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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.

Does acupuncture relieve pain?

Categories: Miscellaneous

A systematic review carried out in Denmark and published in the BMJ has concluded that pain relief with acupuncture is minimal and mainly due to placebo effect. However, an accompanying editorial mitigates this seemingly negative result, explaining that interpreting the effects of sham acupuncture may be essential in understanding acupuncture's true analgesic effect. The systematic review assessed ...

ACUPUNCTURE REDUCES POSTOPERATIVE PAEDIATRIC PAIN

Categories: Babies & children / paediatrics, Miscellaneous

American clinicians have carried out a nonrandomised pilot study to determine the feasibility of acupuncture for acute postoperative pain control in hospitalised children. 20 patients (aged 7 months to 18 years) who had undergone a variety of surgical interventions received two 10 to 15-minute sessions of acupuncture 24-48 hours apart. The treatment was found to be highly acceptable (of 27 patient ...

ACUPUNCTURE FOR BREAST CANCER DRUG PAIN

Categories: Cancer, Miscellaneous

A preliminary trial by an American team has found acupuncture to be a promising way of treating arthralgia in women receiving aromatase inhibitors (AIs) for breast cancer. Twelve patients were provided with electro-acupuncture (EA) twice a week for two weeks, followed by six weekly treatments. Acupuncture was based on the TCM diagnosis of bi syndrome, with electrostimulation of needles around the ...

30 MINUTES OF ELECTRO-ACUPUNCTURE OPTIMAL FOR PAIN RELIEF

Categories: Miscellaneous

A team from the USA has found that the duration of electro-acupuncture treatment can affect its analgesic effect. Healthy volunteers were randomised to receive 0, 20, 30 or 40 minutes of electro-acupuncture stimulation (alternating 2/100 Hz at 5mA). Using a cold pain threshold test, the investigators found that 30 min of stimulation resulted in the most significant hypoalgesic effect, which was su ...

ACUPUNCTURE & OSTEOARTHRITIS OF THE KNEE

Categories: Knee

44 patents with advanced osteoarthritis of the knee who were awaiting total knee joint replacements were given acupuncture either on the most affected knee only, or on both knees. Points needled were Yinlingquan SP-9, Xuehai SP-10, Liangqiu ST-34, Zusanli ST-36 and Hegu L.I.-4. Results showed a significant reduction in symptoms in both groups with no signficant dfference between the two groups, su ...

ACUPUNCTURE & KNEE OSTEOARTHRITIS

Categories: Knee

60 patients on a waiting list for total knee replacement were randomly divided into two groups. 30 received "medical acupuncture" using one inch needles inserted "deeply" at Yinlingquan SP-9, Xuehai SP-10, Liangqiu ST 34, Zusanli ST-36 and Hegu L.I.-4. The needles were manipulated manually 4 times during a 15 minute retention and patients received a total of 6 weekly treatments ...

ACUPUNCTURE FOR OSTEOARTHRITIS OF THE KNEE

Categories: Knee

30 patients with osteoarthritis of the knee were randomised to one of three groups: 1. acupuncture alone at Hegu L.I.-4, Xuehai SP-10, Xiyan (MN-LE-16), Yinlingquan SP-9, Yanglingquan GB-34, Zusanli ST-36, Taichong LIV-3, Weizhong BL-40 and Chengshan BL-57 (twice weekly treatment, obtaining of deqi, 10 treatments in total, using electro-acupuncture at most points); 2. identical acupuncture plus co ...

ACUPUNCTURE & KNEE ARTHRITIS

Categories: Knee

In a separate Spanish study of the potential benefits of acupuncture in the treatment of knee osteoarthritis, 97 patients were randomly assigned to receive either acupuncture plus diclofenac, or placebo acupuncture plus diclofenac. The true acupuncture consisted of needling (followed by electroacupuncture at the local points) at Yanglingquan GB-34, Yinlingquan SP-9, Xiyan (MN-LE-16), Zusanli ST-36 ...

ACUPUNCTURE & KNEE ARTHRITIS

Categories: Knee

The longest and largest randomised, controlled phase III clinical trial of acupuncture ever conducted has found that acupuncture can significantly improve the symptoms of arthritis of the knee. The study of 570 patients was carried out at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. The patients were randomly assigned to receive 23 treatments of either true or sham (no actual insertion of needle ...

ACUPUNCTURE EFFECTIVE FOR KNEE ARTHRITIS

Categories: Knee

In a study of the treatment of chronic arthritis of the knee, 150 patients were assigned to receive ‘true’ acupuncture, 76 to minimal acupuncture (superficial needling at non-acupuncture points) and 76 to a waiting list control.

