three of which were given the same stressors, with a fourth given no stressors and no treatment. The stressor groups received either St-36 treatment, treatment where needles were not inserted into any meridian point, or no treatment. I imagine an argument could be made for a group given treatment but not stressors.

I don't know if this provides any vindication for acupuncture (or even electroacupuncture)--something like this really needs to be repeated before I'll believe it--but the research was a little more robust than you imply.

Re:Mod parent up!

[Chalnoth]

The "meridian points" are imaginary locations on the body that have literally zero basis in biology. There is no conceivable way that they'll have a statistically significant impact on any therapy compared to biologically-similar points elsewhere.

Re:Mod parent up!

[sjames]

And yet, that one did. Perhaps the rats didn't read the same books you did?

Re:Mod parent up!

[Chalnoth]

Yeah, call me when the study is replicated. I guarantee you it won't be.

Re:Mod parent up!

[sjames]

And you base that on what evidence?

This is one of many studies of acupuncture with positive results. Sorry if the evidence conflicts with your worldview.

Re:Mod parent up!

[Martin Blank]

What are you putting up for your guarantee?

(Mind you, I don't know how replicable the results may be, and I won't be at all surprised to find them not replicated, but I'm not the one stating that they're absolutely false.)

I'm laughing

[sjames]

So, the demand is show proof or go home. Proof shown and people fall all over themselves to ignore it. Still wonder why nobody bothers to look for proof?

This isn't even the first evidence found.

Re:I'm laughing

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no proof. They are applying an undisclosed current to their needle at a specific point where nerves congregate. This has nothing to do with the $30 ancient chinese treatment you see everywhere. Unfortunately dullards are seeing "acupuncture" and associating the two.

Re:I'm laughing

[mynamestolen]

Let me spell it out for you in the slightly modded words from LeadSongDog above. A proper test on "St-36" would include EA of nearby non-"St-36" points. Randomly select which EA to electrify. Vary over time. Cross-correlate the measured response series to each of the EA's selection series. Repeat until p=.05
The real challenge will be to do a blind study even among the four authors to pinpoint the alleged St-36 points on a series of rats. LOL LOL LOL cry LOL cry weep, oh my fucking god this is unbelievable shit. But it is coming from Georgetown Uni so that's all right.

Re:I'm laughing

[sjames]

Yes, at a point that "just happens" to be what that ancient practice declared to be just the right point. Much like earlier FMRI studies showed that the visual cortex was affected by needles into the foot, but only at a point that "just happened" to be exactly the point the acupuncturists said was related to vision.

So how many "just happens" will it take for you? Will you continue to heap derision on each study that moves closer to proof?

Re:I'm laughing

[sjames]

Sure, this is what is known as a preliminary study to see if a larger and more expensive study is warranted. Apparently, it is.

What it is not is a good time for people to fall over themselves to deny that it shows anything at all. That's not skepticism.

Re:I'm laughing

[Anonymous Coward]

Precisely. True objectivity is very hard for most people. People with strong pro-acupuncture feelings think they are being objective when the latch on to the first suggestive bit of evidence found and say "SEE! SEE! PROOF! I told you all along!". Anti-acupuncture people think they are being objective when they say "Some detail of the process wasn't applied, so acupuncture is all rubbish and always has been!"

We looked for some evidence, and we found some. That warrants a closer look. That's the situation. No need for conclusion jumping.

Re:I'm laughing

[Anonymous Coward]

You obviously ignored the much larger body of research that demonstrates that acupuncturists are no more accurate than jabbing needles in randomly. Here's a small sample of the research.

Cherkin DC, Sherman KJ, Avins AL, Erro JH, Ichikawa L, Barlow WE, Delaney K, Hawkes R, Hamilton L, Pressman A, Khalsa PS, Deyo RA. A randomized trial comparing acupuncture, simulated acupuncture, and usual care for chronic low back pain. Arch Intern Med. 2009;169:858–66

Dworkin RH, Turk DC, McDermott MP, Peirce-Sandner S, Burke LB, Cowan P, Farrar JT, Hertz S, Raja SN, Rappaport BA, Rauschkolb C, Sampaio C. Interpreting the clinical importance of group differences in chronic pain clinical trials: IMMPACT recommendations. Pain. 2009;146:238–44

Haake M, Müller HH, Schade-Brittinger C, Basler HD, Schäfer H, Maier C, Endres HG, Trampisch HJ, Molsberger A. German Acupuncture Trials (GERAC) for chronic low back pain: randomized, multicenter, blinded, parallel-group trial with 3 groups. Arch Intern Med. 2007;167:1892–8

Linde K, Streng A, Jürgens S, Hoppe A, Brinkhaus B, Witt C, Wagenpfeil S, Pfaffenrath V, Hammes MG, Weidenhammer W, Willich SN, Melchart D. Acupuncture for patients with migraine: a randomized controlled trial. JAMA. 2005;293:2118–25

Madsen MV, Gøtzsche PC, Hróbjartsson A. Acupuncture treatment for pain: systematic review of randomised clinical trials with acupuncture, placebo acupuncture, and no acupuncture groups. BMJ. 2009;338:a3115

