I’m very disappointed in the way this article promotes pseudo-scientific beliefs. Despite what the authors of the research would like to promote, their research does not prove or support acupuncture at all. See Science Based Medicine’s coverage of the same research: http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=5437

hehe, pseudo-scientific? There’s nothing more subjective than “science”. I studied and conducted research at McGill, a highly reputable research institution and medical school. I decided to study acupuncture as well. Why? because when you realize the vast discrepancy between “science” and the practice of medicine, you can’t help but be horrified at the thought of treating patients with these drugs. Did you know that SSRIs like Prozac started being used because they ‘happened’ to make epileptic patients less depressed ? Still noone knows why in the world it helps depression. Just because you can say, well it increases serotonin, and serotonin is vaguely related to your mood, doesn’t mean you really know how it works. It’s just a correlation. Same thing with acupuncture and many other therapies. However, acupuncturist do not have big corporations like Pfizer sponsoring huge research that magically supports their business goals. But one thing I know, is acupuncture has never been shown to regularly increase suicidal and criminal behavior (like Prozac which is now required to show this on their bottles). Moreover, when a drug doesn’t work for someone, people don’t go around saying all of a sudden that “medicine” doesn’t work as a whole ! They say the drug first may be the issue, then perhaps the doctor. Why should it be different for acupuncture? We have a variety of acupuncture treatment protocols to choose from, and we have good and bad doctors applying them. Finally everyone reacts slightly differently to the same thing, even in the most controlled study – imagine when you throw it out there in real life where there is endless variables NOT being controlled.

m.e.: The solution to the problem that medicine isn’t scientific enough isn’t to throw science out completely. The solution should be to make medicine more scientific. There are numerous problems with modern medicine, we could discuss them for days. But it’s the best thing we have, and the only way to make it better is to apply science to it.

It’s interesting that you mention not knowing how a drug like Prozac works as a negative. No one has provided any mechanism for acupuncture’s supposed effects. Happily, science can test the effects of something, even if we don’t have an explanation for how that something works. Newton (and others) measured the effects of gravity long before we had any understanding of how gravity works, and derived laws based on those measurements. Science can study Prozac and it’s effects (good and bad) even if we have no idea how it might work. Science can study acupuncture in the same way, even if we have no idea how it might work, and has…and the evidence so far shows the effects appear to be either very small or nonexistent. So much so that if it were a ‘conventional’ therapy, research into it would probably have stopped long ago and it would have been abandoned as a dead end. Since it has the mythology of being an ‘ancient cure from the orient’ around it, it persists and gets much more attention than it deserves.

That’s the beauty of science – we can use it to measure anything that might have an effect in the real world. Now if the effect is very small, or rare, or requires special conditions, we might miss it. Through human error or deception we might misinterpret or misrepresent results, or design our experiments poorly. But we don’t have to rely on individual frail humans…since experiments can be replicated, anyone with the proper resources can attempt to reproduce the results.

Science *could* be wrong about acupuncture…there could be real, significant effects brought about by things that we just don’t understand, and have missed the results of so far. Science could also be wrong about magic water, homeopathy, faith healing, blood letting, magnetic bracelets, and all those hundreds of drugs that don’t work as well as the manufacturer hoped, and don’t get approved for use. But why should we trust one of another? You wouldn’t take a pill from Pfizer just because they say it ‘works great for what ails ya!’, would you? Or let your doctor bleed you to ‘balance your humors’? You would, I hope, want some evidence that these therapies would work. Is your standard for acupuncture different? If so, why?

As I said above, medicine isn’t nearly science-based enough…but we should insist on more science in our medicine, not less. And bogus claims like the one in this article don’t help.

Can science measure Love? And if not, would you deny it’s existence or importance?

“Acupuncture has been a mainstay of medical treatment in certain parts of the world for 4,000 years, but because it has not been understood completely, many people have remained skeptical,” says Nedergaard, codirector of the University’s Center for Translational Neuromedicine, where the research was conducted.

“In this work, we provide information about one physical mechanism through which acupuncture reduces pain in the body,”

I don’t see how this article ‘promotes pseudo-scientific beliefs’. The fact that acupucture has been in use for so long is a fact. The research attempted find out why. Not all of the questions concerning acupunture were answered. Nor did the authors claim it to be so. They only found ONE mechanism through which acupuncture REDUCES pain in the body, This does not to me seem all inclusive or completely conclusive. I’ve known some who have found relief from years of pain through acupuncture. This does not prove that it will do so in every case.

Although you acknowledge that science could be wrong about acupuncture, you then minimize the possibility by mentioning ‘ magic water, homeopathy, faith healing, blood letting, magnetic bracelets’

A large portion of the population do take medications because the drug companies have in effect said it ‘works great for what ails ya! Television commercials and magazine ads that promote drugs are not directed at medical professionals but toward the general population.

I agree that we should insist on more science in our medicine, not less. However, totally discounting a valid study because someone disagrees is in itself unscientific.

true science / fake science

real science / hoax science.

Acupuncture is to be Tested, Experimented…. There is little Evidence at this point if acupuncture is Real / Fake…

this paper does Not prove it finally..

EXPERIMENT / PUBLICATION of results… We need more experiment on Acupuncture before we know if it is true / false real / fake.

I am not too experienced but a friend of ours showed me the how to with his Husbands feet. He is a diabetic, and has kidney issues and CHFetc. I have a copy of the left foot and I just rub the way our friend showed me on the areas that have pain until it is gone. I feel it has helped with his blood sugar numbers.

Good blogging going on here. I have bookmarked your site and will be back next time.

The most important observation is that acupuncture worked almost three times as long if we gave a drug that slow down the removal of adenosine