Page 21 - Time Special Edition Alternative Medicine (January 2020)
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fertiliza tion, sham acupuncture actually produced
bet ter results—a higher pregnancy rate—than the
real thing.
“When a treatment is truly effective, studies tend
to produce more convincing results as time passes
and the weight of evidence accumulates,” wrote
Harriet Hall, a former Air Force flight surgeon and
an alternative-medicine skeptic, in a 2011 issue of
the Journal of Pain. “Taken as a whole, the published
( and scientifically rigorous) evidence leads to the
conclusion that acupunc ture is no more effective
than a placebo.”
Critics also point out that despite the com mon
wisdom that even if acupuncture doesn’t help, it
can’t hurt, there are, in fact, risks involved. Pregnant
women, people with a bleeding disor der and people
with a pacemaker (because of possible interference
from the mild electricity that is sometimes applied
to the needles) should be especially cautious. Even
healthy people can suffer organ injury, infection or
soreness if the procedure isn’t performed well.
Yet for every study that yields murky or even neg-
ative results, plenty of others present a clear win for
the pro-acupuncture camp. Women going through
menopause received significant relief for their hot
flashes and mood swings with acu puncture, and
those who got real acupuncture showed far more
improvement than those who got the sham version.
What’s more, blood tests bolstered the results, show-
ing that the level of estrogen rose while luteinizing
An illustration from a medical guide explaining hormone fell sig nificantly after real acupuncture—
the ancient Chinese tradition of acupuncture the opposite of the direction those hormones usu-
ally move during menopause.
Similarly, the National Institute on Drug Abuse
of 360 carefully mapped entry points on the body found that real acupuncture—with needles inserted
look a little silly. The problem is, results like that in spots in the ear said to modulate crav ings—is
aren’t at all uncom mon in acupuncture research— overwhelmingly more effective than the fake kind or
and that’s not the best news for a treatment trying none at all in treating cocaine ad diction. In patients
to prove its worth. who underwent the proper needle sticks, 53.8% had
In 2011, for example, a study at the Karo linska clean drug screens at the end of the study, compared
Institute in Sweden separated patients suffering with 23.5% of subjects who got the sham routine and
from chemotherapy-related pain and nausea into 9.1% of those who received no acupuncture at all.
the same three experimental groups: real acupunc- Whatever the exact numbers, some relief is obvi-
ture, sham acupuncture and conven tional therapy. ously better than none, even if it’s sometimes con-
This time the sham acupuncture involved blunt nee- ferred by what seems to be the power of the placebo.
dles that didn’t even break the skin. Again, both the Besides, it’s an enduring truth of the placebo effect
fake and real groups showed improvement—more that in order for a patient to ex perience relief, some-
than the Western- medicine group. In yet another thing has to have changed in the body.
study, this one looking at the effects of acupuncture So when it comes to acupuncture—real or fake—
on women trying to get pregnant through in vitro what is that something?
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