AcuSpace Health Clinic

A new report published in the online version of the British Medical Journal(1) has found that acupuncture is a useful, cost-effective treatment for chronic headaches, particularly migraines.
The report found that over a 12-month period, headache patients who received regular acupuncture sessions reported fewer headaches, had a higher quality of life, missed fewer days from work, used less medication, and made fewer visits to a general practitioner than patients given standard treatment for headaches.
The research was conducted at a series of single acupuncture practices and general practices in Wales and Great Britain. In the study, the authors recruited 401 patients who suffered from chronic headaches, predominantly migraine headaches. The patients were randomized to receive either acupuncture or “usual care” from a general practitioner. In the acupuncture group, subjects standard care for headaches, and were also treated with acupuncture up to 12 times over a three-month period. Treatment patterns were individualized to each patient, and different points were used based on the discretion of the acupuncturist providing care. In the usual care group, patients received standard headache care from their general practitioner, but were not referred out for acupuncture.
At various times throughout the study, patients used a daily diary to track the frequency and severity of headache pain, and any related medication use. Headache severity was measured four times a day on a six-point scale, with the total summed to give a headache score. In addition, the patients completed the SF 36 Health Status Questionnaire at the start of the study, and at three months and 12 months after treatment. Patients also completed a series of questionnaires every three months that monitored use of different headache treatments, days missed from work due to illness, and other usual activities.
Initially, there was not much difference between patients in either group. By the 12-month interval, however, striking differences were noted in terms of frequency of headache, doctor visits and medication use:
 Patients given acupuncture had an average of 1.8 less days with headaches over the first four weeks of the study compared to the control group. When projected over 52 weeks, the authors estimated that acupuncture would result in an average 22 fewer days of headaches per year.
 The effects of acupuncture appeared to be long-lasting. At the start of treatment, the average weekly headache score among acupuncture patients was 24.6. Three months after the start of the study, the average score had dropped to 18.0; at 12 months, it had dropped by more than 34 percent, to 16.2. In the standard care patients, weekly headaches scores dropped only 16 percent over the course of the year.
 Results from the SF-36 questionnaire showed significant benefits for acupuncture patients in terms of physical role functioning, energy levels and changes in health. Over the course of a year, physical role functioning, energy and health change scores increased an average of 9.6, 7.4 and 10.3 points, respectively, for those in the acupuncture group. These scores also increased in usual care patients, but at much lower levels.
 Acupuncture patients used an average of 15 percent less medication to treat headaches than patients receiving only usual care. They also made 26 percent fewer visits to a general practitioner, and missed fewer days from work due to sickness.
“Acupuncture in addition to standard care results in persisting, clinically relevant benefits for primary care patients with chronic headache, particularly migraine, compared with controls,” the researchers commented. “We also found improvements in quality of life, decreases in use of medication and visits to general practitioners, and reductions in days off sick.”
In their conclusion, the researchers admitted they could not rule out the occurrence of a placebo effect, as the study did not include a sham acupuncture group. In addition, since the patients knew which treatment group they were assigned to, there remained the possibility that patients could give somewhat biased assessments of their treatments. However, the authors noted that the results of their study were similar to results seen in blinded, placebo-controlled trials, which “provides further evidence that bias does not completely explain the apparent effects of acupuncture.”
The authors recommended that their findings should be taken into account by policymakers when assessing the most cost-effective ways of treating patients. They also called for an expansion of acupuncture services for the treatment of chronic headaches in the National Health Service, which provides health care to millions of Britons each year.
In an interview with the BBC, Dr. Mike Cummings, the medical director for the British Medical Acupuncture Society, called the study “innovative” and agreed with the authors’ assertions.(2)
“It is very positive for us,” he said of the research. “This should help to lift acupuncture out of what is seen to be alternative to mainstream medicine … It should be made available in primary care to treat pain and to prevent costly referrals to hospitals.”

References
(1). Vickers AJ, Rees RW, Zollman CE, et al. Acupuncture for chronic headache in primary care: large, pragmatic, randomized trial. British Medical Journal Online First; doi:10.1136/bmj.38029.421863.EB. Published March 15, 2004. Available at www.bmj.com.
(2). Acupuncture beats headache pain. BBC News, March 15, 2004.

