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Acupuncture - scam or legit?

Carrot Flower King said:
Which brings us back, yet again, to the lack of a biologically, anatomically, physiologically credible, coherent and evidence-based means of action for acupuncture...
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After-the-fact it has been speculated it works something like a TENS device. But of course that would require a proper anatomical connection which there is not.

I should point out, however, that referred pain is a well recognized phenomena. It is also consistent from patient to patient.
 
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New 82 yr old member here, and I've had some really good sessions of accupuncture on my OA and damaged body from hip replacement mess. If I had infinite money, I would be getting more sessions to help clean up the damage done to my body.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
I believe there was at least one very suggestible person who was able to have surgery with acupuncture anesthesia but this was not repeatable
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IIRC there was a famous Chinese case of heart(?) surgery carried out under acupuncture, however the patient, although conscious had been given copious injections of local anaesthetic around the surgical site making the reality very different from the deliberately created perception of the event.
 
I recently went for some physical therapy within a hospital/clinic organization (ie: not an individual practice). I was offered "dry needling" along with the traditional exercises. When I looked it up and how it compared to acupuncture, I was surprised to find that, in a health care system, only acupuncture required a medical license. Even if I bought their claim that dry needling was effective (which I don't), there was no way in hell that I would consent to a non-medically-licensed person plunging needles into me!

The exercises they taught me, on the other hand, were very effective!
 
Aaah, yes, "dry needling": the latest attempt to get a "not really acupuncture, but nudge, nudge, wink, wink" through the doors.

From what I've read, its practitioners avoid all the meridian and qi nonsense, which makes it even more of a theatrical placebo, without even bothering to come up with a facade of "theory" to cover its quivering, naked nonsensicallness.
 
Carrot Flower King said:
Aaah, yes, "dry needling": the latest attempt to get a "not really acupuncture, but nudge, nudge, wink, wink" through the doors.

From what I've read, its practitioners avoid all the meridian and qi nonsense, which makes it even more of a theatrical placebo, without even bothering to come up with a facade of "theory" to cover its quivering, naked nonsensicallness.
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Yes, I agree. Her claim was that it was supported by scientific studies. But in my research, the best I could find was "inconclusive", with others stating there was no difference from placebo. Fortunately, it was not mentioned again and we proceeded with normal PT.

"quivering, naked nonsensicalness" - Awesome! I'm stealing that. :)
 
I have to say that some of my former colleagues in various clinical disciplines had a poor grasp of "science" and "research": several arguments with team mates who struggled with the idea of research not just being "it's in a book"; big arguments with our tutor right back at the start of my nurse training about how heritable psychoses are, in which they claimed that one of the twin studies papers said something it didn't actually say and then became confused when I talked about some pretty basic stats (it was basic enough that I could understand it...). Things should be better than they are.
 
HHellpop said:
Yes, I agree. Her claim was that it was supported by scientific studies. But in my research, the best I could find was "inconclusive", with others stating there was no difference from placebo. Fortunately, it was not mentioned again and we proceeded with normal PT.

"quivering, naked nonsensicalness" - Awesome! I'm stealing that. :)
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The old million dollar challenge way of looking at this would be, if energy medicine like acupuncture actually worked in the way claimed, then the revolution that would bring to science would be far more valuable than whatever trivial benefit the uses it is currently put to bring. Odd that in all the years it has never done that. Maybe tomorrow?

The weird thing with all these kinds of claims, is that they eternally hover on the border of maybe showing an effect. Normally, when you throw science at something you work out what the critical variables are for generating a phenomenon, and the more you study it, the more the real effect rises out of the noise. That never seems to happen with these kinds of claims.

You also have a bit of a motte and bailey strategy being employed. Lots of these alternative therapies make big claims that, if true, would be very easy to prove. All sorts of diseases are caused by imbalances in "energy" that can be cured by candles placed between the toes, or needles inserted into an ear lobe. If that worked, it seems like it would be super easy to prove. Somehow the studies that maybe kindof show something promising that might warrant further investigation, are more about wellbeing.

Humans are weird. It can be hard enough sometimes to tell whether actual surgery has a benefit beyond placebo. I think people underestimate our ability to fool ourselves into thinking some treatment or other has meaningfully helped.
 
shuttlt said:
If that worked, it seems like it would be super easy to prove. Somehow the studies that maybe kindof show something promising that might warrant further investigation, are more about wellbeing.
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For acupuncture specifically, it's actually worse than that. The promotion of acupuncture is a direct effect of Chinese nationalism. 100% of the studies that claim to show the effectiveness of acupuncture are Chinese in origin. The Chinese government sponsors and supports them as part of their hyper-nationalistic agenda.
 
