Acupuncture activates the brain

[Dover]

Acupuncture activates the brain
Andreas von Bubnoff
Medicinal use of needles does more than placebos.



Acupuncture has a measurable, if mysterious, effect on the brain, UK scientists have found. The study adds to evidence that patients benefit from acupuncture not simply because of their expectations.

The research team used brain imaging to show that treatment with genuine needles activates brain areas beyond the ones that light up when trick needles are used. "This is the first brain-imaging study that has shown an effect beyond placebo," says George Lewith, an expert in complementary medicine at the University of Southampton who led the study.

Acupuncture is an ancient Chinese treatment for illness, pain or even addiction, which uses fine needles in defined points of the body. The mechanism behind this is far from understood, and clinical trials into acupuncture have had mixed results. "It has worked in some trials, it hasn't worked in others, it's very complicated," says Ted Kaptchuk, an acupuncture researcher at Harvard University in Boston, Massachusetts. Many studies have suggested that the placebo effect accounts for most of the benefits seen.

Part of this confusion may be thanks to the use of badly defined controls in acupuncture tests, experts say. Some studies use needles in non-acupuncture points, for example. But this may simply prove that needling is an effective treatment..cont'd

http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050425/full/050425-12.html

[Spinzonner]

1. I've always found that needling people produces a significant response

but not necessarily healthful

[Massacure]

2. Isn't getting stuck with needles fairly painful?

[Wilms]

3. Usually not.

Acupuncture needles are fairly thin. (I've heard that most folk think they're like needles used for injections--not the case.



I've had a few badly applied needles make me wince, but not often.

And I've also had them "hurt" as in, "Ow. That's the spot.", when someone is massaging a sore muscle.

Acupressure, applied with fingers, is suprisingly helpful in a variety of situations. I'm not a doctor, but on a plane flight
recently, I used acupressure on a flight attendant who was experiencing stomach cramps. It worked.

[HuckleB]

4. No.

Not at all, actually. Unless your practitioner doesn't know what he or she is doing.

[Dead_Parrot]

5. "Acupuncture activates the brain"

Somebody stick a needle in Bush, quick!