I’m supprised that Cecil didn’t mention any
of the research that has shown that
acupuncture causes the body to release
endorphins. The June, 1999 American Journal
of Physiology described a study where
acupuncture reduced the blood pressure of 12
cats whose blood pressure was previously
increased through artificial means. After
the researchers gave the cats the drug
naloxone, which blocks endorphin nerve cells,
acupuncture had no effect.
Here is the column Acupuncture
“You CAN’T be evil. 'Cos no matter how many ‘bad’ things you do on purpose,
you MUST be doing it because you think it’s the right thing to do.”
For what it’s worth my own experience with acupuncture is as follows:
From the age of ~7 to 13 I was subject to serious migraines at the rate of 1 to 2 per month. Most migraines ended only after I threw up, but would disappear quickly thereafter. Aspirin would work only if I took it as soon as I could feel that a migraine might be coming on; once the migraine started it was too late. Many of the migraines were clearly connected to exposure to bright sunlight.
Around age 13 my mother took me to an acupuncturist recommended by her friend. This friend also, at various times, has believed wholeheartedly in homeopathy and psychic surgery. My mother was neither a believer nor a skeptic - her attitude could best be described as “open-minded.” My father named the woman a complete flake, but at the time I was not aware he had done so, and indeed that may have come later. I neither believed nor strongly disbelieved that acupuncture could solve my particular woes.
The acupuncture session, held in a small motel room, was not faith-inspiring. I don’t remember thinking that it was definitely a waste of time, neither do I remember leaving with any hope of a change.
Over the next six months I had perhaps three migraines. Over the subsequent six months, one.
By the time I was ~20 I was having one migraine every 2 to 3 years. Now in my mid-30s, I cannot remember the last time I had a “real” migraine (one that did not respond to medication and could not be relieved short of vomiting).
So: Did acupuncture cure me?
I have to say it is impossible to determine. Perhaps I was coincidentally at an age where I would have naturally experienced a decrease in frequency of episodes, even without intervention. (I say perhaps, but the fact remains that the change in frequency was immediately apparent, and that is NOT a conclusion I reached ‘looking back.’.) Perhaps there was some other important change of which I remain unaware (diet, etc.).
Around that time I did start taking atropine eyedrops, and while they worked to dilate the pupil and would thus seem to be likely to have worsened my sensitivity to the sun, perhaps they instead improved whatever was triggering my migraines.
Or perhaps I am particularly suggestible. I did not leave with any perceptible hope of a cure, but my reduction in symptoms does broadly follow what the doctor said would likely happen - he warned that I would probably not see an immediate sessation of episodes, but over time should see great improvement.
In my experience, it could be that acupuncture works for some things - it seemed to work for me. (I have since been told by a doctor at my HMO that acupuncture, while ‘unproven at best in most areas, does seem to have a good record with migraines’ and one other problem I didn’t remember. I know - that’s a pretty impressive cite, but what’re ya gonna do? Maybe someone else can come up with something regarding specifically acupuncture and migraines.)
I would observe that one of the potential problems with lumping many studies into one catch-all result (“Thirty years of active acupuncture research have failed to
unequivocally demonstrate its clinical efficacy,”) is simply that, while acupuncture might work well for a handful of complaints in limited circumstances, such a discovery could well be drowned by the flood of studies showing it to work no better than any other magic when applied to every complaint under the sun.
It could also be that the studies mentioned above are ambiguous - or directly disproving - with regard to headaches and that’s the information that got cut while Cecil was trying to stay within the 600 word limit.
I can only say, if you have migraines, you might want to look into acupuncture. Even if it is the placebo effect, relief is relief is relief.
OK, here comes your basic uninformed post, designed to get the SDMB juices flowing. I don’t expect acupuncture to get the same response as homeopathy did, but I’m sure there’s lots to discuss.
