Scientific Research on Acupuncture

It should be noted that in 1987, the Office of Technology Assessment of the United States Congress reported,

"It has been estimated that only 10-20% of all procedures currently in use in medical practice have been shown to be efficacious by controlled clinical trials ... Personal experience is perhaps the oldest and most common informal method of judging the efficacy and safety of a medical technology."

By this standard, no other form of health care has such a wealth of clinical experience to support its use. This was neatly stated by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas,

"Acupuncture has been practiced for 2,000 to 5,000 years. It is no more experimental as a mode of medical treatment than is the Chinese language as a mode of communication. What is experimental is not acupuncture, but Westeners' understanding of it and their ability to utilize it properly. "

The following studies were selected for this page because they all appeared in peer-reviewed Western medical journals.

Can sensory stimulation improve the functional outcome in stroke patients?
K. Johansson, RN; I. Lindgren, LPT; H. Widner, MD; I. Wiklund, Ph.D.; and B.B. Johansson, MD. NEUROLOGY 1993;43:2189-2192.
All patients received standard treatment; 38 of 78 also received acupuncture. Acupuncture group recovered faster and to a greater extent at an estimated savings of $26,000 per patient (see last sentence of Discussion section).

Transcutaneous Electrical Stimulation and Acupuncture: Comparison of Treatment for Low-Back Pain
Elisabeth J. Fox and Ronald Melzack. Pain, 2(1976) 141-148.
This crossover study shows acupuncture to provide pain relief in 75% of patients (mean duration 40 hours) and 66% of TENS patients (23 hours).

The Impact of Patients with Nonorganic Physical Findings on a Controlled Trial of Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation and Electroacupuncture.
T.R. Lehman, MD.., D.W. Russell, Ph.D., and K.F. Spratt, MA. SPINE, Vol. 8, Number 6, 1983.
Low-back pain is not mentioned in the title or the Summary but this is what was studied. Acupuncture was more effective than TENS or mock TENS (TENS with a dead battery). In addition, the study identified a group of patients who were "malingerers" and when these were taken into account, the results were even better in favor of the acupuncture treatment group.

Acupuncture Treatment of Severe Knee Osteoarthrosis. A Long Term Study.
B.V. Christiansen, I.U. Iuhl, H. Vilbek, H.-H. Biilow, N.C. Drieijer and H. F. Rasmussen. Acta Anaesthesiol Scand 1992: 36: 519-525.
Use of delayed treatment control group to test acupuncture for knee pain. Note that 7 patients responded so well that previously recommended surgical operations (at a cost of $9,000 each) were put off.

Acupuncture Superior to Piroxicam in the Treatment of Osteoarthrosis.
Seppo Y. T. Junnila, MD.. American Journal of Acupuncture, Vol. 10, No 4, 1982.
Acupuncture was not only more effective than standard drug treatment (61% versus 32%) in reducing "large joint" pain, it was free of the side effects associated with the drug treatment group which had side effects in 19% of patients.

Acupuncture in treatment of facial muscular pain.
Anders Johansson, Bengt Wenneberg, Curt Wagersten and To'gny Haraldson. ACTA ODONTOL SCAND 49 (1991)
Acupuncture was as effective as the standard treatment (occlusal splint) in treating facial pain or headache of muscular origin.

Acupuncture Therapy for Tennis Elbow.
Gunilla Brattberg. Pain, 16 (1983) 285-288
Acupuncture was compared with methylprednisolone for relieving pain of tennis elbow. Major relief from pain was reported at three month follow-up in 21 out of 34 of the acupuncture group versus 8 out of 26 in the drug group.

Acupuncture vs. medical treatment for Migraine and muscle tension headaches.
Loh, L., Nathan, P.W., Schott, G.D., Zilkha, K.J. (1984). J. Neurol. Neurosurg. Psychiat. 47:333-337.
This study used a crossover design to compare acupuncture with medication (mainly propranolol). Improvement was found in 24 out of 41 patients treated with acupuncture and 9 out of 36 patients treated with medications.

Comparison of Real and Simulated Acupuncture and Isoproterenol in Methacholine-Induced Asthma.
Donald P. Tashkin, M.D., David Bressler, Ph.D., Richard J. Kroening, MD.., Harvey Kerschner, MD.., Ronald L Katz MD.., and Anne Coulson. Annals of Allergy, Vol. 39, Number 6, Dec., 1977.
In a double-blind, crossover study neither saline injection nor sham acupuncture were effective, while isproterenol injection was slightly better than real acupuncture in treating laboratory induced asthma attacks. These results are very encouraging, given the known side effects of beta-adrenergic agonists like isoproterenol.

Controlled Trial of Acupuncture for Disabling Breathlessness.
Kim Jobst. The Lancet, December, 1986.
Acupuncture was more effective than sham acupuncture in a patient and treatment assessor blinded study.

A Randomized Controlled Trial on the Treatment for Acute Partial Ischemic Stroke with Acupuncture.
Han-Hwa Hu. Neuroepidemiology 1993; 12: 106-113.
All patients received standard physical therapy. In addition, half were randomly assigned to receive acupuncture . Significantly better neurological outcome determined for the acupuncture group at day 28 and day 90.

