Decoding an Ancient Therapy-High-Tech Tools Show How Acupuncture Works in Treating Arthritis, Back P

[Celebration]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704841304575137872667749264.html?mod=djemHL_t

Acupuncture has long baffled medical experts and no wonder: It holds that an invisible life force called qi (pronounced chee) travels up and down the body in 14 meridians. Illness and pain are due to blockages and imbalances in qi. Inserting thin needles into the body at precise points can unblock the meridians, practitioners believe, and treat everything from arthritis and asthma to anxiety, acne and infertility.

WSJ's health columnist Melinda Beck tests out acupuncture as an alternative means to reduce her neck and back pain.

Does It Work?

While scientists say further research is essential, some studies have provided evidence of acupuncture's effects.

* Arthritis of the Knee: Acupuncture significantly reduced pain and restored function, according to a 2004 government study.
* Headaches: Two 2009 reviews found that acupuncture cut both tension and migraine headaches.
* Lower Back Pain: Acupuncture eased it in a big study last year, but so did a sham treatment where needles didn't penetrate the skin.
* Cancer: Has proven effective in reducing nausea and fatigue caused by chemotherapy.
* Infertility: Improves the odds of pregnancy for women undergoing in-vitro fertilization, according to a 2008 review of seven clinical trials.
* Addiction: Often used to help quit smoking, drinking, drug use and overeating, but there is no conclusive evidence that it works.

After decades of cynicism, Western medical experts are using high-tech tools to unravel the ancient mysteries of how acupuncture works. WSJ's Health columnist Melinda Beck joins Simon Constable on the News Hub to discuss.

As fanciful as that seems, acupuncture does have real effects on the human body, which scientists are documenting using high-tech tools. Neuroimaging studies show that it seems to calm areas of the brain that register pain and activate those involved in rest and recuperation. Doppler ultrasound shows that acupuncture increases blood flow in treated areas. Thermal imaging shows that it can make inflammation subside.

Scientists are also finding parallels between the ancient concepts and modern anatomy. Many of the 365 acupuncture points correspond to nerve bundles or muscle trigger points. Several meridians track major arteries and nerves. "If people have a heart attack, the pain will radiate up across the chest and down the left arm. That's where the heart meridian goes," says Peter Dorsher, a specialist in pain management and rehabilitation at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla. "Gallbladder pain will radiate to the right upper shoulder, just where the gallbladder meridian goes."

[Bobbieo]

1. Acupuncture helped me to quit smoking some some 20 years ago.

[trotsky]

2. LOL

You mean science is finding out how acupuncture can sometimes help some pain conditions, and also discovering that it has absolutely nothing to do with meridians or qi.

[Celebration]

3. pretty sure you didn't read this n/t

[trotsky]

4. Actually, it's pretty clear you only read the parts you wanted to hear.

And skipped stuff like this:

Studies in the early 1980s found that acupuncture works in part by stimulating the release of endorphins, the body's natural feel-good chemicals, much like vigorous exercise does. Now, a growing body of research suggests that it may have several mechanisms of action. Those include stimulating blood flow and tissue repair at the needle sites and sending nerve signals to the brain that regulate the perception of pain and reboot the autonomic nervous system, which governs unconscious functions such as heart beat, respiration and digestion, according to Alejandro Elorriaga, director of the medical acupuncture program at McMaster University in Ontario, which teaches a contemporary version to physicians.

Nothing mystical. All physical, known processes. (And you do know that wooish acupuncture is vastly different than the actual acupuncture used by the Chinese long ago, right?)

[Celebration]

5. I'm not sure of your point

That modern science is proving the mechanism by which acupuncture works? Okay, I'll go along with that. :shrug:

[trotsky]

6. Sure, and proving it's not "qi."

Thanks for agreeing.

[Celebration]

7. No problem

Qi is and always has been a construct. It is simply an explanation of the mechanism of acupuncture that was named before the invention of imaging devices........... I don't see any conflict between the word "Qi" and the more recent western scientific terminology. These are just different names for the same thing. Acupuncturists never thought it was a mysterious force.

[HuckleB]

8. Placebo Effects Revisited

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=4304

"In the Wall Street Journal last week was a particularly bad article by Melinda Beck about acupuncture. While there was token skepticism (by Edzard Ernst, of course, who is the media’s go-to expert for CAM), the article credulously reported the marketing hype of acupuncture proponents.

Toward the end of the article Beck admits that “some critics” claim that acupuncture provides nothing more than a placebo effect, but this was followed by the usual canard:

“I don’t see any disconnect between how acupuncture works and how a placebo works,” says radiologist Vitaly Napadow at the Martinos center. “The body knows how to heal itself. That’s what a placebo does, too.”

That is a bold claim, and very common among CAM proponents, especially acupuncturists. As the data increasingly shows that acupuncture (and other implausible treatments) provides no benefit beyond placebo, we hear the special pleading that placebos work also.

But is that true? It turns out there is a literature on the placebo effect itself, and the evidence suggests that placebos generally do not work.

..."


Note: The poorly researched WSJ article was already posted on the health forum.