I once saw a TV show once that claimed that accupressure is a proven technique (questionable, I know), and that accupuncture is just a subset of accupressure. What they said was that the needles cause pinpoint (pun intended) swelling, which exerts sustained pressure on specific nerves.
So, what does the board think of that theory?
“If you prick me, do I not…leak?” --Lt. Commander Data
Df: Regarding your statement that relief is relief is relief, even if it is only the placebo effect – please see my message in the other thread related to this column:
http://boards.straightdope.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/000592.html
Bassackwards!
Acupressure is a variant on acupuncture, not the other way around. Personally, I think the lack of evidence comes from three factors:
One is as you say--it's claimed to deal with far more than it actually deals with. Personally, I suspect it also doesn't deal with all causes of a condition.
Second is that from what evidence I have seen, a fair number, if not a majority, of acupuncturists in this country are not qualified. If you want to get a license in Nevada, you need to be trained in the orient--there is no US school they consider acceptable. Many states have far less strict laws, and in fact the two states we lived in before Nevada would not license my wife--they weren't interested in training that wasn't easy to verify. (Note that at least one of them seems to have changed it's rules since.)
Finally, there comes the difficulty of doing the research. My wife at least has no training at all in how to do scientific research. A double-blind study is almost impossible, anyway--anyone trained to handle the needles is also going to know where they belong.It’s not necessarily that there’s “difficulty” in doing research (though you do point out a legitimate problem), but that there is an opposition to doing proper scientific studies in the acupuncture field.
As an example, when the NIH’s Office of Alternative Medicine put out its sham conclusion to a three-day conference on acupuncture, the Washington Post (one of the few news organizations to take a closer look rather than just printing a version of the press release) noted that participants cheered against real medicine and were pleased to hear criticism of proper scientific testing methods.
You can read more about some of the problems at: http://www.reall.org/newsletter/v05/n11/reallity-check.html
Acupuncture works. I speak from first hand experience. Forget about science and research and all that other stuff. Traditionally, scientists seem to be the last to accept new ideas. They seem to feel that if it can’t be quantified, mesaured, verified, or qualified, then it can’t be true. How many times in history have we seen that this approach has been shown to be in error? Many times. This is one.
We’re dying to see your research.
Yes, that’s pretty much it. If something has an effect, then there is a way to measure that effect. It might not be easy to do, but if something has an effect, then there is a way to measure it. If you try to measure it but don’t find anything there, then science becomes skeptical. If you have a plausible theory for how it might work, then scientists will still look for it. However, if you have no plausible theory combined with no results, then it won’t be believed.
Name one, just one. If you’re going to demonstrate that the scientific method is in error, we all would like to hear about it.
Beanman’s post was such a stereotypical anti-skeptic/anti-scientist attack that I’m tempted to use the “t” word to describe him…
Dave, keep in mind ‘Quackwatch’ is run by a retired psychiatrist. He’s speaking out of his depth. Medicine is a highly specialized field, more so than it was many years ago when Dr. Barrett received his training.
He’s built a career based entirely on debunking. The old saying “if you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail” applies. If Dr. Barrett believes that the studies are bad - fine, claim the studies are bad, and say there should be good studies made. I agree.
I don’t agree with claiming that poor studies combined with a lack of understanding of how acupuncture works (if it does) must lead to the conclusion that it is bunk. Remember, we didn’t know how aspirin worked for 50 years.
LurkerS, who has an honest-to-God masters degree in science
LurkerS said:
How do you know? Just because he worked as a psychiatrist, does that mean he never studied anything else?
Phil Klass didn’t get a degree in “Ufology,” does that mean he shouldn’t write about UFO and alien abduction nonsense? Or should we take into account the vast amount of time he has spent examining the field? I’m not trying to go off on a UFO tangent, just pointing out that one’s primary area of employment may not describe his sum total of knowledge in the world.
Yup, but you know what? Properly-designed scientific studies are pretty similar across specialities…
Funny, I thought you just said he was a psychiatrist. Which is it?
No, the old saying, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” applies.
