New Review Summarizes Seven Years of
Acupuncture Safety and Effectiveness
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NEWS RELEASE
FOR RELEASE:
February 1, 2003
CONTACT:
Brian Carter
The Pulse of Oriental Medicine
http://www.pulsemed.org
619-208-1432
bbcarter@pulsemed.org |
New Review Summarizes Seven Years of
Acupuncture Safety and Effectiveness
San Diego, CA - A 10-page summary of the last 7 years of acupuncture
research published by The Pulse of Oriental Medicine includes
the diseases acupuncture has effectively treated in research,
acupuncture safety statistics, and a summary of how acupuncture
works from a biomedical perspective.
"Acupuncture Research for Physicians" reviews the facts
from 37 Medline journal citations. Only the highest quality studies
were considered. Included were 12 double-blind placebo-controlled
trials (each with more at least 33 participants per group), 3
large-scale multi-center safety retrospectives, an analysis of
Insurance Malpractice Claims from the Journal of the American
Medical Assocation, and 8 research papers on the biomedical mechanisms
of acupuncture.
12 disease-related studies from 1998 to 2003 demonstrated that
acupuncture is effective for acute stroke, acute spinal cord injury,
alcoholism and cocaine dependence (in combination with other treatments),
breech birth, labor pain, migraine without aura, nausea and vomiting
after hysterectomy or after surgically in children, primary dysmenorrhea,
and smoking-cessation. Acupuncture did not have significant effects
on alcoholism or cocaine dependence when used alone, low back
pain, or rheumatoid arthritis. Also named are the topics of 17
current acupuncture studies funded by the NIH's National Center
for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.
Acupuncture was found to be safe 99.84% of the time. This figure
was derived from a total of 121,520 acupuncture treatments at
3 medical centers in 2 countries. Only minor adverse events (such
as dizziness, or failure to remove a needle) were reported. The
most serious adverse events possible from acupuncture are systemic
blood infection (septicemia) and lung collapse (pneumothorax).
No such events were reported. Researchers concluded that they
are uncommon with "adequately trained acupuncturists."
Acupuncture not only produces the familiar endorphins of the
"runner's high," but also enkephalins (which relieve
pain for up to 3 days). Acupuncture stimulates various areas of
the brain, releases natural antibiotics, increases immune system
activity throughout the body, reduces the need for pharmaceutical
pain-relievers, and regulates the brainwaves in Parkinson's Disease.
The "Acupuncture Research for Physicians" summary is
located at: http://pulsemed.org/Acupuncture%20Research%20for%20Physicians.pdf
MEDLINE is the National Library of Medicine's database of indexed
journal citations and abstracts now covering nearly 4,500 journals
published in the United States and more than 70 other countries.
Available for online searching since 1971, MEDLINE includes references
to articles indexed from 1966 to the present.
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