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Research Archive

Welcome to our Chinese medicine and acupuncture research news pages. We add to the content of these pages continuously as more research news comes in. Browse through the complete archive below or use the category links on the right.

Please note that the most twenty recent research archive items are free to view but access to the thousands of items in the archive require a journal subscription.

Acupuncture effective for depression

Categories: Psychological / emotional

Chinese researchers have carried out a meta-analysis to assess the benefits of acupuncture as a treatment for depression. The analysis included eight small randomised controlled trials involving a total of 477 subjects. Their results suggested that acupuncture was an effective treatment for depression and could significantly reduce the severity of the disease. (Is acupuncture beneficial in depress ...

QIGONG FOR STRESS

Categories: Psychological / emotional

A small American study has investigated the effectiveness of a qigong training program in reducing stress in hospital staff. Thirty-seven subjects were randomly assigned to a six-week intervention of either qigong practice or a waiting list. The qigong group demonstrated a statistically significant reduction of perceived stress compared to the control group and also experienced a significant reduc ...

Acupressure at yintang reduces kids pre-op anxiety

Categories: Psychological / emotional

Acupressure at Yintang (M-HN-3) has been found to reduce preprocedural anxiety in children undergoing endoscopic examination. In the American study, fifty-two children were randomised to receive an acupressure bead placed either at Yintang (M-HN-3) or at a sham point above the left eyebrow. Children in the Yintang group were found to have experienced reduced anxiety during the 30 minute pre-operat ...

AURICULAR ACUPUNCTURE FOR REPETITIVE SELF-INJURY

Categories: Psychological / emotional

A Canadian pilot study has tested the feasibility and potential efficacy of auricular acupuncture for the treatment of repetitive self-injurious behaviour (SIB) in depressed adolescents. In addition to providing relief of depressive symptoms there is evidence of an addictive component to this behaviour. Nine adolescent patients received three acupuncture treatments, once a week, over three weeks. ...

Acupuncture effective for depression

Categories: Psychological / emotional

A systematic review and meta-analysis of acupuncture for various depressive conditions has concluded that it is safe and constitutes an effective treatment for some forms of depression. Of 207 clinical studies of acupuncture retrieved from databases, twenty were considered to be of high enough quality to be subjected to meta-ananysis. The results showed that the efficacy of acupuncture as monother ...

ACUPUNCTURE LOWERS ANTIDEPRESSANT REQUIREMENT

Categories: Psychological / emotional

Adding acupuncture to medical treatment for depression can reduce the amount of drugs needed to treat the condition and therefore reduce the side-effects of medication. In a Chinese randomised, double-blind, sham-controlled study 80 patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) were randomised to two groups: one received standardised verum acupuncture, 10 mg/day fluoxetine and placebo (VA) and the ...

ELECTROACUPUNCTURE REDUCES AUDITORY HALLUCINATIONS IN SCHIZOPHRENICS

Categories: Psychological / emotional

Electroacupuncture appears to provide improvement in symptoms, including a reduction in auditory hallucinations, for schizophrenic patients. Sixty schizophrenics, who were partially responsive or non-responsive to treatment with the antipsychotic drug risperidone, were randomly allocated to a real electroacupuncture (EA) group or a sham EA group and treated for 30 sessions over six weeks. Patients ...

ACUPUNCTURE REDUCES POST-STROKE INSOMNIA

Categories: Psychological / emotional

Korean researchers have found that acupuncture benefits post-stroke-onset insomnia by reducing sympathetic nervous system hyperactivity. Fifty-two hospitalised stroke patients with insomnia were randomly assigned to either real acupuncture (RA) or sham acupuncture (SA). The RA group received acupuncture at Shenmen HE-7 and Neiguan P-6 over three days, while the SA group received sham acupuncture a ...

ACUPUNCTURE NORMALISES INFLAMMATORY MEDIATORS IN DEPRESSED PATIENTS

Categories: Psychological / emotional

Imbalance between Type one (Th1) and Type two (Th2) helper T-cell functions and the resulting increase in inflammatory response have been implicated in major depression. A study by Canadian scientists has investigated the relationship between pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines in depressed patients and the effect of electro-acupuncture (EA) and fluoxetine (Prozac) treatment on these cytokines. N ...

ACUPUNCTURE FOR OCD

Categories: Psychological / emotional

Hong Kong researchers have carried out a pilot study suggesting that acupuncture is beneficial in the treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) that is refractory to pharmacological and cognitive-behavioural therapy. Nineteen patients with treatment-resistant OCD were assigned to either electro-acupuncture (EA) treatment for 12 sessions (five sessions per week) or a waiting list control, wh ...

