Acupuncture Research

Acupuncture is becoming very popular. In 2001, a survey showed that professional acupuncturists in the UK were delivering approximately two million treatments per year (MacPherson et al 2001) and the indications are that this is increasing. Acupuncture is also offered by physiotherapists, and is used in the majority of hospital pain clinics. In fact, research shows that 83% of GP's believe that acupuncture is clinically useful (Lipman et al 2003).

People who have benefited from acupuncture and acupuncturists themselves, report many success stories from their clinical experiences, but modern health care relies on research to show that therapies actually work.

Whilst this makes good sense, high quality research is costly and time-consuming to carry out. When the therapy can be patented, like a new drug, the cost of the research and development can be set against the anticipated profits from the sale of the drug. For therapies like acupuncture, where there is no actual product, it can be more difficult to find the funding to provide good research.

Even so, the popularity of acupuncture has inspired considerable interest in research, despite the problems of funding. Some of the best of this research is reviewed by the Cochrane Collaboration Library.

The Cochrane library contains high-quality, independent evidence from systematic reviews and clinical trials. Cochrane reviews provide the combined results of the world’s best medical research studies, and are recognised as the gold standard in evidence-based health care.

The Cochrane Library currently lists reviews of acupuncture research into the following conditions: depression, shoulder pain, smoking cessation, Bell's palsy, cocaine dependence, back pain, schizophrenia, epilepsy, neck disorders, asthma, glaucoma, insomnia acute stroke, vascular dementia, irritable bowel syndrome, headache, tinnitus, rheumatoid arthritis, dysmenorrhea, elbow pain, induction of labour, alcohol dependence, premenstrual syndrome, nausea, osteoarthritis, allergic rhinitis, constipation, cerebral palsy, post herpetic neuralgia, diabetic gastroparesis, myopia, benign prostatic hyperplasia, menopause, uterine fibroids, fibromyalgia, Parkinson's disease, restless legs, dysphagia in acute stroke, urinary incontinence, chronic fatigue, erectile dysfunction, Guillain-Barre syndrome, obesity, acute renal colic, neuropathic pain, bladder dysfunction after spinal cord injury, post-operative pain, Gilles de la Tourette's syndrome, diabetic peripheral neuropathy, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and motion sickness.

Not all of this research is completed, but the list demonstrates the scope of current research into acupuncture, and shows the wide range of conditions it may be able to treat. You can access these reviews at the Cochrane Library.

The Acupuncture Research Resource Centre (ARRC) has produced a set of Briefing Papers which review the evidence of effectiveness of acupuncture for the following:

You can read and download these at www.acupunctureresearch.org.uk

Good research is careful not to draw false conclusions and so sometimes, especially when there have not been many clinical trials, researchers will say there is not enough evidence. This does not necessarily mean that acupuncture isn't effective, but that there needs to be more research to come to a conclusion.

References

Lipman L, Dale J, MacPherson H. Attitudes of GPs towards the provision of acupuncture on the NHS. Complementary Therapies in Medicine (2003), 11, 110–114

MacPherson H, Thomas K, Walters S, Fitter M. (2001) The York acupuncture safety study: prospective survey of 34,000 treatments by traditional acupuncturists BMJ 2001;323;486-487. doi:10.1136/bmj.323.7311.486

White A, Kawakita K. (2006) The evidence on acupuncture for knee osteoarthritis – editorial summary on the implications for health policy. ACUPUNCTURE IN MEDICINE. 2006;24(Suppl):S71-76.

www.acupunctureinmedicine.org.uk/volindex.php

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York Acupuncturist Harriet Lansdown