Acupuncture
Acupuncture
is an ancient Eastern traditional practice that has survived for
thousands of years, and still offers a great deal of benefit today for
those who suffer from a variety of conditions. While some of the
conditions that acupuncture has been found to be the most beneficial
include allergies, lung disorders such as asthma, migraines, back pain,
and arthritis, acupuncture has helped a large number of people to
eliminate pain, reduce symptoms, alleviate stress and anxiety, and lead
healthier, more balanced lives.
Even though acupuncture as an art and science was first introduced in Eastern civilizations, its modern day influence has spanned the globe, and is now a widely accepted from of medicine even in the Western world. Those who seek the help of a certified acupuncture provider and those who become certified in the field of acupuncture continue to rise in number annually in the US. While a lot of people may cringe at the very thought of it, acupuncture refers to the technique of using pins to prompt a response from a number of pressure points situated in various areas of the body. To provide reassurance to anyone seeking acupuncture treatments, these pins are in fact extremely fine pointed needles, which cause very little pain or discomfort.
Since the practice of acupuncture has been around for so long, a large number of these pressure points throughout the body which are associated with different physiological functions are now widely known, and modern science has even validated that most of these pressure points are in fact legitimate. The advantage of acupuncture over other forms of conventional treatments is that there are no artificial drugs and the risk posed by side effects is eliminated. This fact is what has led to a great deal of followers within a number of countries around the globe.
Throughout time, acupuncture has provided many therapeutic benefits for many people who are faced with the diagnosis of major conditions, and even those recovering from severe injuries. Acupuncture for back pain has even been found to help the most persistent types of pain when other forms have treatment have offered little to no help at all.
In many cases, acupuncture for back pain has been found to be effective when other methods of pain relief have failed. Acupuncture for back pain can be much more affordable than relying on highly addictive narcotics for pain relief which cause a number of undesirable side effects and decrease a patient’s ability to perform daily functions.
While some people rely on acupuncture to treat their health conditions, it is still more widely used as a form of prevention, with the overall goal of acupuncture treatments being restoration of balance within the body. Because of this, acupuncture is beneficial in today’s world at helping to reverse the numerous effects of stress and environmental toxins on the body, which promotes a greater overall sense of well being and improved health for all kinds of people.
Scientific Basis
Acupuncture has been the subject of active scientific research both in regard to its basis and therapeutic effectiveness since the late 20th century, but it remains controversial among medical researchers and clinicians. Research on acupuncture points and meridians has not demonstrated their existence or properties. Clinical assessment of acupuncture treatments, due to its invasive and easily detected nature, makes it difficult to use proper scientific controls for placebo effects. Positive results from some studies on the efficacy of acupuncture may be as a result of poorly designed studies or publication bias. Edzard Ernst and Simon Singh state that (as the quality of experimental tests of acupuncture have increased over the course of several decades through better blinding, the use of sham needling as a form of placebo control, etc.) the "more that researchers eliminate bias from their trials, the greater the tendency for results to indicate that acupuncture is little more than a placebo." Also complicating research on acupuncture is the possibility of a strong publication bias from certain countries, a review of studies on acupuncture found that trials originating in China, Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan were uniformly favorable to acupuncture, as were ten out of 11 studies conducted in Russia.
Different types of comparison are made in the scientific literature and terminology can vary, therefore care is needed when assessing research. “Acupuncture” may refer only to insertion of needles in traditionally determined acupuncture points; in which case, it is contrasted with randomly inserting needles, which is called a sham treatment, placebo, needling or medical acupuncture if the points are determined by anatomy and not by TCM. In some sources "acupuncture" refers to random needling with needle insertion, and this is compared to pressing telescoping needles against the skin at the same points but not puncturing the skin, which is called a "sham treatment" or "placebo".
The World Health Organization and the United States' National Institutes of Health (NIH) have stated that acupuncture can be effective in the treatment of neurological conditions and pain. Reports from the USA's National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), the American Medical Association (AMA) and various USA government reports have studied and commented on the efficacy of acupuncture. There is general agreement that acupuncture is safe when administered by well-trained practitioners using sterile needles, but not on its efficacy as a medical procedure.
How Does It Work
Recently acupuncture, the ancient Chinese art of healing has become popular throughout the world not only as an anesthetic agent for operations but in the treatment of many diseases which have shown resistance to conventional forms of therapy. Acupuncture treatment has proved remarkably effective. Besides being free from the side-effects and the ills commonly encountered in drug surely it is being accepted into the mainstream of modern medicine.