SEVEN-STAR NEEDLING IMPROVES LANGUAGE AND SOCIAL INTERACTION IN AUTISTIC CHILDREN

Categories: Psychological / emotional

Acupuncture stimulation may help improve language and social functioning in children with autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) according to a study carried out in Hong Kong. Thirty-two children with ASD were randomly assigned to treatment or a waiting list control. Those in the treatment group received 30 sessions of stimulation using a seven-star needle on the head, front and back of their body over ...

ACUPUNCTURE APPEARS TO BE EFFECTIVE IN TREATMENT OF INSOMNIA

Categories: Psychological / emotional

Acupuncture appears to be effective in the treatment of insomnia according to a systematic review and meta-analysis carried out by Chinese authors. Forty-six randomised trials involving 3811 patients were included and the methodological quality of trials was judged to be generally fair. Meta-analyses showed a beneficial effect for acupuncture compared with no treatment, and for real acupressure co ...

ACUPUNCTURE BENEFICIAL FOR SCHIZOPHRENIA

Categories: Psychological / emotional

A Korean systematic review of studies examining the use of acupuncture in treating the symptoms of schizophrenia has provided some evidence for its effectiveness. Thirteen randomised clinical trials (RCTs) met the inclusion criteria. One RCT reported significant effects of electro-acupuncture (EA) plus drug therapy for improving auditory hallucinations and positive symptoms compared with sham EA p ...

ACUMOXA FOR BREECH BABIES

Categories: Pregnancy & labour

A study has evaluated the effects of acupuncture and moxibustion on the behaviour of breech foetuses. Women were treated by stimulating Zhiyin BL-67 twice a week for 20 minutes. Fourteen cases were treated using both acupuncture and moxibustion, 15 cases by moxibustion and ten cases by acupuncture. In 56% of cases, foetal position converted from breech to cephalic (80% success rate for moxibustion ...

ELECTRO-ACUPUNCTURE EFFECTIVE FOR LABOUR PAIN

Categories: Pregnancy & labour

In a study investigating the efficacy of electro-acupuncture (EA) for relief of labour pain, 36 pregnant women were randomly divided into an EA group and a control group. Two rounds of EA were carried out, one at the beginning of the active phase of labour and one at 7-8cm of cervical dilatation. Hegu L.I.-4 and Sanyinjiao SP-6 were stimulated bilaterally for 20 minutes at a frequency of 2-100 Hz ...

ACUPUNCTURE FACILITATES NATURAL BIRTH

Categories: Pregnancy & labour

Acupuncture significantly reduces duration of labour and reduces the need for augmentation of labour with contraction-stimulating drugs. A study randomised 100 women with spontaneous rupture of membranes at term to either acupuncture or no acupuncture. Treatment was individualised on the basis of traditional Chinese medical diagnosis and used three points per patient from a pool of nine possible c ...

MOXIBUSTION AT ZHIYIN BL-67

Categories: Pregnancy & labour

An Italian obstetrician has carried out a study into the application of moxibustion at Zhiyin BL-67 for the treatment of breech presentation in pregnancy. Francesco Cardini and Huang Weixin divided 130 women (in the 33rd week of their first pregnancy) in two Chinese hospitals into two groups. Those treated with moxibustion (for 7 consecutive daily treatments with seven more if needed) experienced ...

ACUPUNCTURE AND CHILDBIRTH

Categories: Pregnancy & labour

In a study carried out in Sweden, the analgesic effect of acupuncture during childbirth was assessed by comparing the need for other pain treatments such as epidural analgesia, nitrous oxide/oxygen etc. in 90 women given acupuncture (acupuncture group) compared with 90 women not given acupuncture (control group). 52 women (58%) in the acupuncture group and 13 (14%) in the control group managed the ...

ACUPUNCTURE IN CHILDBIRTH

Categories: Pregnancy & labour

A study carried out at The Department of Obstetrics & Gynaecology at the University of Vienna has shown that prenatal acupuncture can reduce the duration of the first stage of labour (196 minutes versus 321 minutes in a control group), but not the second stage of labour, can significantly reduce use of oxytocin in both the first and second stages, and significantly raise serum levels of prosta ...

ACUPUNCTURE & LABOUR

Categories: Pregnancy & labour

A German study has compared the morphologic features and duration of labour in 878 women with at least 36 weeks of uncomplicated pregnancy after receiving a) active acupuncture (329 primiparas), b) nonspecific acupuncture (224 women), or c) no acupuncture treatment (325 primiparas). Women who received specific acupuncture experienced significantly shorter labour times (470 +/-190 minutes) compared ...