Acupuncture

Acupuncture is a component of Traditional Chinese Medicine that dates back over 2,000 years and involves the insertion of small needles at specific points in the body. The use of acupuncture is based on the theory that there are patterns of energy flow through the body (known as Qi – pronounced “chee”), and that disease states are due to impaired flow of this energy. The use of acupuncture is believed to improve disease states and symptoms by restoring the normal flow of Qi.
There is controversy regarding the efficacy of acupuncture for specific conditions. Some studies and reviews have concluded that acupuncture is effective for: post-operative and chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting post-operative dental pain other pain syndromes including menstrual cramps, tennis elbow, fibromyalgia, and back pain.

However, a recent review of systematic reviews re-examined prior evidence, and set a “higher bar” for establishing efficacy of acupuncture (requiring at least 4 randomized controlled trials with valid outcome measures and a total of at least 200 patients). This study concluded that there is currently no robust evidence that acupuncture works for any indication. ·

Acupuncture needle

A recent, large-scale, high-quality randomized controlled trial in 1162 patients with chronic low back pain found that both acupuncture and a “sham” or fake acupuncture led to a much larger percentage of patients improving compared with standard treatment (47.6% of patients with “real acupuncture” and 44.2% of patients with “sham acupuncture” improved compared to only 27.4% of patients in the conventional therapy group).

Similarly, a study in 1007 patients with osteoarthritis of the knee found that both acupuncture and sham acupuncture led to higher success rates than conventional therapy (53.1% success with acupuncture, 51.0% with sham acupuncture, and 29.1% with conventional therapy). Conventional therapy refers to the use of anti-inflammatory pain medicines.

Acupuncture is almost certainly effective for back pain, knee pain from osteoarthritis, and probably for other syndromes of chronic pain. The mechanism of this benefit (and whether it is a placebo effect or a physiological effect of the needle placement) is unknown.

Cigarette: Although pooled estimates suggest possible short-term effects there is no consistent, bias-free evidence that acupuncture, have a sustained benefit on smoking cessation for six months or more.

Main source: Dr Stephen Bent University of California, San Francisco. 2008
Additional source: Acupuncture for smoking cessation. White AR1, Rampes H, Ernst E. 2011. Cochrane database