Placebo acupuncture is no worse than "real" acupuncture
Real and fake acupuncture 'can effectively relieve the pain of headaches’ (The Daily Telegraph, 21 Jan 2009).
Translation: GZT.RU
A placebo will help with headaches
Even false acupuncture is effective against migrainesScientists have found that acupuncture primarily affects the brain.
The introduction of needles even into the surface layer of the skin and away from traditional exposure points is no less effective in relieving headaches than traditional treatment.
Summarizing the results of 33 clinical trials, in which 6736 patients participated, showed that alternative therapy is an effective treatment for headache and migraine. At the same time, the false acupuncture turned out to be healing to the same extent as the real one.
Scientists believe that the action of both types of acupuncture is based on the placebo effect, which makes patients feel better because they believe that they are undergoing quality treatment.
"Most of the healing effect resulting from the use of acupuncture is probably due to the effect of non-specific needle insertion and the powerful placebo effect. This means that the choice of biologically active points of the body that are affected by the needle may not be as important as many practitioners claim," says Klaus Linde from the Center for Complementary Medical Research at the Technical University of Munich in Germany.
During the clinical trials, scientists were interested in both widespread headache arising from fatigue and overexertion, which is considered not so strong, and more serious, but less frequent migraines.
All patients who took part in the trials had either traditional or false acupuncture for at least eight weeks. The results showed that both types relieved migraines as effectively as medications.
The study says that among patients suffering from headache from overexertion, traditional acupuncture led to the same results as the use of painkillers, and pseudo-acupuncture was inferior in effectiveness only in some cases.
According to the researchers, the results published by the Cochrane Library showed that acupuncture, which has significantly fewer side effects, can become an alternative to taking medications. But they warn that more research is needed to understand how this therapeutic method works, and without this it is impossible to recommend it to patients.
"Doctors should know exactly how long the healing effect of acupuncture will last, and also check whether trained specialists really achieve better results compared to those who have only the basics of knowledge," Klaus Linde believes.
Portal "Eternal youth" www.vechnayamolodost.ru22.01.2009