The logical question at this time is "How does it work?" This is not an easy question which can be fully answered in our present state of knowledge. After several decades of dedicated research we know very little of how the normal nervous system functions in health let alone in a diseased body. Serious research on acupuncture commenced only a few years ago, and such a short period has been insufficient to unravel all the mechanism of the complicated neuropsychological phenomenon which acupuncture evidently is. Part of the difficulty lies in the fact that acupuncture works in a great variety of disorders and its action must therefore be assumed to vary to some extent with each type of pathology. Nevertheless, many aspects of its action are now being understood in the light of a recent research and these are being placed together in any attempt to solve the enigma.
First of all it’s necessary to be clear about what really happens when filiform needle is inserted into an "Acupuncture Points" on the body surface. The effects observed are both subjective and objective. One of the subjective effects may be slight pain at the point of needling, but with the use of proper technique by a trained acupuncturist this is usually negligible. Another important subjective effect is the appearance of a peculiar sensation which is called "deqi" in Chinese. There is no exact equivalent for this term in English but it is usually translated as "take". Deqi is a combination of slight soreness, heaviness, numbness and distension. For acupuncture anesthesia to be successful it is an essential that adequate "deqi" be elicited.
As regards the objective effects produced by needling, six different effects are recognized.
Analgesic (Pain-killing) effect - This is brought about by a lowering of the pain threshold. This is the physiological basis of acupuncture anesthesia and also explains how acupuncture is able to relieve the pain of arthritis, toothache, headache, low backache and other painful disorders. Some acupuncture points are more effective in these respects than others. This is an example of what is called "the specificity of acupuncture points".
Sedation - Some people may even fall asleep during treatment but wakeup refreshed. It has been shown that there is a decrease in delta and theta wave activity on the electro-encephalogram during acupuncture treatment. These effects are utilized in the acupuncture treatment of insomnia, anxiety states, addiction, epilepsy and behavioral problems.
Homeostatic effect - This means adjustment of the internal environment of the body towards a state of proper balance. Normally, homeostasis in maintained by a balanced activity of a sympathetic and parasympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system and also by the glandular system. In addition there are numerous homeostatic mechanisms in the body for regulating the respiration, heart rate, blood pressure, urinary excretion, metabolic rate, sweating, temperature, ionic balance of the blood and many other parameters. These mechanisms are seriously deranged in many diseases, and in such cases acupuncture has been found very helpful in restoring the original state of equilibrium. Very often the same set of points can be used for treatment for opposite conditions like high and low blood pressure, or diarrhea and constipation. These are example of the homeostatic or normalizing action of acupuncture.
Immunity enhancing action of acupuncture - Under this the body resistance to a disease is strengthened. This has been shown to be due to an increase in the white corpuscles (leucocytes), antibodies, gamma globulins and other substances which increase the powers of resistance of the body. In many cases a two to four fold increase in antibody of the reticulo-endethelial system. Acupuncture is therefore very useful in combating infections.
Motor action - This is meant for motor recovery in patients who have become paralyzed from some cause or another. Even late cases of motor paralysis respond well to acupuncture therapy despite previous failure with other forms of therapy. The explanation which is complex apparently involves antidromic stimulation of the anterior horn cells and their reactivation through a biofeedback mechanism operating through the Reshow and Cajole cells of the spinal cord of their cranial equivalents (Motor Gate Theory - Jayasuriya and Fernando, Paper presented at the "World Congress on acupuncture, Tokyo,1977").
What does traditional Chinese medicine have to say about the mechanism of acupuncture? The ancient Chinese believed that disease ("Dis-ease") was caused by the imbalance in the body of two principle, both of which they called Yin and Yang. By "Yin" they meant the negative or female principle, while "Yang" was the positive or male principle, both of which are universally present in all nature. In the healthy state, there was believed to be a harmonious balance between these opposite but mutually interacting principles - a state of affairs which today we call "hameostatis". But when disease supervenes, it is believed that one or other. Correction of this imbalance in achieved by needling of selected acupuncture points. While these ideas may look esoteric and irrational from today's stand points, we must remember that they were man's first steps in logical thinking. To have formulated these ideas at the time when the rest of the world was living in caves and on tops of trees was itself a remarkable achievement which cannot be denigrated even today. What is known as homeostatic bodily mechanism has an unmistakable "Yin-Yang" flavour. If a modern physician accepts this position, there is no contradiction in practicing acupuncture as on one who is familiar with this discipline has any doubt that is works, and not infrequently when all other modalities have failed.