Which studies should he point to in saying they are the “good” ones? I sure haven’t seen 'em.
Oh, give me a break. The fact is that studies showed that aspirin did indeed work. The same thing has not been shown with acupuncture, and they’ve had a lot more than 50 years.
Well whoop-de-doo for you. What’s that supposed to show?
It's not that science refuses to accept things that can't be measured, but that all too many scientists think they know enough that if they can't measure it, it can't be.
The first step in investigating anything sufficiently new is to figure out how to measure it. Unfortunately, our understanding of the body is not sufficient to do a very good job of measuring whatever is going on in acupuncture.
I've seen various articles about various instruments showing some connection between an acupuncture point and whatever it's supposed to be related to--never with the slightest idea of how it could come about, yet things that are very hard to call nonsense. (One that comes to mind at the moment is stimulation of an eye-related point--and seeing a reaction in the activity level in the visual cortex. Yet the point is far from the eyes and no neural pathway explains this.)[quote]
Originally posted by CurtC:
**
The problem with this is that in some cases, a connection that we can't yet measure has been demonstrated. I'm not talking about in treatment, which obviously has the possibility of placebo effects (and almost certainly at least some of acupuncture is placebo effects--it has never been subjected to testing to remove placebo effects.). Personally, when a retired scientist or doctor or other such learned professional says something can't be, I don't put much faith in it. All too many such individuals have fallen into the trap of thinking they at least know where the boundaries of knowledge in the field are, and thus declare anything outside that impossible.
I'm sure you've seen quotes from highly respected people saying various things were impossible not long before (or even slightly after!--news lag) they have been demonstrated to be possible. A couple that come to mind are one guy saying heavier-than-air flight was impossible--days before the Wright brothers flew. Another, in the 30's, said that the notion of getting power from the splitting of the atom was ludicrious.Loren said:
I don’t recall him saying it “can’t be.” I recall him saying there is no decent scientific evidence that it is. There is quite a difference, and it’s best to deal with what’s actually said, not straw men.
Also, I see you used the old “they laughed at the Wright brothers” argument. But don’t forget, they laughed at Bozo, too. Just being laughed at doesn’t automatically mean you’re right. It might just mean you’re being ridiculous.
Apparently not. His article discussing acupuncture was shallow. He even mentioned Falun Gong, and it’s repression in China. Why? Falun Gong has little to do with acupuncture (except being founded in the same country.) He misleads the reader into believing that the Chinese government banned it because they thought it was bunk, when it’s clear they banned it because they considered it a political threat. (See archives on Stratfor.com as a cite.)
Strawman argument.
Indeed. But a cardiologist, for instance, wouldn’t be able to pick up a paper analyzing the tensile strength of medieval Japanese sword steel and be able to tell you how scientifically accurate it was. Not without learning a little metallurgy first.
That’s what his degree is in. His resume, listed on his web site, doesn’t go into his reputation or experience in the psychiatric community. One wonders if he’s actually practiced it.
Besides which, psychiatry is the least scientific area of medicine. It’s been an area filled with all manner of quackery since it was founded. Famous psychiatrists include Dr. Rorschach, inventor of those famous ink blots that are supposed to diagnose your mental illness. Psychiatry also brought us electroshock therapy, the DSM-IV (which classifies almost everyone as having some sort of mental illness), and drugs as a near-universal form of therapy for whatever ails you.
I find it very amusing that Dr. Barrett has no section on the quackery history of psychiatry, and the questionable techniques still used today. Why not? Oh wait, that’s Western medicine… 
Have you checked medline, for starters? Or perhaps asked the medical schools who are teaching acupuncture, like UCLA, McMaster, and U. Virginia?
It was supposed to pre-empt this:
I think there’s a difference in our semantics. If something has been demonstrated, then it must have been measured. How else would you know the demonstration worked?
What I'm saying is that when a older respected scientist says something is impossible, that all too often they are wrong.