Acupuncture and Wellness

National Institute Of Health and Acupuncture Studies

Acupuncture

The World Health Organization describes acupuncture as the puncturing of skin with a needle. Even though the practice of acupuncture dates back thousands of years, the international study and acceptance of its application into the field of medicine is relatively recent in the modern world. In 1979, the World Health Organization hosted a symposium for the clinical study of acupuncture where 43 diseases and conditions were investigated with the hopes of providing the scientific data for the further acceptance of the discipline into the field of medicine. The difficulty in studying acupuncture lies in the unfamiliarity and uncertainty of the subtle energies within the universe. The acupuncture points which lie along the mapped out meridian lines in the body are what are targeted in a standard treatment. Qi is often described as energy or electricity within the body; it is along these meridian lines where the Qi is said to circulate throughout the body. And because these points are understood as being voided space, it has been difficult to discretely measure and quantify those things which by theory are considered to be “no-where”. This is why medical acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine has had its critics over the years who demand for more concrete data which proves these theories and concepts to be true. These clinical studies done by the World Health Organization were a step towards this concrete information.

The ancient use of acupuncture began with simply puncturing the skin with stones and arrowheads which bled certain areas of the body in order to relieve pain and other symptoms. The use of stainless steel needles were not used at the very start like they are today. As the time progressed, the knowledge of the body and the application of the medicine grew over many centuries. This included the knowledge of the acupuncture meridians and points along the body. Today, in Traditional Chinese Medicine, there are 360 points which lie along the 14 main meridians1. And practitioners continue to test and find new points which have use in the clinical setting. The mapping of the body was done so over many years of investigation in the treatment of disease. And just as all knowledge is able to grow with experience, so too the understanding of its application to health and wellness.

Picture depicts calculated temperature changes and locations of acupuncture points

Bridging Eastern and Western Medicine

The use of Traditional Chinese Medicine, preventative medicine, maintaining a healthy lifestyle, and even treating disease with integrative means is becoming more appealing to Western medical doctors who are realizing some of the limits of their current medical practice. It must be appreciated that the world is vast and complex; and there is so much more to learn and work to be done. The answers to the mysteries of the universe are just waiting to be discovered; and this comes only through vigorous contributions from around the world. Our greatest challenge is not so much to prove which medical theory is the most valid or superior, but to unite knowledge from around the world in order to make it more accessible and understandable for physicians who strive to heal the afflicted. The barrier of language and the translation of information remain to be a great task to be overcome for both East and West. The concepts from around the world in medicine, the body, and universal understanding of existence can potentially bring nations together and create a world which is able to emerge into a new era of mankind where all diseases are understood and curable. The true potential of man is perhaps not yet realized, but by expanding the human capacity through knowledge and understanding of our universe, we just might surprise ourselves with what we are able to accomplish.

1 Pathways of electricity in the body. Electricity because the mind has a more concise concept of what electricity; the tradtitonal word that is used to describe what flows through these channels in the body is Qi. The Hindus call it Prana. It is the life force which moves the human’s body’s physiological processes. Western medicine is just beginning to accept and realize this aspect of the body.

National Institute of Heath

The report from a Consensus Development Conference on Acupuncture held at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 1997 stated that acupuncture is being “widely” practiced—by thousands of physicians, dentists, acupuncturists, and other practitioners—for relief or prevention of pain and for various other health conditions. Congress affirms the validity and promise of acupuncture as concluded by the 197 National Institutes of Health Consensus Conference: 1. “The data in support of acupuncture as strong as those for many accepted Western medical therapies.” 2 “One of the advantages of acupuncture is that the incidence of adverse effects is substantially lower than that of many drugs or other accepted medical procedures used for the same conditions.”

(Acupuncture. NIH Consensus Statement 1997 Nov 3-5; 15(5):1-34. http://consensus.nih.gov/1997/1997acupuncture107html.htm)

According to the 2007 National Health Interview Survey, which included a comprehensive survey of CAM use by Americans, an estimated 3.1 million U.S. adults and 150,000 children had used acupuncture in the previous year. Between the 2002 and 2007 NHIS, acupuncture use among adults increased by approximately 1 million people (Acupuncture: An Introduction, http://nccam.nih.gov/health/acupuncture/introduction.htm)

Research from the Acupuncture Trialists’s Collaboration conducted an analysis of 29 randomized clinical trails on acupuncture for treating pain and confirmed the total effects of acupuncture, as experienced by patients in clinical practice, are clinically relevant and that acupuncture is more than just placebo and a reasonable referral option for patients with chronic pain.

