Acupuncture 'better than drugs' for period pain.

Pulse, the UK’s leading medical weekly publication, has published news of a systematic review of studies using acupuncture to relieve period pain (primary dysmenorrhoea).

Pulse
Acupuncture ‘is better than drugs’ for period pain
19 Feb 10
By Lilian Anekwe

A systematic review of acupuncture for the treatment of primary dysmenorrhoea has concluded that there is ‘promising evidence’ for its use.

South Korean researchers evaluated 27 randomised controlled trials of 3,000 women who were treated with a variety of different forms of acupuncture. It concludes that - compared with pharmacological treatment or herbal medicine - acupuncture was associated with a significant reduction in pain.

Overall 12 trials concluded that acupuncture was more effective than pharmacological treatment, and three trials that used pain severity scales showed that traditional acupuncture was significantly better than pharmacological treatment.

One comparison between acupuncture and herbal medicine found a significant mean difference of 2.21 points on a symptom severity scale. But comparisons of acupuncture with sham acupuncture were less clear. While some trials reported an improvement in pain relief in women given acupuncture compared with sham acupuncture, one reported no significant difference in menstrual pain score.

Read the full article on the Pulse website.

The BAcC fully supports NICE's decision that acupuncture be made available on the NHS for chronic low back pain.

The British Acupuncture Council, the UK’s largest professional body for the practice of acupuncture, fully supports NICE’s (National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence) decision that acupuncture be made available on the NHS for chronic lower back pain.

Traditional acupuncture has been used for over 2,000 years to alleviate back pain and British Acupuncture Council members have for many many years been successfully treating patients for this condition either in private practice or working within the NHS. In effect, therefore, these new guidelines are a rubber stamp of the positive work already being undertaken as well as an endorsement of the wealth of research evidence now available in this area.

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"I still can't quite believe it, but I'm an absolute convert to the benefits of acupuncture..."

Times Online, February 24, 2007, David Mattin.
It works for me: acupuncture

One woman’s life had been crippled by osteoarthritis until she found relief in Chinese medicine

Christmas 2005 wasn’t much fun for 73-year-old Maureen Vine. She had long been a sufferer from chronic osteoarthritis in her knees, hips and back and she was now afflicted by an arthritic right ankle, which left her in pain and limping. “My youngest grandchild was 4 years old and he couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t play with him on the floor on Christmas Day,” Vine recalls. “It was just too painful. The terrible pain in my ankle spread to the sole of my foot, and I could hardly walk.”

Vine had suffered from osteoarthritis - in which wear and tear causes joint stiffness and pain - in the back, hips, and knees for 30 years, and had tried occasional physiotherapy, which had brought a little relief. But a stomach condition meant that she had to avoid antiinflammatory medication or strong painkillers. In November 2005 her right ankle began showing signs that it, too, had become arthritic and by the new year, Vine was at her GP in Hackney, East London.

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Acupuncture relieves headaches and migraines

Migraine Action - Acupuncture in the news

Posted 28/01/09

New research into the benefits of acupuncture has been featured in many newspaper articles, on GMTV and national TV news programmes over the past couple of days.

A review of 33 trials, involving nearly 7,000 people, showed that patients who underwent the alternative therapy did experience relief from headaches and migraines

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Acupuncture is a 'valuable treatment' for people who suffer from headaches and migraines.

Acupuncture for headache - a review, published by The Prince’s Foundation for Integrated Health, 1/3/09.

Dr Adrian White is a Clinical Research Fellow at Peninsula Medical School. In this article, he summarises the findings of recent research on acupuncture for different types of headaches and migraines.

Headaches are common - in fact, the most common symptom experienced by the human race. There are various causes of headache, and of course careful conventional diagnosis is necessary in case the headache arises from some dangerous disorder - in which case acupuncture is not appropriate.

Most headaches fall into two general categories - tension type headache and migraine. These problems can persist for years. The two types of headache are clearly different, and most research investigates one or other type. In individual patients, however, it may be difficult to decide which type they have, and indeed some people may have both types together.

Acupuncture is widely used as a prevention for both types of headache, and generally involves a course of treatment sometimes with continuing top up appointments.

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Acupuncture can help to raise success rate of IVF

Acupuncture ‘helps women have babies’ Chinese treatment raises success rate of IVF
Denis Campbell, Health Correspondent The Observer, Sunday 21 September 2008

Women undergoing fertility treatment are far more likely to successfully give birth if they also have acupuncture, a major scientific study has concluded.

The research found that women suffering with fertility problems who underwent the ancient Chinese treatment increased their chance of having a baby from one in five to one in three. Acupuncture involves inserting extremely fine needles into specific points on the body, along qi energy channels, to stimulate the body’s own healing system.

The finding will offer hope to the 33,000 women a year who undertake IVF treatment, many of whom are willing to make any change to their lifestyle or health routine that might increase their chances of becoming a mother.

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Millions of people who suffer from low back pain are to be given the right to ask for acupuncture on the NHS.

GPs will be told to offer their patients the traditional Chinese practice, as well as other treatments like osteopathy and chiropracty, as an alternative to conventional remedies like exercise….

Although some individual GPs currently refer patients for complementary treatments, the recommendation constitutes the first time the rationing body has encouraged its use. Its draft guidance says anyone whose pain persists for more than six weeks should be given a choice of several treatments, because the evidence about which works best is so uncertain…

Paul Robin, chairman of the Acupuncture Society, a professional body representing practitioners, said the therapy worked “fantastically well” in relieving back pain.

Read the full article and some of the controversy involved on the Telegraph website - NHS to promote acupuncture for back pain.

Acupuncture may help with physical emotional symptoms of IBS

British Acupuncture Council Factsheet on IBS by ARRC (Acupuncture Research Resource Centre).

The cause of IBS is unclear, but it appears that sensory nerves in the bowel are hypersensitive in people with IBS and may overreact when the bowel wall stretches. Intestinal muscles can be hypo- or hyperactive, causing pain, cramping, flatulence, sudden bouts of diarrhea, and / or constipation. The symptoms are usually triggered by stress or eating. Systematic reviews of the research literature suggest that conventional medications are of limited benefit in IBS (Akehurst et al, 2001).

Research has shown that acupuncture treatment may benefit IBS symptoms by:

- Providing pain relief (Pomeranz, 1987).
- Regulating the motility of the digestive tract (Chen et al, 2008).
- Raising the sensory threshold of the gut (Xing et al, 2004). A lowered threshold to bowel pain and distention are hallmarks of IBS.
- Increasing parasympathetic tone (Schneider et al, 2007).
- Reducing anxiety and depression (Samuels et al, 2008).

Read the full article on recent acupuncture research for IBS -British Acupuncture Council Factsheet on IBS by ARRC (Acupuncture Research Resource Centre).

Studies show that acupuncture can increase the production of seratonin in people with depression.

British Acupuncture Council Factsheet on Depression by ARRC (Acupuncture Research Resource Centre).

Depression is likely to result from a combination of genetic, biochemical, environmental, and psychological factors. It may be triggered by stressful events, such as bereavement, illness, relationship problems or financial difficulties.

Research has shown that acupuncture treatment can help ameliorate the symptoms of depression. In general, acupuncture is believed to stimulate the nervous system and cause the release of neurochemical messenger molecules. The resulting biochemical changes influence the body’s homeostatic mechanisms, thus promoting physical and emotional wellbeing.

Studies indicate that acupuncture can have a specific positive effect on depression by altering the brain’s mood chemistry, increasing production of serotonin (Sprott et al, 1998) and endorphins (Han, 1986). Acupuncture may also benefit depression by acting through other neurochemical pathways, including those involving dopamine (Scott et al, 1997), noradrenaline (Han, 1986), cortisol (Han et al, 2004) and neuropeptide Y (Pohl & Nordin, 2002).

Stimulation of certain acupuncture points has been shown to affect areas of the brain that are known to reduce sensitivity to pain and stress, as well as promoting relaxation and deactivating the ‘analytical’ brain which is responsible for anxiety and worry (Wu et al, 1999).

Read the full article on recent acupuncture research for depression -British Acupuncture Council Factsheet on Depression by ARRC (Acupuncture Research Resource Centre).

Injured athletes who receive acupuncture are often able to return to training more quickly.

British Acupuncture Council Factsheet on Sports Injuries by ARRC (Acupuncture Research Resource Centre).

Injured athletes who receive acupuncture are often able to return to training more quickly than would otherwise be possible, and the treatment is therefore used by top sports people and athletes, including the British Rugby team, many Premiership football teams and the British Olympic team, to treat musculoskeletal problems. Since keeping the body in balance promotes more efficient training, acupuncture is also increasingly being used to enhance athletic performance.

Research has shown that acupuncture treatment can promote resolution of injuries by:

- providing pain relief (Pomeranz, 1987).

- increasing local microcirculation (Komori et al, 2009) which aids dispersal of swelling and bruising.

- suppression of the peripheral inflammatory response (Kim et al, 2008) and other anti-inflammatory mechanisms (Kavoussi & Ross, 2007, Zijlstra et al , 2003).

- breaking down scar tissue - controlled microtrauma causes a local inflammatory response, which initiates reabsorption of inappropriate fibrosis or excessive scar tissue and facilitates a cascade of healing activities resulting in remodeling of affected soft tissue structures.

- promoting faster recovery after training sessions (Pan & Pan, 2007).

Read the full article on recent acupuncture research for sports injuries -British Acupuncture Council Factsheet on Sports Injuries by ARRC (Acupuncture Research Resource Centre).

Scientists find acupuncture can help to relieve chronic back pain

The Times May 12, 2009, by Sam Lister, Health Editor.

Using acupuncture to treat chronic back pain is more effective than standard treatments alone, a leading scientific study has found.

Trials involving 638 back pain sufferers have suggested that acupuncture is successful in relieving discomfort, although how it works remains unclear. A “fake” version also produced results, indicating that belief in the therapy may have played a key role in its success.

In the project, known as Spine (stimulating points to investigate needling efficacy), patients were divided into groups to receive standard care alone, with one of two variants of genuine acupuncture or with a placebo.

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