I will stipulate that accupuncture does not work by manipulating qi/chi meridians.

However:

https://www.aafp.org/news/health-of-the-public/20180521acupuncture.html

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaoncology/article-abstract/2777349

https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/acupuncture

https://www.nccih.nih.gov/health/ac...nce Says About,, and osteoarthritis/knee pain.

Those are some legit groups and journals that say it can be effective for certain conditions. Johns Hopskins gives a whole list of conditions they say may benefit from it.

I don't know what to tell you but those are some heavy endorsements right there.
 
xjx388 said:
I will stipulate that accupuncture does not work by manipulating qi/chi meridians.

However:

https://www.aafp.org/news/health-of-the-public/20180521acupuncture.html

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaoncology/article-abstract/2777349

https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/acupuncture

https://www.nccih.nih.gov/health/ac...nce Says About,, and osteoarthritis/knee pain.

Those are some legit groups and journals that say it can be effective for certain conditions. Johns Hopskins gives a whole list of conditions they say may benefit from it.

I don't know what to tell you but those are some heavy endorsements right there.
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But, acupuncture isn't used for specific conditions where it might provide some benefit. It is used for a wide range of conditions by providers that are not medically qualified to diagnose and treat the conditions. So, even if it might provide some benefit, it is more likely to cause harm if only from the patient not getting the right treatment.

And even if it is effective in some situations, is it more safe and effective when compared to more proven treatments for those conditions?
 
Acupuncture, like chiropractic, homeopathy, etc. suffers greatly from a lack of a credible mechanism to explain favorable results. No one has ever found a meridian or been able to prove that plain water changes major properties if you wave a wand over it.

But a very credible mechanism has been offered that is psychology based. We know that people can convince themselves of just about anything if they try hard enough or want to believe. That alone explains why placebos seem to work.
 
Sherman Bay said:
Acupuncture, like chiropractic, homeopathy, etc. suffers greatly from a lack of a credible mechanism to explain favorable results. No one has ever found a meridian or been able to prove that plain water changes major properties if you wave a wand over it.

But a very credible mechanism has been offered that is psychology based. We know that people can convince themselves of just about anything if they try hard enough or want to believe. That alone explains why placebos seem to work.
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The effectiveness of placebos is vastly exaggerated.
 
xjx388 said:
I will stipulate that accupuncture does not work by manipulating qi/chi meridians.

However:

https://www.aafp.org/news/health-of-the-public/20180521acupuncture.html

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaoncology/article-abstract/2777349

https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/acupuncture

https://www.nccih.nih.gov/health/ac...nce Says About,, and osteoarthritis/knee pain.

Those are some legit groups and journals that say it can be effective for certain conditions. Johns Hopskins gives a whole list of conditions they say may benefit from it.

I don't know what to tell you but those are some heavy endorsements right there.
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OK, first one is problematic as that "meta analysis" mixes and matches various things which are not the same - i.e. electro-acupuncture and "auricular" acunpuncture are included as well as "normal" acupuncture - and includes a number of Chinese studies, which is usually a sign of false positives - does anyone know of a Chinese study which does NOT find that acupuncture works?

The second one is not acupuncture but another of those "oh look it isn't really acupuncture!" things, electro-acupuncture.

The third offers no evidence at all and, as the Mayo are trying to sell services, can safely be ignored as unevidenced sales pitch.

The last one offers no evidence either.

And before anyone mentions our NICE reco for lower back pain, that one is very iffy too and based on a couple of very weak papers.

As mentioned before the likes of Science Based Medicine, Edzard Ernst and Orac have been over and over the "research" on acupuncture and not found anything convincing...
 
arthwollipot said:
For acupuncture specifically, it's actually worse than that. The promotion of acupuncture is a direct effect of Chinese nationalism. 100% of the studies that claim to show the effectiveness of acupuncture are Chinese in origin. The Chinese government sponsors and supports them as part of their hyper-nationalistic agenda.
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Fraud is always a problem with these kinds of thing as well, you are right. The basic point remains though. If it was genuine, and it's beneficial effect was so obvious that acupuncture practitioners and their clients could tell it clearly worked, we wouldn't still be fumbling around all these decades later trying to determine if it actually worked. Hypothetically, if there is an effect beyond placebo, it is so pathetically weak that neither the practitioners nor their patients can detect it either.
 
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