Our bodies are constantly trying to heal every health problem that develops. Many issues are handled without outside help. Take the example of common cold. Even if you do not treat, you will recover for most cases. Just sleep in and drink warm water etc. But there are many issues, our body has tried, but is not very effective or takes a long time. But just because a problem does not spontaneously heal on its own does not mean it is beyond our body’s resources. We rarely get 100 percent of our body’s full potential for self-repair. When the body’s efforts to heal a problem fall short, it is kind of like a lawn turning brown because it is not getting enough water. If you could add some minutes to the automatic sprinkler system, this can give the grass the resources it needs to turn from brown back to green. The same thing goes for stimulating the body’s self-healing resources. A good course of acupuncture treatments should always be able to boost the body’s resources at least a bit – like adding more minutes to the sprinklers. What remains to be seen is how much good this boost will do. That is what we will seek to find out by doing an initial series of treatments – around 5-6 for the majority of chronic cases and up to 8-10 for the most serious, long standing ones.

When a lawn turns brown and you add more minutes to the sprinklers the grass will not usually turn green overnight. So please do not feel disappointed if you do not have a dramatic improvement with the first one or two treatments, although that can sometimes happen. With chronic health disorders, it is much more common to see a subtle and gradual improvement as the body repairs itself just like a lawn gradually turning green.

Finally, sometimes when a lawn turns brown, certain areas may have gone past the point of no return and now, no matter how much water you put on those areas, they will not spring back. This is what can happen in those health issues when a problem is of the type or gets to the point that the body’s resources cannot heal it. It can be difficult to tell just how much — if any — improvement will occur by boosting the body’s resources. This, again, is where the initial series of treatments is employed to help us gauge how the patient’s problem is responding. In some stubborn cases, we may reduce the symptoms by 70-80 percent, but the last bit of the problem remains because it has gotten to the point of being beyond the body’s self-healing resources.  Take an example of stroke rehabilitation, if you start treatment within 3 days, the success rate is in the 90%, but if you start acupuncture treatments 6 months later, the success rate is less than 3%, and total recovery is difficult.

The limit of acupuncture is the limit of the body’s resources. Acupuncture can’t make the body heal something it never had the ability to heal in the first place. It also explains why acupuncture can be effective in a remarkably wide range of problems including many problems for which conventional medicine is ineffective. Acupuncture boosts your body’s resources, helps your body fight whatever the battle that is going on.

Significant short-term reductions in BP after six weeks of treatment.

By Tina Beychok

Practitioners and other devotees of Oriental medicine are well-aware of acupuncture’s many health benefits – the profession has literally thousands of years of clinical success stories.

The challenge in today’s evidence-based health care culture is the lack of solid, well-designed research to scientifically support these success stories, particularly for certain conditions.

 A randomized, double-blind study, published online for the June 4, 2007 issue of Circulation, suggests regular acupuncture treatments can help with an all-too-common condition: high blood pressure. Researchers found that patients with hypertension achieved significant short-term reductions in systolic and diastolic blood pressure following the administration of acupuncture.

Researchers from the University of Erlangen in Germany and Nanjing University of Traditional Chinese Medicine in China randomized 160 hypertensive patients to six weeks of either active acupuncture or sham acupuncture (22 sessions for 30 minutes each), to determine if active acupuncture could reduce systolic and diastolic blood pressure. Blood pressure measurements were taken before treatment and after each session.

Needling points were chosen according to the Chinese type of hypertension and conformed to typical prescriptions for the disorder. Sham needling was done on locations not relevant for lowering blood pressure. In looking at the blood pressure readings for the subjects, the researchers found:

“There was a significant (P<0.001) difference in posttreatment blood pressures adjusted for baseline values between the active and sham acupuncture groups at the end of treatment. For the primary outcome, the difference between treatment groups amounted to 6.4 mm Hg (95% CI, 3.5 to 9.2) and 3.7 mm Hg (95% CI, 1.6 to 5.8) for 24-hour systolic and diastolic blood pressures, respectively. In the active acupuncture group, mean 24-hour ambulatory systolic and diastolic blood pressures decreased significantly after treatment by 5.4 mm Hg (95% CI, 3.2 to 7.6) and 3.0 mm Hg (95% CI, 1.5 to 4.6), respectively.”

