There are some alternative medicines that really are placebo, but I don’t think that all the benefits of acupuncture are placebo. I mean, I know it sounds a little silly, but when you think about the body’s own healing chemical processes, it kind of does make sense that creating wounds would provoke those responses, except without the pain of the injury. I think there’s something there.
But even if it is a placebo, I think you’re downplaying the importance of the placebo effect. If you suffered from pain for years upon years and you finally found something that helped you feel better, would it really matter to you if it was genuine or if it was in your mind? If you were finally pain free and able to live a productive life, would it matter to you that it was caused by the placebo effect? Would you want someone to prove to you that it was all in your mind?
I’ve never had acupuncture, but if people are getting relief from it, I say leave it alone. Peace~
One group is tested with sham or fake acupuncture (administered in the wrong places) and one group with correct acupuncture, and compare the two groups. If all groups improved, it would obviously point to a placebo effect. The two groups do not know whether they are receiving ’sham’ acupuncture or genuine acupuncture. Also, the researchers usually don’t know which person belongs to what group (this is called double-blind trial), so that they can record each person’s result without preconceptions (gives a more accurate result)
You can find many clinical trial entries regarding Acupuncture on PubMed, a government clinical trial database.
Here are some random examples:
Efficacy of Acupuncture as a Treatment for Chronic Shoulder Pain - Conclusions: Acupuncture may be an effective treatment for chronic shoulder pain. There may be no difference in efficacy between individualized and standardized acupuncture treatment. This suggests that the use of standard points may make treatment easier for patient care and for further research studies.
Pilot, randomized, modified, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of acupuncture for cancer-related fatigue.- Owing to poor recruitment, the feasibility of a larger trial using the same methodology is low. Despite being underpowered, it appears that subjects receiving true acupuncture may benefit more than subjects receiving sham acupuncture. In the discussion section, we review our experience with using a sham-needle controlled study.
Acupuncture for Treating Acute Attacks of Migraine: A Randomized Controlled Trial. - Most patients in the acupuncture group experienced complete pain relief (40.7%) and did not experience recurrence or intensification of pain (79.6%). Conclusion.- Verum acupuncture treatment is more effective than sham acupuncture based on either Chinese or Western nonacupoints in reducing the discomfort of acute migraine. Verum acupuncture is also clearly effective in relieving pain and preventing migraine relapse or aggravation. These findings support the contention that there are specific physiological effects that distinguish genuine acupoints from nonacupoints.
There are literally tens of thousands of these clinical trials on PubMed that you can go through yourself, but they all pretty much state the same thing. That acupuncture shows promise and the results are good, but need more money invested so that they can have larger trials. Larger trials = more respected conclusions. And nobody owns natural medicine, nobody owns acupuncture, so who is going to hand over that kind of money? Whereas something like a pharmaceutical will have billions of dollars poured into its testing, because giant pharmaceutical companies will benefit financially from good trial results. The results are even sometimes illegally manipulated for the sake of getting them out into the market and making money. Which explains why we have so many pharmaceuticals being banned all the time after suddenly discovering their terrible side effects (which were conveniently never seen in any of the clinical trials)!
More and more modern acupuncture studies have shown the verum acupuncture has an affect beyond placebo.
Responding to the “toothpick” study:
Acupuncture is the stimulation of points along the body, usually by puncturing the skin. The stimulation is not dependent upon the needles though. You can absolutely use other methods of point stimulation.
You continually misquote the study also. The points stimulated with needles were classical acupuncture points. Those same points were stimulated with toothpicks. It wasn’t stimulation of random areas…
It seems that way. With studies, the better the quality and the larger the study, the worse are the results for acupuncture. Acupuncture has never been unambiguously shown to able to beat placebo, and a plethora of quality studies show this time and time again. Promoters of acupuncture will misrepresent such studies, and further, many “positive” studies are just plain poor quality, biased, with very small sample sizes and serious lack of controls etc.
The latest quality studies show that it doesn’t matter where you stick the needles, or even if you insert them at all, or even if you use toothpicks. It still does not beat placebo. These links will provide more information on this.
?……
“Chi” is a preposterous prescience concept, that cannot be detected or measured and is thus rejected by all science or physics.
And keep in mind that the ancient Chinese had no idea about clinical trials, placebo, or epidemiology.
Ying Yong therapy is not even a placebo. I tested the system on many . Some patients suffering from musculo skeletal pain caused by aging reported improvement. Patients suffering from traumatic pain,and diseases of other organs never reported any improvement
Comments on Is it true that acupuncture is really a placebo?
