Acupuncture- real or hooey?

Hooey.

From the excellent blog Science Based Medicine:

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/acupuncture-does-not-work-for-back-pain/

"A new study which randomized 638 adults to either standard acupuncture, individualized acupuncture, placebo acupuncture using tooth picks that did not penetrate the skin, and standard therapy found exactly what previous evidence has also suggested – it does not seem to matter where you stick the needles or even if you stick the needles through the skin. The only reasonable scientific conclusion to draw from this is that acupuncture does not work."

Some points about Acupuncture:
1) Acupuncture is said to work by "balancing you Chi". Chi come from a pre-scientific view about how the body works. While this make be a useful philosophical concept, it is not a medical one. Chi does not exist the same way insulin exists. You cannot balance it. It will not help regulate your hormones.

2) All of the positive studies on acupuncture come from places that design their studies poorly and never publish any negative results. The better designed and properly blinded studies all show no effect.

3) You may feel better after an acupuncture session. Most people really enjoy going to a practitioner, having their concerns addressed, and undergoing some sort of intervention. However, it doesn't matter what that intervention is. It could be poking you with needles or toothpicks or waving magic crystals over you. It also won't do much for you medically other than create a placebo effect.

I would suggest checking out more articles on the Science Based Medicine blog on acupuncture. I find it is a really good resource for this kind of thing. It has well researched and cited articles written by physicians and researches who want to make sure science is the foundation of medicine.

It's foolish to form opinions about without knowledge.

Personal experience:

1) My daughter (at 4 years old) was diagnosed with asthma She was being poisoned by inhaler steriods, vomiting after treatment, etc...It was horrible. ..Then, cured (c-u-r-e-d) of the disease with acupuncture and herbs from a Chinese-trained doctor. Cured.

2) I had a 110 lb steel hatch slip at work and jam my neck, and within a year there were days I literally COULD NOT turn my head, period. Chiropractic failed...Physical terapy made it worse....Cortisone injections, temporary relief.....Then my gongfu teacher introduced me to HIS teacher, who with one (1) acupunture session fixed my neck.....Been 16 years now.

Sigh. Looking into the scientific studies examining the question at hand constitutes forming and gathering knowledge, knowledge you then use to form rational opinions. Using purely anecdotal evidence in isolation of available studies creates a very limited base of knowledge, so limited that you are very likely to make incorrect assumptions (and thus form incorrect opinions) about the truth of the whatever issue you're making claims about. There are so many factors in anecdotal situations that we can never measure or detect that anecdotes cannot be relied upon as the final word in whether something like acupuncture "works."

Maybe it is coincidence, maybe I just take better care of myself (but I didn't for the first year), but all my chronic illnesses went away and I haven't had a serious infection requiring medical help in that time. It's anecdotal, but the compilation of anecdotal accounts I have is enough to make me a believer.

One of my grandmothers was part Irish, and she had all kinds of stories from the old country about banshees, leprechauns, changelings, pukas and the like, some of which had been handed down for God knows how many generations. These stories have been around for a long time and are anecdotal in nature ... but that doesn't make them true in an objective sense. The stories did, however, make my grandmother a believer.

To be able to evaluate whether or not acupuncture is objectively real requires more than anecdotes; for one thing, there are a multitude of variables that need to be controlled or allowed for in statistical analysis of a phenomenon. If you made other lifestyle changes in the same timeframe (consciously or not), they may have been related to the results. Plus, correlation isn't causation. I'll give an example: cigarette smoking and drinking alcohol are correlated with each other: more drinkers tend to smoke than non-drinkers. But that's not the same as causation: it doesn't demonstrate that cigarettes cause drinking, or vice versa.

I see acupuncture in the "couldn't hurt" category, like the sour cherry extract tabs I take when I feel gout coming on, and the Zicam I take when I feel a cold coming on. There's no convincing studies these things work, and although I realize the lessening and shortening of symptoms I seem to experience might be coincidence (some gout attacks and coldish symptoms don't last very long), they make me feel like I'm more in control of things, and that's worth something to me. But I know my personal experience isn't "proof" or objective evidence, and it may all be coincidence and a placebo effect (and the placebo effect can do some amazing things). Of course, the placebo effect is likely to work as long as you can still believe there's a chance the acupuncture or whatever is really doing something. Too much knowledge can be a dangerous thing.

So if doing acupuncture seems to be a positive thing in your life, go for it like I go for my bottle of cherry extract when I feel a twinge ... maybe my cherry extract does the trick, or maybe it's just a coincidence, or maybe a powerful placebo effect kicks in and my body stops the gout attack in its tracks. But I'm prepared to dump the cherry extract if research shows it doesn't do any good and the studies that suggest it does like the UC-Davis study are flawed. I've adjusted my dietary supplements a number of times over the years for this reason. For me, and based on my experience with acupuncture, I have no reason to believe it had a positive impact on my life, so I'm unlikely to repeat it.

Well my opinion is that acupuncture proves that placebo treatment works.

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Hooey.

From the excellent blog Science Based Medicine:

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/acupuncture-does-not-work-for-back-pain/

"A new study which randomized 638 adults to either standard acupuncture, individualized acupuncture, placebo acupuncture using tooth picks that did not penetrate the skin, and standard therapy found exactly what previous evidence has also suggested – it does not seem to matter where you stick the needles or even if you stick the needles through the skin. The only reasonable scientific conclusion to draw from this is that acupuncture does not work."

Some points about Acupuncture:
1) Acupuncture is said to work by "balancing you Chi". Chi come from a pre-scientific view about how the body works. While this make be a useful philosophical concept, it is not a medical one. Chi does not exist the same way insulin exists. You cannot balance it. It will not help regulate your hormones.

2) All of the positive studies on acupuncture come from places that design their studies poorly and never publish any negative results. The better designed and properly blinded studies all show no effect.

3) You may feel better after an acupuncture session. Most people really enjoy going to a practitioner, having their concerns addressed, and undergoing some sort of intervention. However, it doesn't matter what that intervention is. It could be poking you with needles or toothpicks or waving magic crystals over you. It also won't do much for you medically other than create a placebo effect.

I would suggest checking out more articles on the Science Based Medicine blog on acupuncture. I find it is a really good resource for this kind of thing. It has well researched and cited articles written by physicians and researches who want to make sure science is the foundation of medicine.

All the fully -convinced people with no personal experience on a given subject are so arrogant...and sad....and ridiculous....and sad...and arrogant...(did I mention ridiculous? :yawn: (Or does your version of "science" include accepting hearsay as fact?)

Go get some acupuncture treatments from an experienced Chinese doctor, and THEN discuss the subject....Until you have had acupuncture, you're just another parrot.

Quoting scientific studies is not parroting in the pejorative sense of the term. People who use anecdotal evidence as "proof" that something is across-the-board-inherently efficacious are far more parrot-like than those using valid scientific studies to form their opinions.

Also, placebo effect. That's why acupuncture "works."

Hooey.

From the excellent blog Science Based Medicine: