Can we talk about acupuncture?

Great Debates
81

[QUOTE=WhyNot]
As DrDeth’s signature reads: “I am not a real Doctor”

However, he’s an excellent finder of studies and things, and I really respect him, and generally respect his interpretation of those studies. We just happen to disagree on this topic.QUOTE]

Oh, don’t get me wrong. Just because I’m arguing with DrDeth doesn’t mean I don’t respect him. Cleary he has put a lot of thought into this and I respect that. From my perspective, this is a discussion about acupuncture, not how we feel about other posters. At this point, I’m kind of tired of the discussion, though, and am willing to agree to disagree about most things. I mean, the information is all there for people to see and look into further if they want to. Everybody has access to all the facts.

82

Thank you. Dudes, I know WhyNot is not lying- she may not be a medical expert but she’s not a liar, either.

But my WAG is that the foot wasn’t actually necrotic before the treatments. I have no idea of whether acupuncture helped or whether it was coincidence.

Acupuncture seems to help some dudes for some things. No one knows why, other than the fact the Traditional Explanation is wrong. (Needles have been inserted into “wrong” locations and the patients still reported they were helped.)

83

DrDeth, I think you summed up exactly my thoughts on all those subjects. I suppose this is one of those instances in which I think, “and we were disagreeing… why??”

And again, I’ve had acupuncture for my allergies, I don’t believe in the traditional explanation of why it worked, but it did produce temporary (but very welcome!) results, and I have no clue why it did.

84

Well, I’m glad that’s over. Yay!
I feel like I learned a lot, so I’m pretty happy about the whole thing…

85

Acupuncture doesn’t stand up to the scrutiny of Western medicine. Its results can’t be verified in any sort of objective way, and the premise it’s based on is fatally wrong. That doesn’t mean that acupuncture does nothing, though. It certainly could do something, and “something” may even be what it claims (relieve pain and cure some diseases), but without knowing how it does it, why it does it, or in when it does it, the treatment can’t be considered legitimate by any sort of Western standard.

Personally, I’ll be sticking with the Western medicine, where I can research a particular treatment to see exactly how and why it works. I’m not interested in being stabbed (even gently!) by someone who’s knowledge of their craft goes as deep as “releasing the chi” based on a picture of my insides that isn’t even slightly correct. Sure, it might work and it might not, and plenty of people have seen pretty amazing things from it, but until people can demonstrate objectively under peer scrutiny that they can predict what the treatment will even do, I’m not comfortable having it done.

86

Haunted

Well, on re-reading my last post, I can see where you get the bit about me accepting only the things that match my preconceptions of acupuncture. Unfortunately there is probably some truth in that. OTOH, if acupuncture were truly effective, I would be overwhelmed by the evidence and we wouldn’t even be having this conversation.

Given its controversial nature and the generally modest level of effects shown, I just don’t see the need for acupuncture. I want something for my ailments that comes with a much more ringing endorsement by the medical establishment. Take pain relief for example. I can talk to any doctor on the planet and he’ll swear that morphine will relieve pain in almost all cases and in almost all people. As far as I can tell, acupuncture is a great deal more “iffy” in what it treats.

Now, speaking of Asian medicine, never let it be said that I disbelieve all of it automatically. I’m off to Thailand in a couple of hours for some Asian medicine I truly believe in; cold beer, lovely women, and a nice beach. S

All the best

Testy

87

Total hijack.

I remember your situation from prior discussions on the board. Last I had heard the situation was dire, but not resolved. I’m so sorry to hear about your loss.

  • Tamerlane
88

Kind of like getting a tattoo. Some people seem to get addicted to getting them, and experience some sort of catharsis getting repeatedly stuck with the needle.

89

Thank you for that thoughtful reply, Testy. I hope you have a great time on your trip. Have one for me.

90

My roommate, who has a BS in cognitive psychology with a specialization in neuroscience works in a lab that has one of the largest NIH grants to do acupuncture research in the US. Because of the amount of research done here, the UCI medical school teaches acupuncture to their MDs. In the lab in which he works, research is first done with cats and then replicated with humans. With cats, they try and identify the specific neuropath ways that are effected by acupuncture. They have found that acupuncture can attenuate hypertension through distinct neuropath ways. They can even identify the neurotransmitters involved. They know it works in both cats and humans, they just don’t know all the details.

My roommate says that there is science based acupuncture and folk based acupuncture. You can see the type of research he does here.

91

It’s sort of interesting the cultural chauvinism involved in the skepticism of acupuncture. Not to say that I am trying to appeal to the authority of tradition, but the idea that billions of Chinese are merely dupes doesn’t really make much sense to me. I think it’s amazing that this ancient medical system does do some good for people, and the anecdotal evidence certainly does overwhelm me. I am glad to see that a lot of research like that being done by kimera’s roommate is coming down the pipe.

92

I do think it’s good that research is being done. However, I’m the kind of person who generally wants to have positive results in from research before I try a treatment (although I’m sure I’d make an exception if I was terminally ill or had nothing to lose).

I think it’s interesting that you raise the issue of cultural chauvinism though. I think I could make a good case that many people who like Ancient Chinese Medicine[sup]TM[/sup] are actually showing cultural chauvinism against ancient Western Medicine. I think some people might attracted to exotic belief systems just because they’re different than what they’re familiar with.

Why does acupuncture get a bonus marks because it’s been around for hundreds or thousands of years, but people would scoff at you if you still believed in things Western society believed for just as long? (e.g. treatment to restore the balance of your “humors”, bloodletting/leeches for almost any condition, making sacrifices (ancient Greece), going on a pilgrimage (Medieval period), etc…)

93

Waenara Results. Acupuncture yields results, as opposed to leaching and such. The fact that acupuncture is recognized as a valid treatment everywhere in the world, but everyone has abandoned the medieval western treatments.

As far as the cultural chauvinism of people that like Chinese Medicine. I think you’re making a bit of an assumption there. The assumption is that people who are into Chinese medicine have a problem with western medicine. I think both are valid methods of treatment, and am far more interested in cross-platform applications so to speak. Chinese medicine has a lot more to say about wellness than Western medicine which focuses on fixing sick people more than on improving healthy ones.

For most of the twentieth century people scoffed at Yoga as well, now Yoga is a standard part of American culture. There are few things more American than Soccer Moms at Yoga while their kids are at practice.

One of the things that interests me the most about China is that in it’s ascendancy I think the valuable parts of its culture will see a lot more validity. The research being done will help to legitimize it to the benefit of all mankind, and will improve western medicine by orders of magnitude, just as western medicine improved the lives of Asians when it was introduced.

I’m studying to be a massage therapist, and one of the most interesting things about my program is that I am being taught both western and eastern systems. Western for Swedish Massage, and Eastern for Shiatsu.

Something that’s interesting is about the Chinese control cycle. In Chinese medicine there is a pentagram of elements. Water, Wood, Fire, Earth, and Metal. It goes around in a circle each one giving birth to the next in a cycle in the order in which I wrote it. Now, another interesting aspect of it is if you draw a pentacle into the circular generation cycle, you get the control cycle. Basically each step controls the one two steps after it. Water controls fire for, fire controls metal, etc… Now Kidney is the Yin organ of Water, and Heart is the Yin organ of Fire. Water controls fire, so Kidney controls the Heart. In terms of endocrine function the kidney is related to the adrenals, which release adrenaline and noradrenaline, which are related to the sympathetic nervous response, ie fight/flight. The result is an increased heart rate. These are released by the Adrenal Medulla

Blood Pressure is related to the amount of water in the system. Aldosterone which is released by the Adrenal Cortex, makes a person thirsty. Atrial Natriuretic Peptide which is released by the heart makes a person pee so that they release water. The Kidney is part of the urinary system that expels that water. So the kidney does in fact play a role in controlling the heart.

There are lots of things about Chinese medicine that are completely supportable by western medical terminology, this is one of the few I can point out because I sort of understand how it works. My neurology teacher would point out correspondences between eastern and western a lot of the time, but being that I was struggling through neurology it didn’t stick with me that well.

As for pilgrimages, they still serve a purpose in the modern day that is as valid as it ever was. Read about Malcolm X’s experience after he went on the Hajj, and how his whole outlook changed from it.

94

As this thread indicates, it is far from universally accepted that acupuncture works. It’s good that research is being done.

Also, medieval western treatments were abandoned because modern medicine came along - a system which clearly works. You take antibiotics, your bacterial infection is gone. Period. Hard to argue with results.

That’s why I specifically prefaced my statement as saying that some people might believe that. Sure, many people take the best of both worlds. But, I also have personally talked to many people who reject much of Western medicine in favor of alternative medicine. These are the (minority) of people who rail against the “medical establishment” and denigrate “allopathic” medicine, who are convinced doctors are withholding cures so they can make more money (as if alternative medicine practitioners work for free!), who really think that alternative medicine should be used instead of western medicine, etc…

Me, I figure medicine is just medicine. Once/if alternative medicine is proven to be effective, it will eventually be absorbed into “medicine” as a whole.

Suffice it to say that any research I’ve seen that shows acupuncture might be useful also says that the Chinese way of explaining how acupuncture works is incorrect. Meridians/Qi/etc… do not correspond to actual anatomy, misplaced acupuncture pins still “work”, etc…

Also, I think that if you stretch any analogy too far and massage your definitions, you can find many coincidences/correlations. Many body systems are interdependent and affect each other. I think that anyone could come up with several ways each organ/gland/whatever can affect other body parts. It doesn’t mean that the traditional Chinese explanation is correct.

I’m not saying pilgrimages aren’t valuable spiritually. But in Medieval times they thought going on pilgrimage would cure your disease. I don’t think you mean to say that traveling to Jerusalem will cure syphilis/gout/whatever?

95

Waenara No one that actually knows anything about Chinese Medicine and Anatomy would ever claim that the meridians correspond physically to the organs they are related to. Misplaced pins do not still work, and can actually hurt people. You can leave an acupuncturist worse than you went in.

I think one problem is that you’re not really interested in actually opening your mind to it. I show you an example of a correspondence that they got right and you come back with a chiding about ‘stretching correspondences’. I don’t see what’s so hard about accepting that maybe just maybe the Chinese figured out something about health back in the day.

In my opinion partisan bickering is mostly ridiculous. It becomes more about the argument than it does about whether or not what you are saying is true. That fits in with your ‘medicine is medicine’ remark.

The point is that all of those western styles were abandoned as medicine got better. In China and all over the world (I never wrote the word universal), acupuncture is practiced and accepted as having validity even with modern medicine in existance.

Anyone who rejects western medicine is a fool in my opinion. Anyone who makes grand statements about placebo effects about acupuncture is similarly a fool, but people who are skeptical of acupuncture are right to be so. The problem though, is that the so-called skeptical types often discount people’s experiences. There are a lot of quack western doctors out there too.

Personally, I believe in Chi, I don’t find the fact that westerners can’t measure it with a fancy gadget as compelling evidence that it’s nonsense. I hope that Eastern and Western thought on the subject becomes more aligned. It will be beneficial.

The biggest critique that I have with Western Medicine is its participation in the Western Progressive thought paradigm that tells us that all ancient stuff is primitive and inferior to what is modern. It’s always like it’s a competition. As for Doctor’s making a profit from cures for things, the Pharmaceutical companies most certainly do that. Comparing that to acupuncturists charging for a visit is pretty tenuous. There just is no analogous behavior. There are no multinational corporations fixing prices in different markets for the newest pin configuration.

96

Tamarlane

Thank you for your kind thoughts and words. She fought hard and kept it up long after I would have given-up in despair. She passed away in December and it was horrible, she was asphyxiated by the tumors. After 22 years of marriage I still turn around expecting to see her.

That whole six-year episode put a bad taste in my mouth over traditional medicine. After the Western docs gave up she tried acupuncture, herbal remedies, meditation, prayer, and many other things, none of which helped unless you count the feeling that we were “doing something” which I suppose is beneficial. Stage IV-B thymic tumors are effectively incurable regardless of where your medicine comes from. The western docs managed to keep her going for six years with multiple surgeries and chemo treatments plus radiation, the rest did nothing at all. At least the Western docs were honest with me. Since her death, I’ve regarded most Asian/traditional “healers” as scam artists that prey on the ill and the dying, extracting hard-earned money for worthless herbs and techniques.

Regards

Testy

97

Testy,
I’m so sorry about what happened to your wife. I can understand why you feel the way you do about alternative medicine.

I also wanted to let you know that I was really impressed by your honesty when you replied to my comment about you preferring to accept conclusions that confirm your beliefs. So I wanted to let you know, that even as I wrote that comment, I was thinking, “I’ve done the same thing.” At times, I have focused on facts or conclusions that confirm my beliefs or opinions while giving less consideration to ones that don’t. I think, probably, most of us have. But, you took my comment with a lot of grace and actually thought about what I said and I think that’s really cool, especially considering what you have been through recently. It’s downright inspiring. Thank you for setting a good example for me.

98

I’ve been wondering about something. Have all the techniques commonly used in Western medicine been rigorously tested using randomized, double-blind studies? Let’s be honest, here. If it’s true that only a randomized double-blind, placebo-controlled study can prove that a treatment works, shouldn’t we admit that a lot of modern Western medicine doesn’t pass the test?

Is it possible to design a true double-blind study for a treatment like acupuncture or chiropractic? If not, then it’s easy to sit back and say, “Doesn’t work. No proof.”

Is it possible to design a true double-blind study for a treatment like surgery or physical therapy? Hmmm.

Why are we demanding different types of proof for similar techniques?

99

Some things are harder to double-blind than others, and this has been one of the problems with testing acupuncture. A true test has to include controls, but it’s pretty obvious to a patient if he has needles stuck in him or not. And if you put needles on “meridians” for one group but at random locations for others, the person doing the sticking knows which group the patient is in, so it’s not double-blinded.

Dunno about surgery – it might be unethical to cut off the hands of 50 people, then reattach half of them to see what develops – but certainly all modern drugs are tested extensively before they are allowed on the market by the FDA. Simply put, it’s petri dish, animals, then humans. Not only does a drug have to pass the human tests for efficacy, it has to exhibit tolerable side effects as well.

Note that there is a thing called triple-blinding (see article above), where even the statistician doesn’t know what the data means until all analysis is finished.

100

As an addendum to my previous post…we aren’t. However, with respect to the “extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof” mantra, since acupuncture’s basis theory of meridians doesn’t hold up under any scientific scrutinty whatsoever, it qualifies an an extraordinary claim, and may require more rigorous proof. In contrast, if a drug’s action in a petri dish and animal subjects is X, it is a likely expectation for it to do X in humans as well. And if it is known that a medical condition is caused by a lack of a certain vitamin, then it would not be a stretch to suggest that adding that vitamin to a person’s diet would reverse the condition. It’s a much greater stretch to suggest that a pin in my left toe’s meridian would alter my hearing because of someone’s 4000-year old postulate.

Note that herbal and homeopathic remedies do not need to undergo scientific testing under current US laws before being allowed on the market. They also do not have to meet any standards for composition, strength or content.