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Latest Research
We thought you may be interested in the following excerpts
from recently published articles:
Acupuncture Cuts Tension Headache Rates By Almost Half
Stress-related and Psychological Disorders
Effectiveness of Acupuncture as Adjunctive Therapy in Osteoarthritis
of the Knee
Acupuncture Does Combat Pain, Study Finds
Worried about stress? Take the
"Stress
Self Assessment - What's Your Risk" Test
Acupuncture Cuts Tension Headache
Rates By Almost Half
Acupuncture is an effective treatment
for tension headache, cutting rates for sufferers by almost
half, shows a study on bmj.com this week.
And a minimal acupuncture course works almost as well
as traditional Chinese therapy, say the researchers.
In a randomised controlled trial - the gold standard
of clinical trials - researchers in Germany divided 270
patients with a similar severity of tension headache
into three groups.
Over an eight week period one set were treated with traditional
acupuncture, one with minimal acupuncture (needles inserted
only superficially into the skin, at non-acupuncture
points), and one group had neither treatment ('control'
group).
Those receiving traditional acupuncture care saw their
headache rates drop by almost half - suffering 7 days
less headaches over the four weeks following the treatment.
Those receiving minimal acupuncture had 6.6 less days
of headaches. While the control group experienced 1.5
less days of headaches - a drop of just a tenth.
Improvements to headache rates continued for months after
the acupuncture treatment, though they began to rise
slightly as time went on.
Those in the 'no treatment' group were subsequently given
acupuncture for eight weeks after the main study period.
These patients also improved significantly after the
treatment, though not to the same level as those given
acupuncture initially.
Of the 195 patients in the acupuncture groups, 37 reported
some side effects - the most common being dizziness,
other headaches and bruising.
Such a small difference in results between traditional and minimal acupuncture
treatments seems to indicate that the location of acupuncture points and other
aspects of traditional Chinese acupuncture do not make a major difference for
tension headache, say the authors.
Acupuncture treatments are sometimes associated
with strong placebo effects, caution the authors but these findings show that
acupuncture produces just as good improvements for tension headache sufferers
as treatments already accepted, they conclude.
This story has been adapted from
a news release issued by British Medical Journal
Source:
British
Medical Journal
Date: 2005-08-01
Stress-related and Psychological Disorders
Summary
- The 2004/05
survey of Self-reported Work-related Illness (SWI04/05) prevalence
estimate indicated that around half a million individuals
in Britain believed in 2004/05 that they were experiencing
work-related stress at a level that was making them
ill. The Stress and Health at Work Study (SHAW) indicated
that nearly 1 in 5 of all working individuals thought
their job was very or extremely stressful.
- The annual incidence of work-related mental health
problems in Britain in 2004, as estimated from the
surveillance schemes OPRA
and SOSMI, was approximately 6,800 new cases per
year. However, this almost certainly underestimates
the true incidence of these conditions in the British
workforce. The most recent survey of self-reported
work-related illness (SWI04/05) indicates that an estimated
245 000 people first became aware of work-related stress,
depression or anxiety in the previous 12 months.
- Estimates from SWI04/05 indicate that self-reported
work-related stress, depression or anxiety account
for an estimated 12.8 million reported lost working
days per year in Britain.
- Survey data suggest that the incidence of work-related
stress and related disorders in the British population
was unchanged between 2001/2 and 2004/05 although there
is evidence of a rise in incidence from 1995 to 2001/02.
The latest years of THOR surveillance data indicated
little change in the number of cases of work-related
mental ill-health. This suggests that the incidence
of work stress is no longer rising in Britain. However,
interpretation of these data are complex and imprecise,
and more years of data are required to properly assess
trends.
Occupation and industry groups containing teachers and
nurses, along with professional and managerial groups particularly
those in the public sector have high prevalence rates of
work-related stress in the SWI and SHAW surveys. The THOR
datasets SOSMI and OPRA also report high incident rates
of work-related mental illness for these occupational groups,
along with medical practitioners and those in public sector
security based occupations such as police officers, prison
officers, and UK armed forces personnel
Source:
Health & Safety Executive
Effectiveness of Acupuncture as Adjunctive
Therapy in Osteoarthritis of the Knee
A
Randomized, Controlled Trial
Brian
M. Berman, MD; Lixing Lao, PhD; Patricia Langenberg,
PhD; Wen Lin Lee, PhD; Adele M.K. Gilpin, PhD; and
Marc C. Hochberg, MD
Background: Evidence on the efficacy
of acupuncture for reducing the pain and dysfunction
of osteoarthritis is equivocal.
Objective: To determine whether acupuncture
provides greater pain relief and improved function
compared with sham acupuncture or education in patients
with osteoarthritis of the knee.
Design: Randomized, controlled trial.