(Vickers, AJ, Gronin AM, Machino AC et al. Acupuncture for chronic pain: individual patient date meta-analysis, Archives of Internal Medicine. Arch Intern Med. 2012;172(19):1444-1453 http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1357513).

The Dana Farber Cancer Institute at Harvard University has developed evidence-based “actionable” acupuncture protocols for specific cancer pain conditions and related symptoms in order to provide more clinically relevant solutions for clinicians and cancer patients with pain. These conditions include postoperative cancer pain, postoperative nausea and vomiting, postsurgical gastroparesis syndrome, opioid-induced constipation, opioid-induced pruritus, chemotherapy induced neuropathy, aromatase inhibitor-associated joint pain and neck dissection-related pain and dysfunction.

(Acupuncture May Be Helpful for Chronic Pain: A Meta-Analysis http://nccam.nih.gov/research/results/spotlight/091012)

The National Cancer Institute PDQ statement in the overview about the acupuncture it confirms:

As part of traditional Chinese medicine, acupuncture has been practiced in China and other Asian countries for thousands of years.
Acupuncture is defined as the application of stimulation such as needling, moxibustion, cupping, and acupressure on specific sites of the body known as acupuncture points.
Acupuncture has been practiced in the United States for about 200 years. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the acupuncture needle as a medical device in 1996.
Acupuncture is used to treat a wide range of illnesses and ailments, including hot flashes, xerostomia, and neuropathy. Cancer patients use it for fatigue, pain management, and control of nausea and vomiting (N/V).
Laboratory and animal studies to explore the mechanisms of acupuncture for cancer treatment have focused mainly on the role of acupuncture in the activation of immune functions, such as increasing blood cell count and enhancing lymphocyte and natural killer cell activity.
The aim of most acupuncture clinical observation and clinical trials in cancer patients has been to evaluate the effects of acupuncture on symptom management.
The most convincing research data on the effects of acupuncture in cancer patients have emerged from studies of the management of chemotherapy -induced N/V

(http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/cam/acupuncture/healthprofessional)

Use of Acupuncture for Pain

According to the 2007 National Health Interview Survey, which included a comprehensive survey of CAM use by Americans, 1.4 percent of respondents (an estimated 3.1 million Americans) said they had used acupuncture in the past year. A special analysis of acupuncture data from an earlier NHIS found that pain or musculoskeletal complaints accounted for 7 of the top 10 conditions for which people use acupuncture. Back pain was the most common, followed by joint pain, neck pain, severe headache/migraine, and recurring pain.

Acupuncture has been studied for a wide range of pain conditions, such as postoperative dental pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, fibromyalgia, headache, low-back pain, menstrual cramps, myofascial pain, osteoarthritis, and tennis elbow.

Overall, it can be very difficult to compare acupuncture research results from study to study and to draw conclusions from the cumulative body of evidence. This is because studies may use different acupuncture techniques (e.g., electrical vs. manual), controls (comparison groups), and outcome measures.

One particularly complex factor in acupuncture research is choosing the controls for a clinical trial. The choice depends in part on whether the researchers want to study a particular aspect of acupuncture (e.g., effects on the brain) or to determine whether acupuncture is useful compared with other forms of care. Examples of control groups include study participants who receive no acupuncture, simulated acupuncture (procedures that mimic acupuncture, sometimes also referred to as “placebo” or “sham”), or other treatments (in addition to or in place of acupuncture or simulated acupuncture).

An emerging theme in acupuncture research is the role of the placebo. For example, a 2009 systematic review of research on the pain-relieving effects of acupuncture compared with placebo (simulated) or no acupuncture was inconclusive. The reviewers found a small difference between acupuncture and placebo and a moderate difference between placebo and no acupuncture; the effect of placebo acupuncture varied considerably, and the effect of acupuncture appeared unrelated to the specific kind of placebo procedure used. All of the study participants received standard care, typically consisting of analgesic drugs and physical therapy.

The following sections summarize research on acupuncture for a variety of pain conditions, including those reported by NHIS respondents who had used acupuncture. In general, acupuncture appears to be a promising alternative for some of these pain conditions; however, further research is needed.

(Source: http://nccam.nih.gov/health/acupuncture/acupuncture-for-pain.htm)