Advertisement

Acupuncture Therapy Is Put to Scientific Test in Federal Study

Share
From the Washington Post

Twice a week, arthritis sufferer Mary P. Oliver lies on an examining table at a University of Maryland clinic here and lets a doctor prick her with needles to administer what may--or may not--be acupuncture.

Millions of Americans have tried the ancient Chinese treatment, and experts agree that it helps relieve some symptoms, particularly pain and the nausea that often accompany pregnancy or chemotherapy. But researchers still do not fully understand how it works.

So Oliver and other arthritis patients are participating in a federally funded study, one of the largest of its kind, to try to answer that question. Some patients get “real” acupuncture--with fine needles inserted at points on the body specified by traditional Chinese medicine--while others are pricked in spots where, at least in theory, the needles should do little or nothing.

Advertisement

“You don’t know” if you’re getting acupuncture or a sham version, Oliver said, adding that she has experienced no pain from needles inserted by her acupuncturist during the 20-minute treatments.

The study is part of a major government effort to bring scientific rigor to the evaluation of popular alternative therapies. As many as 40% of American adults have tried such treatments--at a cost of more than $21 billion annually--but few alternative therapies had been carefully tested in clinical trials. In an attempt to correct that situation, the National Institutes of Health recently launched large-scale tests of several such remedies, including St. John’s wort for depression, ginkgo for Alzheimer’s disease, glucosamine and chondroitin sulfate for arthritis and shark cartilage for cancer.

Most medical researchers believe that the best way to prove a therapy works is to test it against a placebo, or dummy treatment, in patients who do not know which they are receiving.

Acupuncture has been practiced in China for more than 2,500 years. It includes a family of techniques used to stimulate specific points on the skin--most often with needles and electric current, but sometimes with heat or pressure.

Advertisement