Research Archive

A study carried out in Austria has demonstrated the long-term benefits of acupuncture in the treatment of migraine. 26 patients were treated by local and distal body points, once weekly, for between 6 and 13 treatments. The majority showed reduced frequency of attacks and use of analgesics. Significantly, a follow-up survey showed maintained improvement over a 3-year period. (Headache, 1995; 35(8) ...

Women who opt for acupuncture instead of a drug to prevent migraines report feeling fewer initial symptoms, fewer attacks, and less side effects from the treatment, new study findings report. The study, carried out at the Woman's Headache Centre at the University of Turin, Italy, compared the effect of acupuncture with oral flunarizine in preventing non-aura migraine over a 6-month period. The 160 ...

Acupuncture has demonstrated a clear long-term benefit for patients suffering from chronic headaches. 401 patients were randomly assigned to receive either individualised acupuncture treatment (12 treatments over 3 months), or normal care from their general practitioner (control). At 12 months after the onset of treatment, headache scores in the acupuncture group fell by 34% (compared to 16% in th ...

This German study compared the number of days of moderate headache experienced by two groups of chronic headache sufferers, one after 4 weeks of Chinese herbal medicine and acupuncture treatment at a Chinese medicine hospital in Kotzting, Germany, and the other assigned to a non-treatment waiting group. Fifty-two percent of patients in the treatment group experienced a greater than 50% reduction i ...

Another large German study similarly compared the effects of randomly assigned acupuncture, self-elected acupuncture and non-acupuncture controls on chronic migraine and tension headache in a total of 15,056 patients. After three months of treatment (fifteen sessions) the frequency of headache days reduced significantly and quality of life scores improved significantly between the acupuncture and ...

Laser acupuncture has a distinct advantage over needle acupuncture in clinical trials since it is considerably easier to apply a placebo intervention. In a study of the use of laser acupuncture in the treatment of chronic tension-type headache, 50 patients were randomly allocated to treatment or placebo groups. Patients in the treatment group received low energy laser acupuncture to Lieque LU-7, H ...

A German trial compared 'true' acupuncture, sham acupuncture and no acupuncture in 270 female patients suffering from episodic or chronic tension-type headache. The acupuncture protocol, which was carried out at 28 different clinics, was developed through consultation with various German acupuncture experts and societies and delivered by practitioners with a median of 500 hours training and 10 yea ...

Acupuncture (up to 15 sessions over 12 weeks) was compared with metoprolol (a standard migraine prophylaxis medication) for effectiveness and tolerability in 113 patients randomised to one of two groups. The number of days with migraine decreased by 2.5 days in the acupuncture group compared to 2.2 in the medication group and those experiencing 50% or greater reduction in attacks was 61% for acupu ...

In a randomised, controlled trial, 74 patients with chronic daily headache were randomly assigned to receive either medical management alone (headache medication) or medical management plus acupuncture (10 treatments over six weeks). The patients receiving acupuncture were reported 3.7 times less suffering due to headaches at six weeks, and further showed improvements in the Headache Impact Test a ...

A review of current studies on acupuncture and migraine concludes that a six-week course of acupuncture is not inferior to a six-month prophylactic drug treatment, but that specific TCM-based point selection, point stimulation and needling depth may not be that important. The review suggests that acupuncture should be integrated into existing migraine therapy protocols. Role of acupuncture in the ...

Laser acupuncture can provide significant benefit in the treatment of children with headache. Researchers in Germany carried out a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of laser acupuncture in 43 children (mean age 12.3 years) with various types of headache. Patients received a course of four treatments over four weeks with either active or placebo laser. The acupuncture treatment was ...

Tension-type headache (TTH), improves after acupuncture, but the difference between real and sham treatment is not significant, a new German study has found. The randomised, controlled, multicentre, patient-and observer-blinded trial was carried out in 122 outpatient practices on 409 patients with TTH. Patients had either verum acupuncture (according TCM principles) or sham acupuncture (superficia ...

Italian researchers have conducted a trial on migraine sufferers that attempts to separate the specific effects of a true TCM acupuncture treatment from the effects of both standard sham acupuncture and a mock 'acupuncture healing ritual'. One hundred and sixty patients were divided into four groups: true acupuncture (TA) plus normal drug therapy (Rizatriptan), ritualised mock acupuncture (RMA) pl ...

A positive response to acupuncture by migraine sufferers is associated with beneficial changes in the regulation of the autonomic nervous system. Thirty migraineurs were randomly allocated to two groups receiving either verum acupuncture (VA) or sham acupuncture (SA) treatment. Across the combined VA and SA groups, clinical responders (those with at least 50% reduction of migraine attacks) exhibit ...

A German study has assessed the costs and cost-effectiveness of additional acupuncture treatment in patients with headache. The randomised controlled trial of 3182 patients measured quality of life, cost differences between treatment groups, and the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) of acupuncture treatment. The ICER was calculated as 11657 euros per QALY (quality-adjusted life year) gai ...

A large German study has compared the effectiveness of acupuncture in addition to routine care in patients with primary headache, to routine care alone. In a randomised controlled trial plus non-randomised cohort study, patients with headache were allocated to receive up to 15 acupuncture sessions over three months or to a control group receiving no acupuncture during the first three months. Patie ...

A systematic review has confirmed the benefits of acupuncture in the treatment of chronic headache. The study, carried out by US authors, included 31 studies in its meta-analysis. The majority of trials comparing verum (true) acupuncture with sham acupuncture were found to show a trend in favour of verum acupuncture. The combined response rate in the acupuncture group was significantly higher comp ...

The addition of 12 additional trials (carried out since 2001) to the Cochrane Database Systematic Review of acupuncture for migraine prophylaxis increased the number of trials meeting the inclusion criteria to 22, involving a total of 4419 participants. The authors' new conclusion, based on the additional data, is that there is now consistent evidence that acupuncture provides additional benefit i ...

Chinese researchers have found acupuncture to be an effective treatment for acute migraine. In a multicentre randomised controlled trial, they compared verum acupuncture with two different types of sham acupuncture. 175 patients received one session of real or sham treatment and were observed over a period of 24 hours. Visual analog scale (VAS) pain scores in the fourth hour after treatment decrea ...

In a randomised, controlled, single-blind trial in the UK, patients in the 'active' group received needling at Zanzhu BL-2, Yingxiang L.I.-20 and Hegu L.I.-4 (deqi was obtained and needles retained for five minutes), whilst patients in the control group received sham acupuncture (three needles inserted subcutaneously, with no further stimulation, in an area over the middle of the patella). Remissi ...