‘Acupuncture does help to relieve pain’

A new review involving almost 18,000 patients concluded that proper clinical trials showed the ancient Chinese therapy had benefit for patients.

A new review involving almost 18,000 patients concluded that proper clinical trials showed the ancient Chinese therapy had benefit for patients.

Published Oct 15, 2012

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London - Acupuncture does work for people suffering chronic pain, according to researchers.

A new review involving almost 18,000 patients concluded that proper clinical trials showed the ancient Chinese therapy had benefit for patients.

However, Professor Edzard Ernst, who has long criticised the standard of complementary medicine research, said patients are simply getting a feelgood “placebo” effect based on their relationship with the therapist.

The findings comes as almost four out of five GPs say they would like to see acupuncture available on the NHS.

Acupuncture may be offered as traditional Chinese therapy which involves using needles at certain points on the body to boost energy or in a Westernised form using electrostimulation which is claimed to release endorphins, the body's natural natural painkillers.

The latest US study analysed data with a total of 17,922 patients from the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Spain and Sweden.

Researchers were seeking to determine the effect of acupuncture for some chronic pain conditions.

This involved placing needles at certain points on the body to boost energy and release endorphins - the body's natural painkillers.

The remaining volunteers were given sham acupuncture with blunted needles, or no acupuncture treatment.

Study leader Dr Andrew Vickers, of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre, New York, said “We found acupuncture to be superior to both no-acupuncture control and sham acupuncture for the treatment of chronic pain.

“Although the data indicate that acupuncture is more than a placebo, the differences between true and sham acupuncture are relatively modest, suggesting that factors in addition to the specific effects of needling are important contributors to therapeutic effects” he added.

The report Online First in Archives of Internal Medicine journal said “Our results from individual patient data meta-analyses of nearly 18,000 randomised patients provide the most robust evidence to date that acupuncture is a reasonable referral option for patients with chronic pain.”

Professor Ernst, emeritus Professor of Complementary Medicine at the University of Exeter, said the differences between the results obtained with real and sham acupuncture were “small and not clinically relevant”.

He said “Several investigations have shown that the verbal or non-verbal communication between the patient and the therapist is more important than the actual needling. If such factors would be accounted for, the effect of acupuncture on chronic pain might disappear completely.

“Moreover, we should be clear about the fact that, in all of these trials, the therapist knew whether he was administering real or sham acupuncture. Arguably, it is next to impossible to completely keep this information from the patient.

“I fear that, once we manage to eliminate this bias from acupuncture studies, we might find that the effects of acupuncture exclusively are a placebo response.'“- Daily Mail

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