LA Times article

[Guest guest]

I know CHA is about herbs but this is a very cool article from the Monday LA

Times...

 

 

Acupuncture gains respect

 

For researchers, the question is not only whether the ancient technique works,

but also

how.

 

 

The ancient Chinese technique of sticking needles into the skin to relieve pain,

nausea and

many other ills can indeed make people feel better — more mellow and more

energized.

 

Many researchers used to think this lovely state was mostly due to the placebo

effect. But

a growing body of evidence — brain scans, ultrasound and other techniques —

shows that

acupuncture triggers direct, measurable effects on the body, including perhaps,

activation

of precisely the regions of the brain that would be predicted by ancient Chinese

theory.

 

" The quality and amount of research being conducted now on acupuncture is

improving

greatly, " said Peter Wayne, director of research at the New England School of

Acupuncture.

The school has received $3.2 million in federal grants to study acupuncture on

women

undergoing chemotherapy for ovarian cancer, on teenagers with endometriosis, and

on the

accuracy of acupuncturists in diagnosing disease.

 

At UC Irvine, researchers have shown that when a needle is placed in a point on

the side of

the foot that Chinese theorists associate with vision, sure enough, the visual

cortex in the

brain " lights up " on fMRI, or functional magnetic resonance imaging scans,

though the

cause and effect are not totally clear.

 

Neuroscientist Seung-Schik Yoo at Brigham and Women's Hospital has shown that

when a

needle is placed in a point called pericardium 6 on the wrist, known in Chinese

medicine

as a sensitive point for nausea, the part of the brain that controls the

vestibular system

(which affects balance and nausea) lights up on scans.

 

Acupuncture has been used so far by 8.2 million Americans, according to the

National

Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, a government agency. Some

insurers

now pay for acupuncture, which is considered extremely safe.

 

More than 40 clinical trials have shown that acupuncture reduces nausea

following

chemotherapy or surgery, said Ted Kaptchuk, an assistant professor of medicine

at

Harvard Medical School who is also a doctor of Chinese medicine.

 

In one of the best studies, Dr. Tong J. Gan, director of clinical research in

anesthesiology

at Duke University Medical Center, showed last year that acupuncture on the

wrist point

was " as good as giving ondansetron, " an anti-nausea drug, for postoperative

nausea and

vomiting.

 

And a recent randomized, controlled study of 570 people with osteoarthritis of

the knee

showed that real acupuncture, as opposed to a fake form used as a control,

reduced pain

and increased function by about 30%.

 

" This is roughly the same effect size " as with ibuprofen-type drugs, said Dr.

Brian Berman,

the study leader and director of the Center for Integrative Medicine at the

University of

Maryland School of Medicine. At the moment, Berman recommends that patients use

acupuncture with, not instead of, pain medications, though it may help reduce

the amount

of medication needed.

 

Perhaps the most intriguing scientific question is not whether acupuncture

works, but

how. In acupuncture theory, there are 360 major points in the skin that lie

along the 12

major channels, or meridians, in the body, through which the qi flows.

(Pronounced " chee, "

qi is the Chinese term for vital energy.)

 

In Western terms, the acupuncture points correspond to areas of decreased

electrical

resistance on the skin. Since the 1970s, Western researchers have known that one

of the

ways acupuncture works is by releasing endorphins, the body's natural

painkillers.

 

In a series of classic experiments, researchers hooked together the circulatory

systems of

two animals, but performed acupuncture on only one. Both animals showed evidence

of

less pain.

 

Acupuncture seems to calm precisely the part of the brain that controls the

emotional

response to pain, said Dr. Kathleen K. S. Hui, a neuroscientist at the Martinos

Center for

Biomedical Imaging at Massachusetts General Hospital, which has a federal grant

to study

acupuncture's effects on the brain. Her brain scan studies show decreased

activation in

deeper brain structures in the limbic system, which governs emotions and other

physiological functions.

 

Researchers have also shown that acupuncture boosts levels of serotonin, which

is often

deficient in people with depression, and lowers levels of norepinephrine and

dopamine,

which are often elevated in sufferers of stress and pain.

 

Precisely how signals travel from acupuncture points to the brain is still a

matter of some

debate. Most researchers, Hui among them, believe that electrical signals travel

along

nerve tracts that branch off from the brain stem to the limbic system. Others,

like Dr.

Helene Langevin, a neurologist at the University of Vermont College of Medicine,

thinks

signals may also pass along the 12 major acupuncture meridians that run through

the

body.

 

For years, Western scientists doubted the existence of these meridians. But in a

series of

studies using ultrasound, Langevin has found evidence that the meridians lie

along the

sheets of connective tissue that surround organs. By analyzing meridians in the

arm of a

cadaver, Langevin said she discovered " that 80% of the acupuncture points

coincided to

where the major connective tissue plane was. We also did a statistical analysis

— this was

not due to chance. "

 

The bottom line? At long last, Western scientists are beginning to show, by

their own

standards, just what Chinese acupuncturists have been saying for millenniums:

That the

effects of acupuncture are real. And that, at least for certain problems and to

some

degree, acupuncture can help relieve pain and suffering.