Acupuncture: what does science say?

Today acupuncture is used in many public facilities, in Italy and abroad. Italian law recognizes it as a medical act, practicable consequently only by doctors. How does it work and for what?

In reality, acupuncture is not a discipline in itself, but a technique that has a fundamental role within traditional Chinese medicine, which also includes drugs alongside other practices less widespread in the West such as massages, Qigong, dietetics.

Like other traditional medicines, the Chinese one can be considered an energy medicine: acupuncture aims to overcome blockages and energy imbalances that cause diseases, through the insertion of needles that rebalance the qi, or the energy that flows in the meridians, the energy channels of the body.

Also recognized in the West

An approach, the one in the countries that traditionally use it, very far from that of Western science, even if some scholars have identified affinities between the meridian system and modern anatomy.

The fact is that, in many ways, it works. For years there have been studies – over 16,000 are registered on the PubMed database – which try to evaluate the effectiveness of acupuncture to treat various disorders, from chronic painful diseases such as arthritis or back pain, to mood disorders, headaches, infertility and much more.

Not to mention its use in anesthesiology and as a method to help smokers give up cigarettes.

In our country the practice of acupuncture is recognized as a real medical act; therefore the treatments can only be practiced by a doctor registered with the order, preferably also registered with the Italian Federation of Acupuncture Societies (www.agopuntura-fisa.it).

Uncertain mechanisms, evident results

According to NCCAM – the department of the American National Institutes of Health dedicated to the study of complementary medicine – there are interesting confirmations of the effectiveness of this technique.

For example, when it is used, in combination with other therapies, to relieve pain caused by osteoarthritis of the knee and for many cases of back pain.

In addition, acupuncture has been shown to reduce nausea in patients undergoing chemotherapy; And some results have also been achieved in the treatment of anxiety and depression, menstrual cycle disorders and skin diseases.

Results, although sometimes conflicting, have also been obtained in the treatment of various types of headaches: a recent review by the Cochrane Collaboration, an international association of researchers engaged in a rigorous evaluation of the effectiveness of medical treatments, shows that acupuncture is effective, but that even the “fake” acupuncture gets interesting results.

Keeps its true essence hidden

By its very nature, in fact, acupuncture makes it difficult to organize scientifically valid trials, in which the patient and in some cases even the experimenter do not know if they are applying the treatment or an inactive placebo (blinded and double-blind experiments).

To overcome the inconvenience, the so-called sham acupuncture was created, in which the needles are stuck in points different from the canonical ones or in different ways. The problem is that in some cases even this form of acupuncture has proven effective.

So many hypotheses to be confirmed

Less controversial results have emerged from studies aimed at verifying what happens in the human body during treatments: neuroimaging studies carried out at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston show that acupuncture reduces the activity of the limbic system, the emotional area of the brain, activating instead areas involved in energy recovery.

Other research would confirm that acupuncture increases blood flow in the treated areas and that it can counteract an inflammatory phenomenon.

A physiological explanation of this action comes from a recent study on experimental animals carried out by the University of Rochester in New York, which shows that acupuncture stimulates the production of adenosine, a neurotransmitter that regulates various physiological processes, including sleep, and performs an effective anti-inflammatory action.