The Evidence For Acupuncture - More Than Just Placebo!
Over the past 20 years, there is more and more research being done on the effectiveness of acupuncture. Acupuncture is considered a safe and effective practice, in the hands of a well-trained practitioner. It has been found to be a cost-effective treatment for many conditions.
Acupuncture works. Simple as that. In the words of Stephen Janz: It is no “ longer possible to say that the effectiveness of acupuncture can be attributed to the placebo effect or that it is useful only for musculoskeletal pain” - Stephen Janz (2017).
Review Of Systemic Reviews Of Acupuncture For Numerous Conditions
So basically, there have been systemic reviews done to investigate the effectiveness of acupuncture for the treatment of certain conditions.
And a potential positive effect was shown for:
Acute low back pain
Modulating sensory preception thresholds
Acute stroke
Neck pain
Ambulatory anaesthesia
Obesity
Anxiety
Perimenopausal & postmenopausal insomnia
Aromatase-inhibitor-induced arthralgia
Plantar heel pain
Asthma in adults
Post-stroke insomnia
Back or pelvic pain during pregnancy
Post-stroke shoulder pain
Cancer pain
Post-stroke spasticity
Cancer-related fatigue
Post-traumatic stress disorder
Constipation
Prostatitis pain
Chronic pelvic pain
Craniotomy anaesthesia
Recovery after colorectal cancer resection
Depression (with antidepressants)
Restless leg syndrome
Dry eye
Schizophrenia (with antipsychotics)
Hypertension (with medication)
Sciatica
Insomnia
Shoulder impingement syndrome
Early stage (with exercise) Irritable bowel syndrome
Shoulder pain
Labour Pain
Smoking cessation (up to 3 months)
Lateral elbow pain
Stroke rehabilitation
Menopausal hot flushes
Temporomandibular pain
The reviews showed a positive effect of acupuncture for the following conditions:
Allergic rhinitis
Knee osteoarthritis
Chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting
Migraine prevention
Chronic low back pain
Postoperative nausea & vomiting
Headache (tension type and chronic)
Postoperative pain
WOW - love these lists so much!
I see a lot of these conditions in studio, with clients getting gentle positive results, with significant improvement in quality of life.
Also worth considering is how acupuncture compares to other modalities and treatments in terms of cost, side effects, comfort for the patient, longevity of results.
A recent review examined clinical guideline recommendations from around the world made by a variety of groups including government health institutions, national guidelines, and medical specialty groups. Over a 27 year period, they found 2,189 positive recommendations for acupuncture for 204 health problems, mainly in guidelines published in North America, Europe and Australasia These official recommendations indicate that acupuncture’s evidence is now acknowledged by medical experts and that:
Acupuncture is no longer ‘alternative'.
This new data illustrates that acupuncture is one of the most widely recommended treatments in modern medicine.
(Birch S, Lee MS, Alraek T, et al. Overview of Treatment Guidelines and Clinical Practical Guidelines That Recommend the Use of Acupuncture: A Bibliometric Analysis).
Next month I plan to write about some of the mechanisms of how acupuncture works.
I will be following the work of the Evidence Based Acupuncture Project - and if you can't wait you can find information about them here.