Finally a sensible acupuncture write-up

Reader Wilson sent me a link to this acupuncture study write-up - No difference in pain intensity from penetrating acupuncture needles: study – suggesting I might actually like this one. Well, just look at the headline!  For once a sensible headline and write up of an acupuncture study:

The pain-relieving effects of acupuncture with penetrating and non-penetrating needles are largely the same, Japanese researchers say.

In Tuesday's issue of the online journal Open Medicine, researchers described the first double-blind study, the gold standard in clinical research, of acupuncture.

"Needle penetration did not confer a specific analgesic advantage over non-penetrating (placebo) needle application," Nobuari Takakura and Hiroyosi Yajima of Tokyo Ariake University of Medical and Health Sciences concluded in the journal.

So it doesn’t matter if the needles penetrate the skin or not. Well, we already know it doesn’t matter where you stick the needles.  Now we know it doesn’t matter if you stick them. And they didn’t even call for “more studies” to find out what is going on. I’m in shock.

They also commented on the study I wrote about last week:

Last week, a similar study also found no difference between real and simulated pricks for relieving lower back pain.

Snicker – they said "real and simulated pricks." And even then, they still made more sense than most other news articles about that study.

Comments

[Big Al]

Scy-en-tists don't know everything, you know! There are some vitally important questions that Scy-en-tists can never answer.

There are more subtle ways of knowing than Scy-en-tists will ever understand.

[Big Al]

Real pricks are the absolute core of acupuncture!!!!!!!!!

[Skemono]

Is this the first double-blind acupuncture study? I'm sure I've read about people using retractable needles in double-blind acupuncture study before.

Maybe they were referring to this one and the results hadn't been released yet? Hm.

[TechSkeptic]

retractable needles were discussed in Singhs Trick or Treatment book, but as of the writing of that book, they had not gone into widespread use. Perhaps we are now starting to see the fruit of that labor?

now we just need non penetrating in sham positions. btu that still wont be good enough, they will claim you still put pressure on the spot.

I have no idea how you double blind in a way that the acupuncturist doesn;t even know if he applied pressure or not.

p.s. how come typekey never remembers me? so annoying!

[yakaru]

Skemono, there have been many double blind studies done - in fact special retractable needles were designed for the purpose. Generally such studies show no significant difference between acupuncture and placebo, although this one, for example, - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18022318 - shows laser acupunture as being more than six times more successful than the placebo.

Such a large difference would probably be worth closer examination and replicating the study, because if it were true, it would be a clear victory - as far as I can see (I'm pretty dumb sometimes, so I probably missed something) - for acupuncture.

Of course, they probably won't want to replicate it in case it turns out that headaches are tricky things to quantify, or maybe they made a serious procedural "error".

Usually the larger the study, the closer acupunture is to placebo. Usually this is heralded in the newpapers as confirming that acupuncture works.

If it were a normal treatment they would've given up testing it years ago as a waste of time and money.

Also, it isn't all that "ancient", because the technology to make the needles has only existed for a few hundred years.

Orac
http://www.google.com/cse?cx=017254414699180528062%3Auyrcvn__yd0&q=acupuncture+site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fscienceblogs.com%2Finsolence%2F&sa=Search

seems to have more about it than you could read in the average life time, and see of course Skeptico's other recent article.

[TechSkeptic]

Also, it isn't all that "ancient", because the technology to make the needles has only existed for a few hundred years.

this is contrary to the claim in "trick or treatment" (which i really cant link to, but its a good read). Needles have in fact been around for a long time as tattoos have been around for millenia. I don't think its not old, but it certainly is as useful as bloodletting was.

which of course is just as old.

[TechSkeptic]

too be more clear (i miss the edit feature, i dont miss anything else about the previous comment system). needles in their current form may only have been around for a few hundred years.

sharp things that were used to poke the skin in essentially random places so as to cure an ailment have been around for a very long time.