What's the science behind acupuncture?

I have also had acupuncture and found it to be very effective. But it's not just needles. There are electric currents as well. Do you think that may be the real key to it?

There have been few empirical studies on acupuncture and therefore insufficient evidence for its routine use in western medicine; however,
researchers *have* conducted double blind studies which indicate it is, indeed, more than placebo effect or hypnosis.

So. . .we still don't know why it works but it seems to.

Many hypotheses have been put forth but the most plausible seem to indicate a neurological,
a neuroendocrine or a locally mediated basis for its success.


Here are some studies which have been conducted:

http://jrsm.rsmjournals.com/cgi/content/...

You might also contact Ted J. Kaptchuk at Harvard Medical School
http://www.osher.hms.harvard.edu/pe_facu...

as he is a leading expert on the subject of acupuncture and placebo

"A study of 570 people with osteoarthritis of the knee found that those who received acupuncture had a significant decrease in pain compared with those who received fake acupuncture or standard care. That study was published in the Dec. 21 Annals of Internal Medicine.
That finding, from the best and largest study of its kind, suggests that acupuncture does provide more than a placebo effect, says Ted Kaptchuk, an expert on Chinese medicine at the Harvard Medical School. But such evidence still stops short of providing scientists with proof that acupuncture is effective, he cautions."

Also

Recently, researchers at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey used fMRI to prove that acupuncture decreased certain brain activity in human volunteers experiencing pain.
The decreased brain waves corresponded to lowered pain perception in the volunteers according to their chief neuroradiologist, Huey-Jen Lee.

I've also personally had some success with treatment of pain with it.

*edit
I do think there might be something to the 'electrical current' idea. I don't know a lot about it but you might look up something about the piezoelectric effect. I've come across it in geology, in sculpture and in a cranial sacral massage book called the _Heart of Listening_.

It makes me wonder if the minerals in our bones might be able to cause this kind of effect. I'm uncertain about the science surrounding the effect but I'd be curious to see what others say. I have found a couple of books on the piezoelectric field in human and animal bones but I have not read them. There seem to be some dentistry studies, as well. See links below

Acupuncture is a placebo, so people get acupuncture with the thinking that it works. This tricks their brain into thinking it works and all that good stuff.

check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo about the placebo effect.

The concept of acupuncture is that our body has "meridians" or energy channels flowing through our body and that illnesses are caused by blocks of these meridians. We can relieve the blocks by puncturing it (acupuncture), putting pressure (acupressure or massages), or putting heat on it (ventosa).

I've been to a traditional and integrative medicine lecture. The doctor (who also has an MD) said that the meridians does not follow any anatomical system (not the circulatory, nervous, or lymphatic system). When I asked describe the process of acupunture in a scientific manner, the doctor said that "Like the tides being affected by the moon, our meridians may be affected by the stars or another external factor, we can not actually see it. But there are already machines that can detect energy fields that are used in alternative medicine".

It started in India but more extensively progressed in China. The effectiveness of the practice is more based on the effects recorded by the Chinese but there have been randomized controlled trials done with regards to effect on pain management, nausea etc. Only few studies are statistically significant or conclusive. But, it is already being studied and accepted by international organizations like WHO.

There isn't any science behind acupuncture.

Before the advent of modern science, medical anatomy and physiology, Chinese medicine hypothesized that the Universe exists in a state of balanced counteractions of Yin and Yang forces. They posited that illness, disease, and pain resulted from the disturbance in the flow of fluids and energy in the body. These disturbances represent imbalances of Yin and Yang.

Detailed observation of pain migration, palpation, and disease progression and how they responded to stimuli, such as, heat, cold, pressure, and puncturing lead to the identification and classification of Acupuncture meridians and points.

Today, medical scientists are exploring the therapeutic effects of acupuncture therapy and searching for the physiological mechanisms that make acupuncture work. In effect, they are trying to translate Traditional Chinese Medicine paradigms into Modern Medical paradigms. The most current hypotheses on physiological mechanisms include: neuro-chemical changes in the brain, triggered release of endorphins, counter-irritation, and placebo.

A recent, well-reviewed book on acupuncture and other CAM therapies is SNAKE OIL SCIENCE, The Truth About Complementary and Alternative Medicine, by R. Barker Bausell (Oxford. 324 Pages. $24.95), which--notwithstanding the derisive title--"undertakes to explain exactly why treatments that science says do not work that well are still able 鈥?even likely 鈥?to work for you." Placebos have a "venerable and honorable" history, their main drawback being that "their effects are characteristically mild and temporary; in fact, they are more or less indistinguishable from the effects of most alternative treatments, as the dozens of studies summarized in the book鈥檚 last 100 pages make clear." In a concluding section called 鈥淗ow to select a placebo therapy that works," Dr. Bausell advises consumers to "find an appealing therapy and an enthusiastic practitioner, then plunge in wholeheartedly to maximize that placebo effect and prolong its duration for as long as possible."

I can't really explain the In's and out's of acupuncture but, I have had it a number of times and it really does work.

The Chinese and other Asian Cultures have been doing this type of medicine for centuries and they are some of the healthiest communities on this planet so there has to be something to it.

By the way, it does not hurt. I think some of the healing affects of it is the whole mind over matter issue.

Try it a few times and I bet you will be pleasantly surprised.

Some needles may puncture nerves and so relieve pain.
They may also act on lymph nodes.

There is no other science involved.