New research on acupuncture...

[Royston]

Please take a look at the article below from the BBC...

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4631930.stm

 

In Alternative Medicine: The Evidence, volunteers are subjected to deep needling, which involves needles being inserted 1cm into the back of the hand at well-known acupuncture points.

 

A control group undergoes superficial needling with needles placed only 1mm in.

 

The needles are then twiddled until the participants feel a dull, achy or tingling sensation. For those in the deep needling group this stimulates the nervous system.

 

During these two procedures, the volunteers underwent brain scans to see what, if any, effect there was in the brain.

 

The team, including leading scientists from University College London, Southampton University and the University of York, found the superficial needling resulted in activation of the motor areas of the cortex, a normal reaction to pain.

 

Professor Sykes said: "The pain matrix is involved in the perception of pain - it helps someone decide whether something is painful or not, so it could be that acupuncture in some ways changes a person's pain perception.

 

"We have found something quite unexpected - that acupuncture is having a measurable effect on the human brain.

 

"We are not suggesting that it should be used during surgery, although it is in China, but just that it acts as a pain relief and should be taken seriously."

 

Professor Tony Wildsmith, a pain relief expert at the University of Dundee, said he thought the findings were possible.

 

But he added: "The thing about acupuncture is that it does not work on everyone. It is more likely to be effective if you believe it.

 

"I think it is a psychological manipulation technique, a distraction. We are not going to get to the stage where this could be used instead of a general anaesthetic."

[ed84c]

Yeh i saw the programme too. I think its good how more and more "alternative remedies" are being sciencefied (is that a word?) both to illiminate those skeptics who say "it cant work, rubbish" and help guide the people who believe (in this case) in Chi.

[AL]

Yeh i saw the programme too. I think its good how more and more "alternative remedies" are being sciencefied (is that a word?) both to illiminate those skeptics who say "it cant work, rubbish" and help guide the people who believe (in this case) in Chi.

The notion of a placebo effect is pretty well-established, and nothing in this article suggests that acupuncture has possibly been "sciencified" beyond such an effect. The comment by Wildsmith that "it is more likely to be effective if you believe it" confirms that his opinion leans toward this being the case.

[ed84c]

Maybe your right, maybe your not we probably wont know for a very long time.

 

There is an inherent danger in proving that placebos are just that, as they no longer become placebos, and you will then put peoples lives at risk.

[Royston]

There is an inherent danger in proving that placebos are just that' date=' as they no longer become placebos, and you will then put peoples lives at risk.[/quote']

 

That's an interesting point and certainly relevant to using placebo effects as a means of anaesthetic.

 

It's quite amazing that such an inherent response can be overcome, does it mean that the nerves are not routed directly to one part of the brain and so not being a pure motor response ?

[ed84c]

Ill tell you a story which i told in another forum which may intrest you;

 

There was a man with a terminal case of cancer (i forget which), anyway, his doctor prescribed him a drug (again i forget what one), and to his amazment the tumours (and i quote) "Melted like snowballs". Anyway, it turned out the drug had no use at all, this was printed in the papers, which the man read, sudenly he had a relapse. Back in hospital the doctor felt he had to do something or the man would die, and he felt lying to the patient was a small price to pay, so he told him that a double dose of this drug would cure his cancer, (even though the doctor knew it wouldnt because it had recently been proven not to), again the man's tumours were disappearing rapidly, until he read about how this treatment was also proven to have no effect, he had another relapse and died.

 

Theres your proof (if you needed any)

[Royston]

Theres your proof (if you needed any)

 

I find it a bit hard to believe you could make a tumor 'melt' through a placebo effect. I'm not sure there are any physical repercussions it's (as the article states) purely a psychological one.

 

It's probably better to give a link from a reputable source before you can say it's 'proof'.

 

What I was trying to get across is that if pain can be overcome albeit placebo conditioning, or tolerance through meditation or training (armed forces / martial arts) for example...then surely the nerves are not wired directly to the part of the brain that give a motor response to stimulus...there's something more going on.

[Royston]

Well I found this that explains that pain could be overlapped between a 'neuromatrix' which is mapped to regions of the cerebal cortex that deal with touch, and specific pain centres which have evolved from a primitive version of the brain that controls the general health of the body.

As there is emotion processing involved (though I have no clue what point the emotion is processed and how) it can make pain seem subjective - which it obviously is, though I'm not sure any of this satisfies how we can condition ourselves to not react to pain. It regards this problem under the section 'A possible synthesis', though with no conclusions...

 

http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/en/pain/microsite/science2.html

 

I also found this interesting news article, where people have reduced the amount of pain they are experiencing by viewing MRI scans of their own brain activity...

 

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/health_science/articles/2006/01/23/brain_over_pain/?page=1

[Nevermore]

You fail to note that acupuncture involves sticking nedles in your nerve-endings. This will invariably do somthing funny.

