Sham Acupuncture works; REALLY IT WORKS

[kedo1981]

I’m not sure what to make of this story

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060302/hl_nm/acupuncture_dc


I think it (they) have reached the wrong conclusion.
In my opinion it’s saying that acupuncture works no better than a placebo

 

[John Jackson]

All it is really saying is that migrane improves as long as something is done: in other words placebo effect.

"Acupuncture works as well as well as standard drugs" can just as easily be worded as "standard drugs work just as well as acupuncture".

Either acupuncture works or the standard drugs don't!

Ignoratio Elenchi is the standard fallacy used by reporters (and often researchers).

 

[Belz...]

I’m not sure what to make of this story

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060302/hl_nm/acupuncture_dc


I think it (they) have reached the wrong conclusion.
In my opinion it’s saying that acupuncture works no better than a placebo

Of course acupuncture works. It is scientifically proven to transfer money from the patient to the practitionist.

 

[Mojo]

All it is really saying is that migrane improves as long as something is done: in other words placebo effect.

"Acupuncture works as well as well as standard drugs" can just as easily be worded as "standard drugs work just as well as acupuncture".

In other words, is it a bit like those German trials of homoeopathy we were discussing a while back, where homoeopathy was tested against a rather ineffective "orthodox" treatment and found to be about as good (as far as I remember)?

 

[Zbu]

Of course acupuncture works. It is scientifically proven to transfer money from the patient to the practitionist.

Usually if someone stabs you repeatedly and takes your money, it's considered mugging and assault. What's the diff?

 

[Dark Jaguar]

This was consenting?

 

[Lynx2174]

Usually if someone stabs you repeatedly and takes your money, it's considered mugging and assault. What's the diff?

the difference is that in accupuncture, they typically use many small pointy things. in mugging, they typically use one much larger pointy thing.

hell, it'd make accupuncture quicker. you'd only need to know one chi spot thingy, and it'd be sure to lower blood pressure, even if you missed.

 

[Jas]

Dude, you poke someone with a bunch of needles, I have no doubt that you'll get a reaction of some sort.

Whether it'll cure you asthma though....

 

[DSE]

It's hard to know without seeing the specifics of the study, but what I've seen acupuncture has never been proven to work better than a placebo. Sounds more like the drugs don't work great to fix migraines. The one study I've seen that this article seems to confirm is that any effect that acupuncture does have has nothing to do with where the needles are placed.

 

[Art Vandelay]

All it is really saying is that migrane improves as long as something is done: in other words placebo effect.

I didn't see where the article said that. Did they compare acupuncture to doing nothing?

 

[thaiboxerken]

If anything, this simply shows that putting needles into people has an affect. This is needling, not acupuncture. Acupuncture involves specific points.

 

[homer]

That report is typical of news reporting these days , get the sensational stuff up front and ( sometimes ) then qualify it with a more balanced report.

 

[ond_magiker]

Am I understanding this correctly?

Treating migraine, acupuncture is as good as drug treatment is as good as sham acupuncture. Isn't this just screaming placebo?

 

[John Jackson]

I didn't see where the article said that. Did they compare acupuncture to doing nothing?

Strictly speaking - no. They compared it to sham acupuncture for comparison (which also proved to be as effective as the drug and the real acupuncture). Sham acupuncture supposedly being the placebo control.

We have to remember that one of the tricks used in studies like this is to compare acupuncture (homeopathy or whatever) to drugs that have a dubious efficacy. Then when the acupuncture gets the same results as the drug they conclude that acupuncture works - not that the drug doesn't. To me, this looks like just such a case.

 

[Mojo]

Does anyone have any information on exactly what drugs were used and what their efficacy actually is? The summary of the paper only states that they used standard migraine prophylaxis with beta-blockers, calcium-channel blockers and antiepileptic drugs. Was it just a question of what the individual patient's doctor prescribed?

 

[thaiboxerken]

From the limitted studies I've seen, both sham and "real" acupuncture have had the same effect on pain. Both are slightly better than sugar pills. To me, all this says is that needling people has some effect. It lends NO credence to acupunture's effectiveness though. In otherwords, there is no reason for the years of "specialized training" that acupunturists get. A child with a few needles can do the job just as well.

 

[I less than three logic]

I’d prefer someone with at least basic schooling of human anatomy to perform the needling; wouldn’t want them puncturing any organs or important arteries and such. Although, I’m not sure all acupuncturists get such schooling since acupuncture points don’t seem to correlate much with human anatomy.

The most common sites of organ punctures from acupuncture are the heart, lung, liver, kidney, gall bladder and bladder.

PNEUMOTHORAX AND HAEMOPNEUMOTHORAX

The most frequently reported severe traumatic accidents caused by acupuncture needles are pneumothorax, spinal cord injuries and hepatitis (Peuker & Gronemeyer 2001, Rotchford 2004). Of these, pneumothorax is the most common. White & Ernst cite a survey of 1100 Australian practitioners of TCM, which revealed that of a total of 3222 adverse events of acupuncture in their practices – most of which were minor – there were 64 cases of pneumothorax (White & Ernst 2001).

Though none of the cases reported in the Australian survey was fatal, people can die from pneumothorax (Brettel 1981). Dr Zhou Jianwei, of Chengdu University of TCM, collected 110 cases of pneumothorax reported between 1950 and 1994, of which five resulted in death – an incidence of 4.5% (Zhou 1995).

http://www.intl.elsevierhealth.com/e-books/pdf/1154.pdf (PDF file)

 

[Rolfe]

Hmmm, I know that for some people (a pretty fair proportion as far as I know) with real migraine (as opposed to a nasty headache), Imigran is absolutely life-changing. A friend of mine was dreadfully affected by migraine for many years, and her hymns of praise to this stuff know no bounds. And I've heard enough detail to be quite sure this isn't placebo.

Indeed, I read recently about a new test which is supposed to give migraine sufferers early warning of an attack so that they can take the medication in good time - apparently it only works if taken before the attack has really got going, and my friend corroborates this. The test was being discussed as the final answer to migraine, in that nobody should ever have an attack again because they'd always be alerted in time to take the medication.

Now maybe that last bit was somewhat over-hyped, but all in all I think there's a lot of evidence that for true migraine, specific treatment can be extremely effective. So I wonder deeply about this study. Either the acupuncture was able to match the Imigran in banishing migraine attacks, or else what was it they were comparing it to again?

Rolfe.

 

[Mojo]

Now maybe that last bit was somewhat over-hyped, but all in all I think there's a lot of evidence that for true migraine, specific treatment can be extremely effective. So I wonder deeply about this study. Either the acupuncture was able to match the Imigran in banishing migraine attacks, or else what was it they were comparing it to again?

In the summary I've seen they weren't very specific, as I noted above. Does anyone have access to the full article? Diener et al.: Efficacy of acupuncture for the prophylaxis of migraine: a multicentre randomised controlled clinical trial, Lancet Neurology (early online publication 2.3.06)

 

[Silly Green Monkey]

Considering that human anatomy--the precise patterns of arteries, veins, and nerves--varies from individual to individual, how can acupuncture charts possibly work?