Yet an additional one study confirms that acupuncture works better than accepted treatments alone for pain relief. On September 24th, the Archives of Internal treatment published the results of the longest and most broad study of acupuncture to treat back pain, a German collaboration sponsored by condition guarnatee companies and spicy more than 1,200 patients.
The sixth-month study broke participants into three experimental groups -- one that received genuine acupuncture treatments, one that received false acupuncture therapy, and a control group that participated in more accepted options, together with corporeal therapy, massage, and exercise. Patients met normally with their doctors, and their responses to treatments were measured on pain scales using former methods. Half of all patients receiving authentic acupuncture reported principal pain relief, while only twenty-seven percent of those utilizing accepted treatments did. Intriguingly, forty-four percent of those in the fake acupuncture group also reported principal relief, though it did not reduce their need for pain medications.
The mixed results took study authors by surprise. Although those who received the phony acupuncture regimen reported relief comparable to those getting the real thing, the former group was twice as likely to use pain killers. They were also nearly half as likely as those utilizing corporeal therapy, massage, and/or practice regimens to take the medications.
No one is quite sure why almost the same ration of patients receiving the sham regimen reported pain relief as those receiving the authentic treatments. The benefits of acupuncture could be attributed to how the body transmits or processes pain signals. The therapy, either genuine or false, could also induce a "super placebo" affect, triggering a very real reaction within the brain and altering the way the body perceives and responds to pain. So relatively minuscule is understood about the pain response that these questions are, as of yet, unanswered.
Whatever the reasons, it seems to work, and the even better news is that acupuncture is becoming more accessible. In 2002, 2.1 million Americans used acupuncture, according to the Centers for Disease control and Prevention. Even regions with a credit for conservative views are finding quality acupuncture and Chinese curative centers cropping up across their states -- particularly in cities like Dallas, Houston, and Austin. Unconventional methods of treatment could be of vital point to states like Texas, where twenty-five percent of the habitancy is currently going without condition insurance; such residents may just need more options.
The German study, though the biggest and most rigorous, is not the first large-scale endeavor by the Western curative (or "allopathic") community to test acupuncture's efficacy. In 2004, a study by the National Institutes of condition proved that acupuncture relieved pain and improved function related to osteoarthritis of the knee. Osteoarthritis, a condition affecting twenty million Americans, is one of the most frequent causes of disability among adults. Any therapy options, then, that prove to be sufficient are of vital importance.
"For the first time, a clinical trial with enough rigor, size, and period has shown that acupuncture reduces the pain and functional impairment of osteoarthritis of the knee," said Stephen E. Straus, M.D., Director of the National center for Complimentary and Alternative Medicine.
Published in the Annals of Internal treatment in 2004, the study was the largest randomized, controlled phase Iii clinical trial of acupuncture up until that point. Led by Dr. Brian M. Berman, M.D., Director of the center for Integrative treatment at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, 570 subjects aged fifty or over with osteoarthritis of the knee were divided into three groups similar to the German study -- one that received genuine acupuncture, one that got sham treatments, and a control group (for this study, a group that completed a self-help procedure recommended by the Arthritis Foundation). None of the patients had ever tried acupuncture or knee surgery, no one was using steroids or other injections for their condition, and all reported principal pain in the knee within one month prior to the study's inception.
Patients' pain and knee function were then assessed using appropriate methods, and their progress recorded at four, eight, fourteen, and twenty-six weeks. At eight weeks, the group receiving genuine acupuncture showed principal increase in function. At week fourteen, they reported a principal decrease in pain, as compared with the other two groups. Overall, the authentic acupuncture patients showed a forty percent decrease in pain and an increase in function by the same margin.
"These results...indicate that acupuncture can serve as an sufficient addition to a appropriate regimen of care and heighten quality of life for knee osteoarthritis sufferers. The Nccam has been building a portfolio of basic and clinical research that is now revealing the power and promise of applying stringent research methods to aged practices like acupuncture," said Strauss. One of the biggest barriers to validating many complementary methods has been lack of funding and club for large-scale, controlled studies. The Nih project, then, was a pivotal event in acupuncture's chronic quest to prove its legitimacy to the Western sciences.
With such old methods becoming new again, and with new methods changing everyday, it may be wise to merge treatments that have, essentially, already gone through a trial-and-error form of testing for thousands of years. We may not always understand why a recipe works but, hey, if it provides pain relief to thousands -- maybe millions -- with no adverse side effects, who cares? So open your minds, pain sufferers, and expose that skin. Tiny minuscule needles just may come to be your best friends.
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