ACUPUNCTURE & KNEE OSTEOARTHRITIS

Categories: Knee

Another German trial has shown a significant benefit for acupuncture treatment (in this case in the treatment of osteoarthritis of the knee), yet with no significant difference between true and sham acupuncture. In this large trial of 1007 patients (treated by 320 different practitioners in 315 primary care practices), who had had chronic pain from knee arthritis for over six months, a minimum 36% ...

OPTIMAL ACUPUNCTURE FOR KNEE OSTEOARTHRITIS

Categories: Knee

A review of recent research into acupuncture treatment for osteoarthritis (OA) of the knee explores whether any aspects of treatment are more likely to be associated with good outcomes. Based on their evaluation of four recent randomised controlled trials (RCTs) and a systematic review (which included 13 RCTs), the authors speculate that optimal results from acupuncture treatment for OA of the kne ...

ACUPUNCTURE FOR OSTEOARTHRITIS OF THE KNEE

Categories: Knee

A meta-analysis by American researchers has evaluated the effects of acupuncture in the treatment of knee osteoarthritis (OA). Biomedical databases were searched for randomised controlled trials (RCTs), longer than six weeks in duration, which compared needle acupuncture with sham, usual care, or a waiting list control group. Eleven trials met the selection criteria and nine reported sufficient da ...

ACUPUNCTURE EFFECTIVE FOR KNEE OSTEOARTHRITIS

Categories: Knee

A review, carried out by American researchers, of ten randomised, controlled trials (1456 participants) of acupuncture for osteoarthritis of the knee have concluded that it is an effective treatment for the pain and physical dysfunction caused by the condition. (Acupuncture and osteoarthritis of the knee: a review of randomized, controlled trials. Fam Community Health. 2008 Jul-Sep;31(3):247-54).

ACUPUNCTURE IMPROVES SYMPTOMS OF KNEE OSTEOARTHRITIS

Categories: Knee

A blinded randomised trial of acupuncture has compared the effect of acupuncture with that of a non-penetrating sham in patients with osteoarthritic knee pain. Sixty-eight acupuncture naïve patients with symptomatic and radiological evidence of osteoarthritis of the knee were randomly allocated to a course of either acupuncture or non-penetrating sham acupuncture using a sheathed 'placebo' needle ...

ACUPUNCTURE IMPROVES CHRONIC KNEE PAIN

Categories: Knee

A meta-analysis has evaluated the effects of acupuncture on pain and function in patients with chronic knee pain. Combining data from five randomised controlled studies judged to have high validity (1334 patients), acupuncture was found to be superior to sham acupuncture for both pain and function. The differences were still significant at long-term follow-up. (Acupuncture treatment for chronic kn ...

ACUPUNCTURE DELAYED EFFECT IN KNEE OSTEOARTHRITIS

Categories: Knee

An RCT carried out in Israel has assessed the efficacy of acupuncture in providing improved function and pain relief when used as an adjunctive therapy to standard care in elderly patients with osteoarthritis (OA) of the knee. Fifty-five patients were randomly divided into an intervention group that received eight weeks of biweekly acupuncture treatment and a control group that received sham acupu ...

ACUPUNCTURE IMPROVES KNEE OSTEOARTHRITIS

Categories: Knee

Research from a team in Pakistan has shown that improvement in subjective measures of pain in knee osteoarthritis after electro-acupuncture (EA) was correlated with changes in biomarkers associated with stress and pain. Forty patients aged 40 years and over received ten daily 25 minute sessions of either EA (with points selected according to TCM theory) or sham acupuncture (with needles inserted a ...

ACUPUNCTURE AND HIP PAIN

Categories: Hip

A study carried out by anaesthetists at Cheltenham General Hospital compared the acupuncture and steroid injection treatment of patients with osteoarthritis of the hip. All patients had suffered chronic pain for more than twelve months and were awaiting hip arthroplasty. The acupuncture group received periosteal needling to the greater trochanter with three needles (three, weekly treatments), whil ...

Ear acupuncture and hip pain

Categories: Hip

A study which compared auricular press needles inserted at specific points for hip pain (hip joint, lung, Shenmen, thalamus) with similar needles inserted in auricular non-points, in 61 patients one day before and for three days after total hip arthroplasty surgery, found that the true points group used 32% less analgesics than the non-point group. (Pain 2005; 114: 320-7).