Marianna
how can they test to see if somthing doest actually work if everyone thinks it does
Alina
There are some alternative medicines that really are placebo, but I don’t think that all the benefits of acupuncture are placebo. I mean, I know it sounds a little silly, but when you think about the body’s own healing chemical processes, it kind of does make sense that creating wounds would provoke those responses, except without the pain of the injury. I think there’s something there.
But even if it is a placebo, I think you’re downplaying the importance of the placebo effect. If you suffered from pain for years upon years and you finally found something that helped you feel better, would it really matter to you if it was genuine or if it was in your mind? If you were finally pain free and able to live a productive life, would it matter to you that it was caused by the placebo effect? Would you want someone to prove to you that it was all in your mind?
I’ve never had acupuncture, but if people are getting relief from it, I say leave it alone. Peace~
Zack
One group is tested with sham or fake acupuncture (administered in the wrong places) and one group with correct acupuncture, and compare the two groups. If all groups improved, it would obviously point to a placebo effect. The two groups do not know whether they are receiving ’sham’ acupuncture or genuine acupuncture. Also, the researchers usually don’t know which person belongs to what group (this is called double-blind trial), so that they can record each person’s result without preconceptions (gives a more accurate result)
You can find many clinical trial entries regarding Acupuncture on PubMed, a government clinical trial database.
Here are some random examples:
Efficacy of Acupuncture as a Treatment for Chronic Shoulder Pain - Conclusions: Acupuncture may be an effective treatment for chronic shoulder pain. There may be no difference in efficacy between individualized and standardized acupuncture treatment. This suggests that the use of standard points may make treatment easier for patient care and for further research studies.
Pilot, randomized, modified, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of acupuncture for cancer-related fatigue.- Owing to poor recruitment, the feasibility of a larger trial using the same methodology is low. Despite being underpowered, it appears that subjects receiving true acupuncture may benefit more than subjects receiving sham acupuncture. In the discussion section, we review our experience with using a sham-needle controlled study.
Acupuncture for Treating Acute Attacks of Migraine: A Randomized Controlled Trial. - Most patients in the acupuncture group experienced complete pain relief (40.7%) and did not experience recurrence or intensification of pain (79.6%). Conclusion.- Verum acupuncture treatment is more effective than sham acupuncture based on either Chinese or Western nonacupoints in reducing the discomfort of acute migraine. Verum acupuncture is also clearly effective in relieving pain and preventing migraine relapse or aggravation. These findings support the contention that there are specific physiological effects that distinguish genuine acupoints from nonacupoints.
There are literally tens of thousands of these clinical trials on PubMed that you can go through yourself, but they all pretty much state the same thing. That acupuncture shows promise and the results are good, but need more money invested so that they can have larger trials. Larger trials = more respected conclusions. And nobody owns natural medicine, nobody owns acupuncture, so who is going to hand over that kind of money? Whereas something like a pharmaceutical will have billions of dollars poured into its testing, because giant pharmaceutical companies will benefit financially from good trial results. The results are even sometimes illegally manipulated for the sake of getting them out into the market and making money. Which explains why we have so many pharmaceuticals being banned all the time after suddenly discovering their terrible side effects (which were conveniently never seen in any of the clinical trials)!
Valeria
More and more modern acupuncture studies have shown the verum acupuncture has an affect beyond placebo.
Responding to the “toothpick” study:
Acupuncture is the stimulation of points along the body, usually by puncturing the skin. The stimulation is not dependent upon the needles though. You can absolutely use other methods of point stimulation.
You continually misquote the study also. The points stimulated with needles were classical acupuncture points. Those same points were stimulated with toothpicks. It wasn’t stimulation of random areas…
Antony
It seems that way. With studies, the better the quality and the larger the study, the worse are the results for acupuncture. Acupuncture has never been unambiguously shown to able to beat placebo, and a plethora of quality studies show this time and time again. Promoters of acupuncture will misrepresent such studies, and further, many “positive” studies are just plain poor quality, biased, with very small sample sizes and serious lack of controls etc.
The latest quality studies show that it doesn’t matter where you stick the needles, or even if you insert them at all, or even if you use toothpicks. It still does not beat placebo. These links will provide more information on this.
?……
“Chi” is a preposterous prescience concept, that cannot be detected or measured and is thus rejected by all science or physics.
And keep in mind that the ancient Chinese had no idea about clinical trials, placebo, or epidemiology.
Ahmad
Ying Yong therapy is not even a placebo. I tested the system on many . Some patients suffering from musculo skeletal pain caused by aging reported improvement. Patients suffering from traumatic pain,and diseases of other organs never reported any improvement