For example, before treatment, the mean 24-hour systolic/diastolic reading was 131/81 for the active group and 129/80 for the sham group. By the end of the six weeks of treatment, the active group mean systolic/diastolic was 125/78 and the sham group was 130/80. The active group daytime systolic/diastolic scores before and during treatment were 136/84 and 128/80, respectively. The daytime sham group scores were 133/82 and 134/82, respectively. The nighttime scores for the active group, before and during treatment were 120/73 and 117/72. The sham group’s nighttime scores were 120/73 before treatment and 120/74 during treatment. Blood pressure changes during peak bicycle stress-testing were also measured, but the changes were not significant.

It’s important to note that these results were short-term. When the researchers measured blood pressure again at both three- and six-month follow up, they found: “Mean systolic and diastolic blood pressures [had] returned to pretreatment levels in the active treatment group.” This outcome suggests that reductions in blood pressure are based on receiving regular acupuncture treatment.

In conclusion, the researchers recommended: “As shown in the present study, acupuncture may offer an alternative antihypertensive therapeutic option. Acupuncture effectively lowered systolic and diastolic blood pressures during the treatment period with no or minimal side effects. Patients with mild or moderate hypertension who want to avoid drug therapy or are attracted to the spiritual foundations of acupuncture may therefore be candidates for such a therapy. This modality might also serve as an additional option together with drug therapy.”

By Yin Lo, PhD

U.S. newspapers continuously report the increase in the number of individuals among all age groups who suffer from diabetes.

One research group suggests that in the not-too-distant future, half of the Hispanic population may have diabetes. It seems that diabetes becomes more prevalent as society becomes more affluent, as there is more food available.

Diabetes is caused primarily by dysfunction of the pancreas. How can acupuncture help diabetic patients? Scientific studies and clinical tests in international research centers in the past 10 years* have shown that acupuncture can help diabetic patients in the following ways:

• lower blood glucose content;
• lower the release of pancreatic glucagons;
• attenuate symptoms of polyphagia (the urge to eat too much), polydipsia (excessive thirst) and polyuria (excessive passage of urine);
• prevent slowing of motor nerve conduction;
• improve microcirculation and myocardial contractility;
• enhance blood outflow and regulate vascular peripheral resistance;
• exert antiatherogenic, antioxidant and immunomodulating effects;
• obliterate antheroscelerosis of the legs;
• induce secretion of endogenous beta-endorphin;
• elevate a lowered pain threshold; and
• increase cell proliferation and neuropeptide Y levels.

 The effects of acupuncture are immediate after each session. Pictured below are infrared images (before and after acupuncture treatment) of a diabetic patient who had laser surgery on the eyes (without much success).

• Pictures before/after acupuncture treatments.

The effect of acupuncture is dramatically illustrated by the change in the patient’s color pattern. The color code is as follows: White is the highest temperature, followed by red; orange; yellow; green; blue; and black.

The patient was treated twice. The second treatment occurred about one week after the first.

Photographic Analysis

Patient and first acupuncture treatment.The maximum temperatures around the eyes, forehead and the mouth were reduced by 1.32 C, 1.26 C and 1.0 C after the first treatment, respectively. Maximum temperatures around the eyes, forehead and the mouth were reduced by 0.65 C, 0.26 C and 0.46 C after the second treatment. The reduction in maximum temperatures was less for the second treatment than for the first treatment.

Before the first treatment, the differences between maximum and minimum temperature around the eyes, mouth and forehead were 2.65 C, -0.07 C and 1.49 C. Before the second treatment, the differences between maximum and minimum temperatures were 1.81 C, 0.06 C and 0.27 C.

We detected improvement on the eyes and the forehead based on the reductions of their difference in maximum and minimum temperature. We attributed the improvement of 0.64 C around the eyes and 1.22 C around the forehead to the first treatment with acupuncture and massage. There was hardly any change to the difference of maximum and minimum temperature around the mouth.

The high temperature around the forehead probably was due to high blood pressure.

The high temperature around the eyes was due to damage from diabetes and the surgical operations on the eyes. Nevertheless, there was an improvement of 0.64 C. This is a very good indication that the patient responded positively to acupuncture treatment.

For another serious diabetic patient who had acupuncture continuously twice a week for a year, there was continuous improvement of eyesight and bodily function.