Melchart D, Streng A, Hoppe A, Brinkhaus B, Witt C, Wagenpfeil S, Pfaffenrath V, Hammes M, Hummelsberger J, Irnich D, Weidenhammer W, Willich SN, Linde K. Acupuncture in patients with tension-type headache: randomised controlled trial. BMJ. 2005;331:376–82

Paterson C, Taylor RS, Griffiths P, Britten N, Rugg S, Bridges J, McCallum B, Kite G. Acupuncture for ‘frequent attenders’ with medically unexplained symptoms: a randomised controlled trial (CACTUS study). Br J Gen Pract. 2011;61:e295–e305

Vickers AJ, Cronin AM, Maschino AC, Lewith G, MacPherson H, Foster NE, Sherman KJ, Witt CM, Linde K. Acupuncture for chronic pain: individual patient data meta-analysis. Arch Intern Med. 2012;172:1444–53

Witt C, Brinkhaus B, Jena S, Linde K, Streng A, Wagenpfeil S, Hummelsberger J, Walther HU, Melchart D, Willich SN. Acupuncture in patients with osteoarthritis of the knee: a randomised trial. Lancet. 2005;366:136–43

Re:I'm laughing

[sjames]

I decided to spot check those and you failed on the first one, "Cherkin DC, Sherman KJ, Avins AL, Erro JH, Ichikawa L, Barlow WE, Delaney K, Hawkes R, Hamilton L, Pressman A, Khalsa PS, Deyo RA. A randomized trial comparing acupuncture, simulated acupuncture, and usual care for chronic low back pain. Arch Intern Med. 2009;169:858–66"

From that reference:

Symptoms improved by 1.6 to 1.9 points in the treatment groups compared with 0.7 points in the usual care group (P .05).

So, pretty weak results, but a hint of a suggestion that acupuncture was better than usual care.

Re:I'm laughing

[mynamestolen]

LOL. In addition to other errors, you make the relativist mistake in your interpretation of how science works. This might help. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:I'm laughing

[quantaman]

So, the demand is show proof or go home. Proof shown and people fall all over themselves to ignore it. Still wonder why nobody bothers to look for proof?

This isn't even the first evidence found.

It's not proof.

a) The electric current was critical and is not part of typical or historical acupuncture.

b) They showed one effect related to a point, acupuncture claims many more.

c) 42 rats in 4 groups. Not a huge sample size.

d) Acupuncture is a controversial subject where one might expect dubious research to occasionally be published.

At most this offers very mild evidence that is consistent with acupuncture being effective. Note this study is at odds with studies that find the points don't really matter.

Re:I'm laughing

[sjames]

The study needs to be expanded upon, but it showed an effect. It was an effect that current models of physiology would call extremely unlikely (stimulate the shin, block stress hormones) but is predicted in the study of acupuncture.

It doesn't go far enough, but it does provide evidence. The people I was talking about here can plug their ears and dribble about how this or that are not perfect, but nevertheless, it does provide evidence. That is, it contributes to proof.

This is not skepticism. Skeptics accept evidence when it is provided.

Re:I'm laughing

[quantaman]

Honestly this is a case where I've learned to reason heuristically. I've seen many studies of this nature, I don't know what the specific flaws in the study might be (though I can think of many potential ones) and I would be very shocked if in a few years this led to a clinically validated form of something that's recognizable as acupuncture.

Skepticism involves being skeptical about your own deductive abilities, this study shifts my beliefs slightly, but overall I realize I'm not qualified to accept this study as proper evidence.

Re:I'm laughing

[sjames]

The people I was more or less chastising are the ones who were dismissing the study out of hand and steadfastly denying that there is any evidence at all for acupuncture.

Re:I'm laughing

[cfeagans]

What proof was given, precisely?

The abstract states that "We have recently reported that pretreatment with electroacupuncture (EA) at stomach meridian point 36 (St36) prevents the chronic cold-stress increase in the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA), an action that may be under central control."

What is a meridian point? I'm sure the person inserting the needle thinks she or he knows, but I've yet to see a description that would allow someone to locate a meridian point from one person to the next. What does one look like when you autopsy a cadaver? How do you locate one on a live person? A rational person who deals in evidence would be forced to conclude they don't actually exist in reality based on these and other questions that are never answered about "meridians."

So that creates a premise within the cited abstract that has a problem: if a meridian point is not an objectively definable point, where's the replication ability of the study. In fact, I note that that abstract mentions that two groups were used, one with "real acupuncture" and one with sham acupuncture. There was no apparent control group in which the same unknown current was applied at a non-meridian point. If there was an effect, it was more likely that it was due to current being passed through the rat's body -regardless of it's entry point.

The only thing this study is proof of, that I can see, is that humans will go to great lengths to create data that are supportive of their preconceived conclusions.

Re:I'm laughing

[sjames]

Where is 33N77W. I don't see it marked on the ground anywhere. This map is DEFECTIVE!

I guess you've never seen one of those human figures with the lines and points marked that are used to teach acupuncture.