[Celebration]

9. highly amusing

A blog post is soooo much more credible than a WSJ article. I mean, you can find a blog that says just about ANYTHING.

[HuckleB]

10. Goodness.

A blog post written by a clinical neurologist, assistant professor and Director of General Neurology at Yale University School of Medicine, on a blog where the respondents are commonly MD's and PhDs, versus a WSJ article written by someone who has what background? Oh, yeah. She's a run-of-the-mill journalist who used to edit the Marketplace section of WSJ. And, who owns WSJ these days?

Your red herring attempt to ignore reality has failed.

[Celebration]

11. The blog has an agenda

You can find people with credentials with agendas, just as you can find people with credentials that are acupuncturists.

Why not just quote Quackwatch? Same difference.

Blogs are a dime a dozen. A very few people can get together and try to make them semi-important.

Do they even discuss these results

http://www.physorg.com/news184511570.html

This is all the same old, same old, placebo effect, blah, blah, blah, and they don't even go into new neuroimaging studies that show the effects of acupuncture on the brain, published in peer reviewed journals. They just aren't very credible at refuting the article when they miss the point that modern techniques are actually showing the effects through the use of imaging techniques. They just entirely ignored that, and just went into their automatic debunking mode. It's tiresome, not logical, and not scientific.

[HuckleB]

12. The blog has agenda for honesty and for critical science.

Shocking!

:eyes:

As for the old study you posted, it's not exactly anything out of the ordinary. If you touch one finger with another, it will show up in the brain. If you poke someone in the arm with a needle, it will show up in the brain.

That's not surprising. It doesn't mean that we've seen acupuncture offer a truly objectively measured benefit to date.

Further, what you offered is the now classic CAM scam of pushing a press release upon the lazy press, none of whom even bother to compare its claims to the actual published paper.

[Celebration]

13. so, will touching fingers

Deactivated the pain pathways in the brain. Maybe if you have evidence of that you, too, can get published in "Brain Research."

"The brains of volunteers when studied were found to have the pain pathways deactivated on application of the therapy."

http://www.india-server.com/news/acupuncture-deactivates-pathways-that-20670.html

It sure is lucky for all the rats and mice that they experience such a strong placebo effect, too.

http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/cam/acupuncture/HealthProfessional/page5

[HuckleB]

14. Thanks for proving, again, that you have no idea what any of this means.

As usual, you offer no coherent response. Your response fails to address the actual line of discussion. And your response simply goes off into another direction, although, in this case, it does nothing but show the same nothing your original post offered. You are continuing to push press release crap, on top of it. These are the usual pointless tactics of someone who does not understand the science in any way, shape or form.

WOW!

:wow:

[Celebration]

15. as usual

Platitudes from you. Nothing concrete.............. So the placebo effect is live and well in rats, and rubbing fingers together deactivates the pain pathways in the brain. That is what I am supposed to believe, I know, I know. After all those are the BS arguments used in the debunking crowd..............

[HuckleB]

16. Platitudes and a lack of coherence are all you've offered.

You ignore what we actually understand about the placebo effect so you can pretend to understand something you clearly don't understand. If you actually read the piece I provided, you would get a glimpse at the reality of what is often called a placebo effect. Unfortunately, that's not something you care to do. You'd rather ignore all information that goes against your preconceived notions.

When you can actually address the content of what I post, rather than offer only red herring BS and a rash of the usual illogical nonsense, then get back to me. Until then...

[Celebration]

17. If the placebo effect is responsible for all the acupuncture studies

That are favorable, then it must be true that animals also benefit from the placebo effect, since there are also animal studies confirming the benefits of acupuncture.

You won't address that, because you can't, so you turn to personal attacks instead.

And you have yet to offer any proof of your claim that rubbing your fingers together can cut off pain pathways in the brain. If you have such proof then I think it is worthy of the highest attention.

[HuckleB]

18. Thank you for confirming, yet again, that you refuse to look into what a placebo is and is not.

Here is more information for you to ignore:

Is There a Placebo Effect for Animals?
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=263

The Placebo Effect: Dissolving the Expectancy Versus Conditioning Debate
http://swansea.academia.edu/documents/0008/3148/Stewart-Williams___Podd__2004a.pdf

“The” Placebo Effect Proven?
http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=1130

Animal acupuncture
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?cat=290

The Placebo Effect in Animals, and Their Owners.
http://skeptivet.blogspot.com/2009/07/placebo-effect-in-animals-and-their.html

It works in animals... So it can't be a placebo. An examination of this common claim.
http://www.skeptics.org.uk/article.php?dir=articles&article=it_works_in_animals.php

Mechanisms of the Placebo Effect and of Conditioning
http://content.karger.com/produktedb/produkte.asp?typ=pdf&file=NIM2005012004195

The Placebo Effect
http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/09-05-20/

A conditioned response model of the placebo effect
http://www.springerlink.com/content/r1u4ru5873763l81/

Why Therapies May Seem To Work (When They Don't)
http://www.horsemagazine.com/CLINIC/R/RAMEY_DAVID/Ramey.html