Controlled Trial of Acupuncture for Severe Recidivist Alcoholism.
Milton Bullock, Patricia Culliton, Robert Olander. THE LANCET, June, 1989.
Significant treatment effects persisted at the end of six-month follow-up.

Acupuncture for the Treatment of Cocaine Dependence in Methadone Maintained Patients.
Margolin, A., Avants, S.K., Chang, P. Koten, T.R. (1993) American J. Addict. 2:194-201.
Abstinence rates during the final 2 weeks of 8 week treatment were: Acupuncture 44%, desipramine 26%, amantadine 15%, and drug placebo 13%. Electroacupuncture vs. Amitriptyline in the treatment of Depressive states. Luo, H., Jia, Y., Zhan, L. (1985). J. Trad. Chin. Med. 5:3-8. Equal improvement with both treatments but with fewer side effects using acupuncture.

Acupuncture in the treatment of Renal Colic.
Lee, Y.-H., W.-C., Chen, M.-T., Huang, J.K., Chung, C., Chang, L.S. (1992) J. Urol. 147:16-18.
Acupuncture was found to be as effective as avafortan but with more rapid analgesic onset. Side effects were found in 7 out of 16 of the medication group and zero out of 22 in the acupuncture group.

Acupuncture for the Management of Primary Dysmenorrhea.
Joseph M. Helms, MD. Obstetrics and Gynecology, Vol. 69, No. 1, January 1987.
There was a 41% reduction of analgesic medication in the real acupuncture group, and no change or increase use of medication seen in the other groups.

A study in the effectiveness of acupuncture analgesia for Colonoscopic examination compared with conventional premedication. Wang, H.-H., Chang, Y.-H., Liu, D.-M. (1992) Amer. J. Acupunct. 20:217-221.
Acupuncture was found to be as effective as scopalamine and demerol but with less frequent side effects.

A pilot study of metoclopramide, dexamethasone, diphenhydramine and acupuncture in women treated with cisplatin. Aglietti, L., Roila, F., Tonato, M., Basurto, C., Bracarda, S., Picciafuoco, M., Ballatori, E., Del Favero, A. (1990) Cancer Chemother. Pharmacol. 26:239-240.
Acupuncture and medication decreased the intensity and duration of emesis relative to emesis alone.

Traditional Chinese acupuncture: a potentially useful antiemetic? Dundee, J.W., Chestnutt, W.N., Ghaly, R.G., Lynas, A.G.A. (1986) Brit. Med. J. 293:583-584.
Peri- and post-operative emesis episodes were 6 per 25 when acupuncture was combined with nalbuphine, 17 per 25 with sham acupuncture, and 17 per 25 with medication alone.

Electro-acupuncture and postoperative emesis.
Ho, R.T., Tawan, B., Fung, S.T., Cheung, H.K., Lee, J.H. (1990) Anaesthesia 45:327-329.
Post-operative emesis episodes were compared using electo-acupuncture, prochlorperazine, TENS, and no treatment. Electro-acupuncture resulted in 3 episodes per 25 patients, medication 3 per 25, TENS 9 per 25 and 11 per 25 in the untreated group.

Comparison of the effects of acupuncture and codeine on postoperative dental pain. Sung, Y.F., Kutner, M.H., Cerine, F.C., Frederickson, E.L. (1977) Anesthesia and Analgesia... Current Researches 56:473-478.
Post-operative pain was reduced equally by codeine or acupuncture, and better by combining acupuncture and codeine.

Research to refute acupuncture efficacy is due to hypnotic suggestibility

  1. Effectiveness in animals.
    1. There is a long history of veterinary acupuncture.
    2. Clinical and physiological research. For example: Pomeranz B., and Chiu, D., (1976) Naloxone blockade of acupuncture analgesia: Endorphin implicated. Life Sci 19:1757-1762.
    3. Electroacupuncture but not sham electroacupuncture significantly increased the latency of response to noxious heat stimuli in mice. Subcutaneous naloxone injection prior to electroacupuncture abolished the analgesic effect.

    4. Hypnosis susceptibility does not correlate with acupuncture effectiveness. Example: Liao SJ, and Wan K-K, (1976). Patient hypnotizability and response to acupuncture treatments for pain relief. Amer J Acupunct 4:236-268.
    5. 235 chronic pain patients (mainly musculoskeletal origin) were assessed for hypnosis susceptibility and given individualized acupuncture treatments. While 70% of patients showed moderate to excellent susceptibility and 80% achieved moderate to excellent pain relief, the correlation coefficient between the two measures was far below significance.

    6. Hypnosis-induced analgesia and acupuncture-induced analgesia show behavioral and pharmacological differences. Examples: Goldstein A., and Hilgard E., (1975). Lack of influence of the morphine antagonist naloxone on hypnotic analgesia. Proc Nat Acad Sci 72:20412043; Mayer DT., et al (1977).
    7. Antagonism of acupuncture analgesia in man by the narcotic antagonist naloxone. Brain Res 121:368-372.

    8. Acupuncture is not a placebo: true acupuncture is more effective than sham acupuncture.


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