Page 22 - Time Special Edition Alternative Medicine (January 2020)

ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE THE NEW MAINSTREAM

How it works

funcTional magneTic resonance imaging
(fMRI) has revealed that when volunteers are sub-
jected to mild electrical shock while under going
acupuncture, there is much less activity in four dif-
ferent pain-processing regions of the brain than
usual. Although the pain stimulus continues, the
brain notices it less. A fifth re gion—the anterior in-

sula, which governs the ex pectation of pain—quiets
down too. Often, the less pain you expect to feel, the
less you do feel, a tail-wagging-the-dog phenome-
non that is key to the placebo effect. If sham acu-
puncture produces only partial results, it may be
because it affects only the insula rather than all the
areas that deal with pain sensation. In any case, how-

ever, it is clear that something hap pens. “Acupunc-
ture is supposed to act through at least two mech-
anisms: nonspecific expectancy -based effects and
specific modulation of the incoming pain signal,”
says Nina Theysohn of University Hospital in Essen, Studies suggest that pain receptors in the
Germany, who conducted the fMRI study. brain are activated by acupuncture needles.

Epidemics both instill fear and mills. Chronic-pain patients were
demand action. The epidemic of seen as legally risky, and prescribers
opioid-overdose deaths in the U.S. grew nervous about treating them.
Tackling is a case in point: the country saw back, worried that patients would
Some pain experts pushed
a sixfold increase in such deaths
the Opioid from 1999 to 2017. The crisis has be abandoned. The CDC clarified its
driven dire headlines and resolute
position, and finally the Department
Crisis legislative measures, as well as a of Health and Human Services
deluge of legal and financial action
issued guidelines on the guidelines,
Why alternative against Purdue Pharma, the maker attempting “to strike a balance
between reducing the amount of
of OxyContin.
treatments may offer What has often been lost in the opioids prescribed and ensuring
safer solutions headlines is the fact that underlying patients aren’t left behind.”
the opioid crisis is an even larger In addition to debate over
By David Bjerklie
medical crisis. More than 50 million the guidelines, there thankfully
Americans suffer from chronic pain, are renewed efforts to expand
and far too many of them lack safe approaches to pain management.
and effective options for managing In September 2019, the National
it. In the urgency to address the Institutes of Health announced
opioid crisis, the Centers for Disease the HEAL Initiative (Helping to End
Control and Prevention issued Addiction Long-term), which will take
guidelines for physicians to help an “all hands on deck” approach to
patients taper opioid use to lower the opioid crisis, tapping resources
dosages or fully discontinue them. from across the NIH “to accelerate
This, in turn, fueled efforts by research and address the public
states to legislate prescription health emergency from all angles.”
limits, by insurance carriers and It’s a billion-dollar program with the
pharmacies to cap the strength goal of finding safe and effective
of prescriptions and by law options for pain management.
enforcement to crack down on pill “Our country, sadly, is in the