I understand that even after shaving a person's head, the neurosurgeon doesn't see the parts of the brain drawn on the scalp either. I don't know about you, but I don't typically see air. It's only recently that we could even vaguely image atoms. However, predictable effects premised on the existence of atoms were quite enough to convince us they existed long before.

Acupuncturists maintain that they can locate meridian points and that those have some effect beyond a random point on the body. The research put that to the test and found that at least for that one point, it's true. It's just one more thing we can't image but that apparently can be found and manipulated for a predictable effect.

No idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Some antidepressants and anti-anxiety drugs exert their therapeutic effects on these same mechanisms

I like how they pretend they have any idea how any of that works (or even if the treatments do work). The placebo effect for anti depressants doubled in size from 1980 to 2004 and the affinity of SSRIs for the supposed serotonin transporter is way too low. They have no idea what is going on and just bamboozle each other.

Re:No idea

[david_thornley]

They do work in some cases. My personal theory is that some people are depressed for biological reasons, and the drugs can work there, and other people are depressed for other reasons, and the drugs are unlikely to have any more effect than a placebo. Since the easiest thing a clinic can do is write a prescription for antidepressants, as opposed to something expensive like talk therapy or cognitive therapy, antidepressants get prescribed in a lot of cases they won't do any good.

Depression is a syndrome, a collection of patient-reported symptoms. It is almost certainly a collection of different problems of varying origin with similar symptoms. I've never seen any hint of a biological test for any possible cause. A doctor once told me that serotonin levels by themselves didn't seem related to depression, but that raising serotonin levels in depressed people often helps them.

What doctors and researchers can do is use drugs and observe the biological results, and understand the mechanisms. If these relieve depression (more than placebo level) in a significant number of patients (not necessarily a majority), it appears that that's a mechanism to alleviate depression. It would be really, really nice to know more.

Bong-Han Kim

[Anonymous Coward]

Google Bonghan ducts. There has been scientific study of this going on in Korea since the 60s, Western medicine has been ignoring this because you cannot put it in a pill or get an FDA stamp on it to mark it up 1000%.

Re:Bong-Han Kim

[ceoyoyo]

Acupuncturists don't work for free. You can't put surgery in a pill either, yet surgeons are a pretty entrenched part of "western medicine."

You can't put an FDA stamp on acupuncture because it hasn't shown efficacy in the required two large multi centre randomized placebo controlled double blind clinical trials. If it did, you certainly could get FDA approval for the equipment and acceptance of the technique as a standard of care for the approved disorder.

Re:Bong-Han Kim

[Anonymous Coward]

If that is really what's required then how do measles vaccines get the stamp? If it is grandfathering, then you could just as well grandfather acupuncture.

Re:Bong-Han Kim

[Anonymous Coward]

And... If I decide to see and Ancupuncturist and pay that person myself. What is it to you? Not that I would I hate needles. I don't give a damn what the FDA approves. Look at their track record of deaths on approved drugs and they had to pull.

I have had a Chinese Massage that helped with back pain.

interesting, but not conclusive

[Anonymous Coward]

This raises a series of questions that need to be answered before we can consider acupuncture (or its derivative) as working:
- is this due to the acupuncture (needles)
- does the depth of the needle matter
- is this due to the electricity (can you repeat it without needles)
- is this due to just treatment (i.e. if you give them a massage would they feel better as well, or a warm bath, or chocolates, or extra food)
- is this conditioning effect
- their sample size is to small
- the longitudinal effect needs to be explained
- how this translates to humans

All in all, this says that acupuncture + electricity is better than (but not always) acupuncture alone, but it does not say whether acupuncture is effective compared to other methods (like a nice massage), or even some drugs. It is a good start to pointing that disruption via electricity on that nerve may have an effect on it.

SSRISTORIES.COM

[Anonymous Coward]

believe it.

Mystery of acupuncture?

[Anonymous Coward]

What is the "mystery of acupuncture"? That people believe in quackery?

Acupuncture is indistinguishable from placebo. What you do is make little boxes that have needles in them. Then make a second set of boxes that have toothpicks inside. Human skin cannot distinguish whether there is a needle that penetrates or a toothpick that merely gently presses skin. The boxes make the test double blind. Then stick those using various schemas: original Chinese constellation system (yes, acupuncture is astrology), mumbo-jumbo-science "energy points", or using a computer generated random chart. The effect on the patient is the same in every case - therefore acupuncture is placebo.

The real treatment is when you get into a fluffy bathrobe, a nice nurse asks you about your aches and pains, gives you tea, and you chat about your grandchildren. The bit with the needles is just for show.

Re:Mystery of acupuncture?

[rduke15]

Citation needed.

Or did you do this study yourself? Where is it published?

Broken clock

[aepervius]

Yeah 1 point seem to have an effect. But is it 1) the effect predicted by chinese acupuncture and 2) all other point do pretty much nothing from previous study and deliver effect with shame acupuncture (giving the impression of needle going in but not penetrating). Basically broken clock.

not ancient

[s.t.a.l.k.e.r._loner]

Even if we were to ignore the electricity aspect, accupuncture ITSELF is not even ancient. http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4...