Is acupuncture effective for chronic pain? This is what science says.

This data is so promising that in 2020 the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services was launched. cover acupuncture For chronic low back pain. Clinical trials over the past decades have suggested that acupuncture may be a beneficial treatment for other conditions such as: chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and constipation.

To determine whether acupuncture really works, researchers compared acupuncture to “sham” acupuncture.

Acupuncture is a treatment that consists of activating specific locations, or acupuncture points, on the body, usually using fine needles. In traditional East Asian medicine, it is believed to activate acupuncture points. Helps restore air flowthe vital energy of the body.

In sham acupuncture, the acupuncturist inserts needles but deliberately avoids established acupuncture points. This is not a perfect double-blind system, as trained acupuncturists know they are administering a sham.

But from the patient’s perspective, the experience is essentially the same. And if the effects of acupuncture were entirely due to the placebo effect, the fake and real ones would have similar results.

In some cases, it may not.

2018 20,000+ meta-analyses Thirty-nine high-quality randomized controlled trials found that acupuncture was superior to both sham and no acupuncture for back and neck pain, osteoarthritis, headache, and shoulder pain. These results, in most cases, persisted over time, even 12 months after he received treatment.

But it’s no magic panacea. As with any treatment, it’s not for everyone. For example, although it is popular among people undergoing IVF treatment, research has shown otherwise. improve fertility.

The science of acupuncture

Some skepticism persists over the lack of a Western medical explanation of how acupuncture works. But scientists are starting to figure out the answer: the brain.

“People talk about psychedelics reconfiguring the nervous system. Acupuncture does the same thing,” said Richard Harris, professor and endowment chairman of the University of California, Irvine-Susan Samueri Institute for Integrative Health.

His group conducted a series of analyzes of acupuncture in chronic pain patients. They found that acupuncture – not faked – altered brain activity in the following ways: Activates receptors that bind opioids, helps control pain in the body. Electroacupuncture, which stimulates needles with a weak electric current, is also having an impact. how different areas of the brain were connectedEssentially rewiring the pain network in the brain.

Consider this: 2017 A study of 80 patients with carpal tunnel syndromeScientists found that electroacupuncture to the affected wrist was as effective in relieving symptoms as acupuncture to the contralateral ankle.

Aside from subjective recovery, both groups showed improvements in the ability of the median nerve in the wrist to transmit electrical signals, whereas those who received sham acupuncture did not. This suggests that acupuncture can act not only locally on the needle prick site, but also on parts of the body other than those near the site.

One way this can happen is through the central nervous system. Scientists then used functional MRI images to examine the brains of subjects. They found that by inserting needles into both the wrist and ankle, there was a significant change in how stimuli to the fingers were mapped to the cerebral cortex.

More research is needed to shed light on how acupuncture affects the body, but research provides compelling evidence that it goes far beyond a simple placebo effect.

World Health Organization Consensus Recognizes 361 standardized acupuncture points to the human body. Acupuncture points seem to respond to various stimuli such as pressure, heat and electricity.

There’s still a lot we don’t know about how cucumbers work.Some studies show that traditional acupuncture points are May have high density of nerve endings and mast cells. Stimulating these areas can release chemicals (such as hormones) in the body that can eventually affect the brain.

Linking acupoint definitions, their relationships to each other, and their physiological significance is an important area of ​​research funded by the National Institutes of Health.

If you are considering acupuncture, talk to your doctor about options and about finding a qualified acupuncturist in your area.

Acupuncture is generally considered safe when performed by well-trained doctors. Serious complications and deaths associated with it are very rare. Fainting and pain at the needle insertion site are rare.

The risk is not zero, but it may be less than that associated with some pain relievers.

What we want our patients to know

Some people in the United States have a prejudice against treatments that are not based on Western medicine. But when doctors like me recommend acupuncture to their patients, I often do it for pain and constipation, not because I’ve run out of ideas, or because I’m looking for a last resort. We recommend this because the data are very compelling.

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