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Meet the Interstitium, the Largest Organ We Never Knew We Had (thedailybeast.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Daily Beast: A study published in Scientific Reports on Tuesday suggests that a previously unknown organ has been found in the human body. More astonishingly, the paper puts forth the idea that this new organ is the largest by volume among all 80 organs -- if what the researchers found is, in fact, an organ. The new organ, [pathologist Neil Theise] explained, was a thin layer of dense connective tissue throughout the body, sandwiched just under our skin and within the middle layer of every visceral organ. The organ also made up all the fascia, or the thin mesh of tissue separating every muscle and all the tissue around every vein and artery, from largest to smallest. What initially seemed to be a solid, dense, connective tissue layer was actually a complex network of fluid-filled cavities that are strong and flexible, yet so tiny and undiscerning that they escaped the attention of the brightest scientific minds for generations. In fact, Theise expanded, this "interstitium" could explain many of modern medicine's mysteries, often dismissed by the establishment as either silly or explainable by other phenomena. Take acupuncture, Theise said -- that energetic healing jolt may be traced to the interstitium. Or perhaps the interstitium acted as a "shock absorber," something that protected other organs and muscles in daily function. Also, the space is in direct communication with the lymphatic system as the origin of lymph fluid -- which means the interstitium's system of fluid-filled backroads could explain the metastasis of cancer cells and their quick spread beyond the limits of the organ in which the cancer started.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/11783809/
And right below it, more links to studies of the same thing, conducted independently and in other countries.
Were you too busy stroking your ego to bother doing this yourself, asshole?
Who marked this insightful?
The link is to a study that compared acupuncture to sham acupuncture (needling anywhere) to conventional therapy and found that both acupuncture and sham acupuncture had the same effect.
The GP specifically asked for evidence that acupuncture works better than random needling.
Were you too busy seeing what you wanted to see to actually read either the GP or the link you think disproves them?
Needling has been shown to help some chronic pain, most probably through release of endorphins and similar. That's a far cry from acupuncture's claims of meridians or acupuncture points and acupuncture's claims to be able to treat a range of other ailments.
Qi Gong is right up there with homeopathy, anti-vaccination, and is often literal bedfellows with traditional medicine made up of ground endangered species penises to make the Qi Gong practitioners more virile.