Psychological effect -This has a calming and tranquilising action apart from mere sedation. This is believed to be due to some action on the mid-brain. Measurable effect have also been reported on the metabolic chemistry of brain tissue. For instance, there is an increase in the dopamine content of the brain after acupuncture. This may account for its effectiveness in certain mental disorders and in Parkinsonism in which there is a depletion of the dopamine content of the brain.
Even though acupuncture as an art and science was first introduced in Eastern civilizations, its modern day influence has spanned the globe, and is now a widely accepted from of medicine even in the Western world. Those who seek the help of a certified acupuncture provider and those who become certified in the field of acupuncture continue to rise in number annually in the US. While a lot of people may cringe at the very thought of it, acupuncture refers to the technique of using pins to prompt a response from a number of pressure points situated in various areas of the body. To provide reassurance to anyone seeking acupuncture treatments, these pins are in fact extremely fine pointed needles, which cause very little pain or discomfort.
Since the practice of acupuncture has been around for so long, a large number of these pressure points throughout the body which are associated with different physiological functions are now widely known, and modern science has even validated that most of these pressure points are in fact legitimate. The advantage of acupuncture over other forms of conventional treatments is that there are no artificial drugs and the risk posed by side effects is eliminated. This fact is what has led to a great deal of followers within a number of countries around the globe.
Throughout time, acupuncture has provided many therapeutic benefits for many people who are faced with the diagnosis of major conditions, and even those recovering from severe injuries. Acupuncture for back pain has even been found to help the most persistent types of pain when other forms have treatment have offered little to no help at all.
In many cases, acupuncture for back pain has been found to be effective when other methods of pain relief have failed. Acupuncture for back pain can be much more affordable than relying on highly addictive narcotics for pain relief which cause a number of undesirable side effects and decrease a patient’s ability to perform daily functions.
While some people rely on acupuncture to treat their health conditions, it is still more widely used as a form of prevention, with the overall goal of acupuncture treatments being restoration of balance within the body. Because of this, acupuncture is beneficial in today’s world at helping to reverse the numerous effects of stress and environmental toxins on the body, which promotes a greater overall sense of well being and improved health for all kinds of people.
Scientific Basis
Acupuncture has been the subject of active scientific research both in regard to its basis and therapeutic effectiveness since the late 20th century, but it remains controversial among medical researchers and clinicians. Research on acupuncture points and meridians has not demonstrated their existence or properties. Clinical assessment of acupuncture treatments, due to its invasive and easily detected nature, makes it difficult to use proper scientific controls for placebo effects. Positive results from some studies on the efficacy of acupuncture may be as a result of poorly designed studies or publication bias. Edzard Ernst and Simon Singh state that (as the quality of experimental tests of acupuncture have increased over the course of several decades through better blinding, the use of sham needling as a form of placebo control, etc.) the "more that researchers eliminate bias from their trials, the greater the tendency for results to indicate that acupuncture is little more than a placebo." Also complicating research on acupuncture is the possibility of a strong publication bias from certain countries, a review of studies on acupuncture found that trials originating in China, Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan were uniformly favorable to acupuncture, as were ten out of 11 studies conducted in Russia.
Different types of comparison are made in the scientific literature and terminology can vary, therefore care is needed when assessing research. “Acupuncture” may refer only to insertion of needles in traditionally determined acupuncture points; in which case, it is contrasted with randomly inserting needles, which is called a sham treatment, placebo, needling or medical acupuncture if the points are determined by anatomy and not by TCM. In some sources "acupuncture" refers to random needling with needle insertion, and this is compared to pressing telescoping needles against the skin at the same points but not puncturing the skin, which is called a "sham treatment" or "placebo".
The World Health Organization and the United States' National Institutes of Health (NIH) have stated that acupuncture can be effective in the treatment of neurological conditions and pain. Reports from the USA's National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), the American Medical Association (AMA) and various USA government reports have studied and commented on the efficacy of acupuncture. There is general agreement that acupuncture is safe when administered by well-trained practitioners using sterile needles, but not on its efficacy as a medical procedure.
How Does It Work
Recently acupuncture, the ancient Chinese art of healing has become popular throughout the world not only as an anesthetic agent for operations but in the treatment of many diseases which have shown resistance to conventional forms of therapy. Acupuncture treatment has proved remarkably effective. Besides being free from the side-effects and the ills commonly encountered in drug surely it is being accepted into the mainstream of modern medicine.