[Royston]

You fail to note that acupuncture involves sticking nedles in your nerve-endings. This will invariably do somthing funny.

 

I mentioned that in the first post...I'm also carrying on in the context of placebo effects as a whole (acupuncture being one of them.) As Prof. Wildsmith states you have to believe in the effects of acupuncture, so I'm under the assertion sticking ultra fine needles into the nerves is nothing more than a placebo effect. There appears to be no proof that stimulating a nerve has any anesthetic / or 'healing' qualities...give me one good reason why it should.

[Nevermore]

Sorry, I missed that in your post.

It does not have healing qualities. Acupuncture just makes you feel good; Tingly and fresh and new. On that note, it is good for arthritis, poking the nerves makes the pain much less severe.

But you are right, acupuncture, other than making you physically feel better, is all a placebo.

[Royston]

Hmm, so you know that acupuncture is a placebo effect, but you 'feel' that it's doing you some good...I can't follow that. Please don't think I'm trying to be difficult, I just think it's interesting that you feel that acupuncture is doing you some good...makes you feel physically better, when really you know it's not doing anything at all. Is it that you just like the tingling sensation that you get with an acupuncture treatment ?

[badchad]

Anyone have a link to the actual study? They should have added a third group to the mix; a group receiving nothing at all. Then you could look and see if there were differences amongst the groups. If there were a difference among all three, you would have additional evidence against it being pureley placebo.

 

While I'm not an expert on acupuncture, the study (as well as some others I breezed over on pubmed) seems to indicate that acupuncture can produce measurable, and physical changes in the body. If these changes are greater than the control group (e.g. those receiving needles inserted to a very small depth) one could conclude it's not purely placebo.

 

Theoretically, it makes sense. Stimulate a neuron with a needle, and you'll get changes. Whether the stimulation occurs with said needle, or with a therapeutic drug may not make much of a difference.

[Royston]

I'll have a look for the full study, in the mean time, all the scan was picking up is that acupuncture has the same effect as feeling pain - so for it to be used as an anaesthetic it is (as the article states) merely a distraction.

 

It'll be like stubbing your toe, then pinching the skin on the back of your hand to distract yourself from the pain of stubbing your toe.

 

However acupuncture is a tingly sensation as Nevermore (who has experience with acupuncture) has stated. This to me says, that acupuncture is not so much confusing the brain with another source of pain, but it has a subjective placebo effect. Even if it was distracting the brain by being moderately painful, you may as well have a nurse slapping you round the face as a means of anaesthetic.

 

A good control would be to have a 'placebo pill' used instead of acupuncture. If the same effects are apparent from a fake painkiller as they are with acupuncture (with patients feeling a level of discomfort throughout the experiment, to gauge it's effects), then we could ascert that acupuncture truly is a placebo effect.

[Nevermore]

Hmm, so you know that acupuncture is a placebo effect, but you 'feel' that it's doing you some good...I can't follow that. Please don't think I'm trying to be difficult, I just think it's interesting that you feel that acupuncture is doing you some good...makes you feel physically[/i'] better, when really you know it's not doing anything at all. Is it that you just like the tingling sensation that you get with an acupuncture treatment ?

Acupunture makes you fell physicly better. Astheticly better. It's a pain killer. A symptomatic treatment. It has no effect on actual underlying problems except for the placebo effect.

And btw, I've never had acupunture, my grandmother has.

[sunspot]

If one was to assume that there is some type of effect going on, one way to interpret the effect is that nerves contain charge. Since all these satelite charges throughout the body are integrated via the brain, through the nervous system, by alterring the local charge within various satalites, one will also alter the final integration affect within the brain. For example, if one is under stress because of someone, it is not uncommon to have a pain in the neck both literally and figuratively.

[Royston]

And btw, I've never had acupunture, my grandmother has.

 

That explains it, sorry for getting the wrong end of the stick Nevermore

 

If one was to assume that there is some type of effect going on, one way to interpret the effect is that nerves contain charge. Since all these satelite charges throughout the body are integrated via the brain, through the nervous system, by alterring the local charge within various satalites, one will also alter the final integration affect within the brain. For example, if one is under stress because of someone, it is not uncommon to have a pain in the neck both literally and figuratively.

 

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by satellite charges ? Also what do you mean by altering the local charge...we have Freeview in our house, but we have to pay for terrestrial TV channels. I think satellite subscriptions have a fixed rate per TV package, but you can also get 'pay per view' where you can buy individual films and programmes which is pretty neat, and saves walking to Blockbuster if your feeling lazy.

 

I don't think 'local' charges would work because surely it's specific to what you watch rather than where you live...and I agree bills of any nature can be a real pain in the neck...though I don't actually feel physical pain in my neck, that would be very odd indeed.