Setting: Two outpatient clinics (an
integrative medicine facility and a rheumatology facility)
located in academic teaching hospitals and 1 clinical
trials facility.
Patients: 570 patients with osteoarthritis
of the knee (mean age [±SD], 65.5 ± 8.4
years).
Intervention: 23 true acupuncture
sessions over 26 weeks. Controls received 6 two-hour
sessions over 12 weeks or 23 sham acupuncture sessions
over 26 weeks.
Measurements: Primary outcomes were
changes in the Western Ontario and McMaster Universities
Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC) pain and function scores
at 8 and 26 weeks. Secondary outcomes were patient
global assessment, 6-minute walk distance, and physical
health scores of the 36-Item Short-Form Health Survey
(SF-36).
Results: Participants in the true
acupuncture group experienced greater improvement in
WOMAC function scores than the sham acupuncture group
at 8 weeks (mean difference, –2.9 [95% CI, –5.0
to –0.8];
P = 0.01) but not in WOMAC
pain score (mean difference, –0.5 [CI, –1.2
to 0.2];
P = 0.18) or the patient global assessment
(mean difference, 0.16 [CI, –0.02 to 0.34];
P > 0.2).
At 26 weeks, the true acupuncture group experienced
significantly greater improvement than the sham group
in the WOMAC function score (mean difference, –2.5
[CI, –4.7 to –0.4];
P = 0.01),
WOMAC pain score (mean difference, –0.87 [CI, –1.58
to –0.16];
P = 0.003), and patient global
assessment (mean difference, 0.26 [CI, 0.07 to 0.45];
P =
0.02).
Limitations: At 26 weeks, 43% of the
participants in the education group and 25% in each
of the true and sham acupuncture groups were not available
for analysis.
Conclusions: Acupuncture seems to
provide improvement in function and pain relief as
an adjunctive therapy for osteoarthritis of the knee
when compared with credible sham acupuncture and education
control groups.
Annals of Internal Medicine
21 December 2004 | Volume 141 Issue 12 | Pages 901-910
Acupuncture Does Combat pain, Study
Finds
Ever since Westerners started using acupuncture to treat
their aches and pains, a debate has raged as to whether
the ancient Chinese medicine really did work.
Now scientists have discovered that deep-needle acupuncture
can combat pain.
A study found that the technique can turn off parts
of the brain involved in painEUR which could explain
how the practice may work as an anaesthetic.
Researchers found that an acupuncture technique using
deep needling led to the deactivaton of part of the brain's
limbic system, which helps the body to be conscious of
pain.
Neuroscientists believe that the findings show that
acupuncture has a measurable effect on the brain and
that the study could provide a possible mechanism to
explain how acupuncture can relieve pain.
The research was carried out on a set of volunteers
by scientists at Hull York Medical School as part of
a new BBC TV series called Alternative Medicine: The
EvidenceEUR to be broadcast on Tuesday evening on BBC2.
Professor Kathy Sykes of Bristol University, who will
present the programme, said that the medical school's
MRI brain scanners showed that certain forms of acupuncture
have a deep and measurable effect on the brain.
"The particular area of the brain that MRI shows
deactivation for during acupuncture is part of the pain
matrix which is involved in the perception of pain," Professor
Sykes said. "It helps someone decide whether something
is painful or not. So it could be that acupuncture in
some ways changes a person's pain threshold."
The study tested two forms of acupuncture on separate
sets of volunteers. One involved inserting needles into
the skin on the back of the hand by about a millimetre.
The other inserted needles up to a centimetre into the
same pressure points.
Brain scanning images of the group that underwent superficial
needling show nerve activation in the motor cortex of
the brain, the area that normally responds to touch or
pain.
However, when the acupuncturist used the deeper needles,
which were also rotated as part of an acupunctural effect
called de chi, the scientists found a measurable deactivation
in the brain's limbic system.
Mark Lythgoe, a neuroscientist at University College
London who helped to oversee the studyEUR said that the
findings were significant because they demonstrated a
physical effect on the brain. "This may account
for the way it works. This is a possible novel neurobiological
mechanism for the action of acupuncture," Dr Lythgoe
said.
As part of the programme, Professor Sykes visited China,
where she witnessed a conscious patient undergoing open-heart
surgery with the help of acupuncture but without the
use of general anaesthetics. The people in the study
who experienced deep-needle acupuncture said that they
felt a tingling sensation but not pain. The scientists
said they were used to seeing drugs or other medical
treatments activating parts of the brain and they were
surprised to see something that had the opposite effect.
"I'm just thrilled that we managed to do a real
scientific experiment, shaped and run by scientists and
acupuncturists together, where we found something quite
unexpected - that acupuncture is having a measurable
effect on the brain," Professor Sykes said.
By Steve Connor Science Editor,
The
Independent, London
21st January 2006
