Research
Rewire your brain for happiness
A recent research study shows there is evidence acupuncture works by creating long term changes in your brain cells.
The research₁ carried out by Richard Harris, a neuroscientist at the University of Michigan, compared real acupuncture with placebo acupuncture.
The researchers were expecting the effects of real acupuncture on the brain to be similar to placebo acupuncture, but more pronounced.
What he found was that the real acupuncture had a totally different effect on the brain cells.
While placebo acupuncture simply triggered a short term spike in endorphins (feel good and pain killing chemicals), real acupuncture actually changed the brain cells in the long term so they were more receptive to the endorphins.
This explains why people experience a lasting sense of wellbeing from having acupuncture. It also explains why cortisol levels are lowered in the long term and not just the short term.
Acupuncture has now been shown clinically to be more than mere placebo
In 2018 Andrew Vickers and his team of researchers analysed data from clinical trials of acupuncture for chronic pain₂. The data spanned 20,827 patients.
The aim was to compare real acupuncture with “placebo acupuncture”. This is where a needles is inserted into a non-acupuncture point or where the needle only pierces the skin superficially. Patients are given questionnaires at the end and if they are unable to guess if they had real or placebo acupuncture, the placebo treatment is considered a reliable placebo.
The results of the analysis showed that real acupuncture significantly outperformed placebo acupuncture in the reduction of pain from nonspecific musculoskeletal pain, osteoarthritis, chronic headache, or shoulder pain.
The effects of the real acupuncture also outlasted the placebo and were observed up to 1 year after the course of acupuncture.
1000s of acupuncture research studies have investigated the effects of acupuncture
The research includes placebo controlled clinical trials, meta analyses, brain scan studies and animal models (biochemical mechanisms).
The research trails are too numerous to list here, but Australian Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine Association has produced an extensive summary of the evidence that was last updated in 2017.
The conclusion of this summary is as follows:
“Acupuncture enjoys moderate to strong evidence of effectiveness in the treatment of 46 conditions and is considered safe in the hands of properly trained practitioners. This strong scientific support is impressive and helpful for patients in the context of a conventional healthcare system where nearly half of all treatments lack evidence for their use. Acupuncture is also considered cost-effective for a number of conditions where evidence is available. Comparatively, for many conditions it enjoys greater evidence than many conventional treatments and is relatively safer. Patients, medical professionals, and healthcare administrators can be confident that the recommendation of acupuncture for many patients is a safe, cost-effective, and evidence-based recommendation.”
References:
Harris RE, Zubieta JK, Scott DJ, Napadow V, Gracely RH, Clauw DJ. Traditional Chinese acupuncture and placebo (sham) acupuncture are differentiated by their effects on mu-opioid receptors (MORs). Neuroimage. 2009 Sep;47(3):1077-85.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19501658/Vickers AJ, Vertosick EA, Lewith G, MacPherson H, Foster NE, Sherman KJ, Irnich D, Witt CM, Linde K; Acupuncture Trialists' Collaboration. Acupuncture for Chronic Pain: Update of an Individual Patient Data Meta-Analysis. J Pain. 2018 May;19(5):455-474.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29198932/The Acupuncture Evidence Project – A Comparative Literature Review 2017 – Acupuncture.org.au. 2017;:1–81.
https://www.acupuncture.org.au/resources/publications/the-acupuncture-evidence-project-a-comparative-literature-review-2017/