http://www.healthsentinel.com/news.p...st_item&id=490
"Acupuncture 'works for arthritis'", BBC News, December 21, 2004,
Link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4111047.stm
A major study of the effect of acupuncture on osteoarthritis of the
knee has found it can both relieve pain and improve movement.
The US National Institutes of Health study concludes acupuncture is an
effective complement to standard care.
Acupuncture patients showed a 40% decrease in pain, and a nearly 40%
improvement in knee function.
Details of the study, which involved 570 patients, are published in
Annals of Internal Medicine.
The patients who took part in the study received either acupuncture,
sham acupuncture or guidance on self-help, alongside standard drug
treatment.
Sham acupuncture is a procedure designed to prevent patients from being
able to detect if needles are actually inserted at treatment points.
Researcher Dr Stephen Strauss, director of the US National Center for
Complementary and Alternative Medicine, said: "For the first time, a
clinical trial with sufficient rigour, size, and duration has shown
that acupuncture reduces the pain and functional impairment of
osteoarthritis of the knee.
"These results also indicate that acupuncture can serve as an effective
addition to a standard regimen of care and improve quality of life for
knee osteoarthritis sufferers."
'Extremely encouraging'
By eight weeks into the study, the acupuncture patients were showing a
significant improvement in knee function, and by 14 weeks their pain
levels had dropped sharply compared with the sham acupuncture and
self-help groups.
Dr Madeleine Devey, of the Arthritis Research Campaign, said: "It is
extremely encouraging to see a well conducted clinical trial on a
complementary therapy for OA that demonstrates a positive effect.
"We are also funding a couple of acupuncture trials in the UK and I
know that these trials are extremely difficult to undertake.
"Of course these therapies, which appear to alleviate pain and thus
improve mobility and function, do not cure or prevent OA, but
nevertheless they are a very useful adjunct to other therapies and
probably much less damaging than non steroidal anti-inflammatories."
Acupuncture - the practice of inserting thin needles into specific body
points to improve health and well-being - originated in China more than
2,000 years ago.
It is based on the idea that energy, or Qi, flows along channels called
meridians in body.
Practitioners say the use of needles can block or stimulate these
channels.
Some experts believe that the technique may influence the body's
electromagnetic fields.
Professor Anthony Woolf, an expert in arthritis at the Royal Cornwall
Hospitals Trust, Truro, said previous evidence on the benefits of
acupuncture had failed to draw any firm conclusions.
"The finding here suggests acupuncture may be useful as a complementary
therapy for people who are already on standard treatments, but not
getting full relief," he told the BBC News website.
Sham effect
A separate British study also published in the Annals of Internal
Medicine indicated that both genuine and sham acupuncture appeared to
help reduce neck pain.
Researchers at the University of Southampton compared genuine and sham
treatments from the same therapist on 124 patients with chronic neck
pain aged between 18 and 80.
Over 12 weeks, patients from both groups reported a decrease in pain
levels of more than 60%.
Dr George Lewith, who co-led the trial, said: "Our study implies that
most of the improvement gained from acupuncture was not due to the
needling process itself but due predominantly to the non-specific yet
powerful effects which are probably part of the treatment process."
