If you are the patient, since it works, maybe you shouldn’t overthink it.Īfter all, thousands of drugs and medical procedures are approved and prescribed to treat conditions at enormous cost every day, often without a precise understanding of why they work, or even whether they are effective at all compared to other approaches or doing nothing. Or maybe getting yourself stuck works due to an as-yet-discovered process. Or maybe all those needles somehow stimulate the body to heal itself or suppress pain.

So maybe acupuncture’s usually positive results are from a placebo effect. Another problem in assessing acupuncture (and many other medical treatments) is that ailments often simply resolve themselves. The problem is, there are no good placebo substitutes for acupuncture. In double-blind studies, one group receives the conventional drug or treatment while another group receives a placebo. That’s because it’s difficult to test the efficacy of acupuncture. Many skeptics argue that any benefits of getting stuck probably derive from a placebo effect. These pathways connect via acupuncture points that relate to internal organs acupuncture’s specialized needle placements improve the flow of energy and promote healing.Īlthough there’s much evidence that acupuncture often alleviates pain and successfully treats a range of symptoms and diseases, there’s no clear answer as to whether acupuncture is a microneedle magic bullet. Energy flows through the meridians or pathways of the body. In Eastern medical lingo, ailments are described in terms of an excess of or deficiency in yin or yang, forces that are connected and interdependent. Another hypothesis, the Gate Control Theory of Pain, argues that the body shuts down pain receptors in response to acupuncture’s needling. One premise: It releases the body’s own painkillers, or endorphins. Western medicine proposes several theories on how acupuncture works. Recently, the American College of Physicians recommended using acupuncture as one of the first treatments for lower back pain, and the Joint Commission’s “Pain Management Standards” now includes acupuncture as a non-pharmacological strategy for managing pain. Many health care providers see acupuncture as a possible tool to battle the U.S. Acupuncture practitioners claim their centuries-old approach can successfully treat dozens of medical problems - with few side effects or risk of complications.

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