When the ancient Chinese art of acupuncture first came to public light in the West some 30 years ago, it was quickly labeled by medical authorities as a bizarre, antiquated folk remedy with no medical value beyond the hit-and-miss chance of a placebo. Expert after expert dismissed the idea that sticking needles in people could help any medical condition, yet alone the long list of disorders supporters claimed it could treat. Yet despite its rocky reception here, acupuncture’s popularity grew steadily, especially among those suffering from pain or stubborn, chronic conditions. An entirely new-to-the-Western-world health care profession – Licensed Acupuncturists – sprang-up to meet the demand, complete with its own accredited schools, licensing boards, and state and national licensing examinations.

As acupuncture slowly gained credibility here, Western scientists began to take it more seriously and started looking for answers as to how it may work. Recent findings show acupuncture causes an array of changes in body chemistry including producing natural pain relieving substances, hormones, anti-inflammatory substances, and immune system enhancers. Cutting-edge brain scans reveal that acupuncture stimulates key brain centers such as the limbic system that in turn regulates an array of bodily functions. What these high-tech studies are revealing is something acupuncturists have known for more than 2,000 years: Acupuncture helps the body to heal itself.

Western medicine’s approach to treating disease is similar to how a mechanic goes about fixing a dysfunctional machine; one finds the glitch in the machinery and then intervenes to restore the machine’s proper function. This approach essentially replaces our body’s natural healing efforts with man-made fixes such as killing bacteria with man-made antibiotics, or placing a man-made balloon into a clogged artery to restore blood flow.

Of course, unlike any machine, the human organism has the potential to repair or heal itself. The critical question is whether or not our self-healing efforts are powerful enough to heal any given disorder. Western medicine has a history of assuming that whenever a health problem is not quickly resolved by our natural healing ability, it is time for the doctor/mechanic to step in and take over. But while it is true that some health problems are beyond the body’s ability to heal and thus require outside intervention, many problems simply fail to resolve because the individual’s self-healing ability is not operating at 100% capacity. In such cases, common sense tells us that if we could boost the self-healing ability – get it closer to its full capacity – this could make-up the difference and allow self-healing to take place.

Oddly, the possibility of stimulating the body’s self-healing ability is not even considered an option in modern Western medicine. This explains why those first medical authorities here failed to appreciate acupuncture’s potential. If one looks at acupuncture as just another type of mechanical fix – acting in place of natural healing resources – then it appears to be ineffective. But if one looks at acupuncture as a method that facilitates self-healing – by stimulating key brain centers for example – then its potential seems great indeed.

Although understanding that acupuncture helps the body to heal itself is crucial to appreciating its potential, this does not explain just how it, or its related therapy acupressure, works. How does sticking a needle or applying pressure to a specific spot in the flesh stimulate brain centers that in turn stimulate self-healing? Modern researchers don’t have a clue. The ancient Chinese however, who discovered and refined this approach, believed they knew: Acupuncture restores the free flow of qi throughout the body.

The ancient concept of qi (pronounced “chee” by the Chinese and “key” by the Japanese) has been a cornerstone of Eastern thought for more than two thousand years. Qi is seen as an all-pervasive force of nature, a force that animates matter and gives function to form. According to this concept, the constant evolution of all creation occurs because qi is in constant motion. As qi flows, it sets all in motion in a manner similar to how the motion of a wave causes water molecules to move. If this force is obstructed, unable to flow freely, it upsets nature’s delicate balancing act and causes disorder. In the human organism, qi blockage leads to pain and disease. Restore the normal flow of qi and pain and disease resolve themselves. Acupuncture and acupressure points are spots in the flesh where qi has the greatest tendency to get stuck. Stimulating these spots with needles (acupuncture) or finger pressure (acupressure) helps to break-up obstructions and restore the flow of qi.

The problem modern skeptics have with the traditional qi explanation is that researchers have been unable to confirm the existence of this force. But, in this day of sky-rocketing health care costs and alarming evidence of drug side-effects, this should not deter us from making more use of acupuncture and acupressure. While it is impressive that millions of Americans have been helped with these therapies over the last 30 years, they represent only a fraction of those who could be helped. Nature has endowed us with the power of self-healing. Acupuncture and acupressure help us to unleash this power.