The logical question at this time is "How does it work?" This is not an easy question which can be fully answered in our present state of knowledge. After several decades of dedicated research we know very little of how the normal nervous system functions in health let alone in a diseased body. Serious research on acupuncture commenced only a few years ago, and such a short period has been insufficient to unravel all the mechanism of the complicated neuropsychological phenomenon which acupuncture evidently is. Part of the difficulty lies in the fact that acupuncture works in a great variety of disorders and its action must therefore be assumed to vary to some extent with each type of pathology. Nevertheless, many aspects of its action are now being understood in the light of a recent research and these are being placed together in any attempt to solve the enigma.
First of all it’s necessary to be clear about what really happens when filiform needle is inserted into an "Acupuncture Points" on the body surface. The effects observed are both subjective and objective. One of the subjective effects may be slight pain at the point of needling, but with the use of proper technique by a trained acupuncturist this is usually negligible. Another important subjective effect is the appearance of a peculiar sensation which is called "deqi" in Chinese. There is no exact equivalent for this term in English but it is usually translated as "take". Deqi is a combination of slight soreness, heaviness, numbness and distension. For acupuncture anesthesia to be successful it is an essential that adequate "deqi" be elicited.
As regards the objective effects produced by needling, six different effects are recognized.
Analgesic (Pain-killing) effect - This is brought about by a lowering of the pain threshold. This is the physiological basis of acupuncture anesthesia and also explains how acupuncture is able to relieve the pain of arthritis, toothache, headache, low backache and other painful disorders. Some acupuncture points are more effective in these respects than others. This is an example of what is called "the specificity of acupuncture points".
Sedation - Some people may even fall asleep during treatment but wakeup refreshed. It has been shown that there is a decrease in delta and theta wave activity on the electro-encephalogram during acupuncture treatment. These effects are utilized in the acupuncture treatment of insomnia, anxiety states, addiction, epilepsy and behavioral problems.
Homeostatic effect - This means adjustment of the internal environment of the body towards a state of proper balance. Normally, homeostasis in maintained by a balanced activity of a sympathetic and parasympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system and also by the glandular system. In addition there are numerous homeostatic mechanisms in the body for regulating the respiration, heart rate, blood pressure, urinary excretion, metabolic rate, sweating, temperature, ionic balance of the blood and many other parameters. These mechanisms are seriously deranged in many diseases, and in such cases acupuncture has been found very helpful in restoring the original state of equilibrium. Very often the same set of points can be used for treatment for opposite conditions like high and low blood pressure, or diarrhea and constipation. These are example of the homeostatic or normalizing action of acupuncture.
Immunity enhancing action of acupuncture - Under this the body resistance to a disease is strengthened. This has been shown to be due to an increase in the white corpuscles (leucocytes), antibodies, gamma globulins and other substances which increase the powers of resistance of the body. In many cases a two to four fold increase in antibody of the reticulo-endethelial system. Acupuncture is therefore very useful in combating infections.
Motor action - This is meant for motor recovery in patients who have become paralyzed from some cause or another. Even late cases of motor paralysis respond well to acupuncture therapy despite previous failure with other forms of therapy. The explanation which is complex apparently involves antidromic stimulation of the anterior horn cells and their reactivation through a biofeedback mechanism operating through the Reshow and Cajole cells of the spinal cord of their cranial equivalents (Motor Gate Theory - Jayasuriya and Fernando, Paper presented at the "World Congress on acupuncture, Tokyo,1977").
What does traditional Chinese medicine have to say about the mechanism of acupuncture? The ancient Chinese believed that disease ("Dis-ease") was caused by the imbalance in the body of two principle, both of which they called Yin and Yang. By "Yin" they meant the negative or female principle, while "Yang" was the positive or male principle, both of which are universally present in all nature. In the healthy state, there was believed to be a harmonious balance between these opposite but mutually interacting principles - a state of affairs which today we call "hameostatis". But when disease supervenes, it is believed that one or other. Correction of this imbalance in achieved by needling of selected acupuncture points. While these ideas may look esoteric and irrational from today's stand points, we must remember that they were man's first steps in logical thinking. To have formulated these ideas at the time when the rest of the world was living in caves and on tops of trees was itself a remarkable achievement which cannot be denigrated even today. What is known as homeostatic bodily mechanism has an unmistakable "Yin-Yang" flavour. If a modern physician accepts this position, there is no contradiction in practicing acupuncture as on one who is familiar with this discipline has any doubt that is works, and not infrequently when all other modalities have failed.
Psychological effect -This has a calming and tranquilising action apart from mere sedation. This is believed to be due to some action on the mid-brain. Measurable effect have also been reported on the metabolic chemistry of brain tissue. For instance, there is an increase in the dopamine content of the brain after acupuncture. This may account for its effectiveness in certain mental disorders and in Parkinsonism in which there is a depletion of the dopamine content of the brain.
