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Research Archive

Welcome to our Chinese medicine and acupuncture research news pages. We add to the content of these pages continuously as more research news comes in. Browse through the complete archive below or use the category links on the right.

Please note that the most twenty recent research archive items are free to view but access to the thousands of items in the archive require a journal subscription.

Acupuncture beneficial after neck surgery for cancer

Categories: Cancer

Acupuncture has the potential to benefit cancer patients who have had neck surgery, according to an American study. Fifty-eight patients with chronic pain or dysfunction attributed to neck dissection were randomly assigned to weekly acupuncture or usual care (physical therapy, analgesia, and/or anti-inflammatory drugs) for four weeks. Significant reductions in pain, dysfunction, and xerostomia wer ...

Acupuncture for post-operative gastroparesis

Categories: Digestive & Bowel disorders

Chinese researchers have shown that acupuncture can improve post-operative gastroparesis (PGS), a common complication of abdominal surgery, in which the motility of the stomach is either abnormal or absent. Sixty-three patients were randomised to either acupuncture or metoclopramide (the standard drug treatment for PGS). Patients in the acupuncture group were needled once daily at Zusanli ST-36 an ...

Acupuncture relieves menopausal symptoms

Categories: Menopausal syndrome

A Brazilian group has found acupuncture to be effective in decreasing hot flushes and menopause symptom scores in postmenopausal women. In a randomised, single-blind, placebo-controlled, cross-over trial, 81 patients were assigned to two groups: Group 1 received 12 months of acupuncture, followed by six months of sham-acupuncture, while Group 2 received six months of sham-acupuncture, then 12 mont ...

Acupuncturists' behaviour affects pain

Categories: Knee, Acupuncture research

The way acupuncturists interact with patients has significant effects on pain reduction. In an American randomised controlled trial, acupuncturists were trained to interact in one of two communication styles that conveyed either 'high' or 'neutral' expectations of treatment outcomes. 455 patients with knee osteoarthritis were assigned to one of three groups over six weeks: waiting list, 'high', or ...

Pre-treatment expectations don't predict outcomes for back pain

Categories: Back, Acupuncture research

The relationship between patients' expectations of acupuncture and their outcomes may be more complex than previously believed. When US investigators analysed data from a randomised trial of acupuncture for chronic back pain, they found that pre-treatment expectations and preferences for acupuncture were not predictive of treatment outcomes. 477 acupuncture-naïve participants with chronic low bac ...

Acupuncture reduces stress of embryo transfer

Categories: Infertility

Women receiving acupuncture on the day of ET perceive less stress, which may play a role in improving their chances of becoming pregnant. In an observational, prospective, cohort study, American investigators studied 57 infertile patients undergoing IVF or ICSI. Patients underwent ET with or without acupuncture as part of their standard clinical care. 64.7% of women who received acupuncture achiev ...

Acupuncture equal to placebo for embryo transfer

Categories: Infertility

A large Danish randomised controlled trial has concluded that acupuncture administered in relation to embryo transfer (ET) has no greater effect on the outcome of IVF and or intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) than placebo needling. 635 patients undergoing IVF or ICSI were randomised to either TCM acupuncture or placebo acupuncture using a validated placebo needle. Ongoing pregnancy rates were ...

Acupuncture effective alternative for shoulder pain

Categories: Shoulder

A large pragmatic randomised trial has found that acupuncture is an effective alternative to conventional orthopaedic treatment for chronic shoulder pain (CSP). The German Randomized Acupuncture trial for chronic Shoulder Pain (GRASP) studied 424 patients with an average visual analogue scale (VAS) pain score of 50mm, who were randomly assigned to receive six weeks of Chinese acupuncture (verum), ...

Acupuncture switches off brain's pain regions

Categories: Acupuncture, Comment

Recent research into how acupuncture affects the brain has improved our understanding of the complex neural mechanisms involved in the procedure and may lead to wider acceptance of the treatment by mainstream medicine. Scientists from the UK's University of York and Hull York Medical school, working with colleagues at University College London and the University of Southampton, needled the acupun ...

Acupuncture helps with painful side-effects of cancer drug

Categories: Cancer, Miscellaneous

Acupuncture may help to relieve the joint pain and stiffness that are a common side-effect of the use of aromatase inhibitors (AI) that suppress oestrogen production in women with breast cancer. US researchers conducted a study of 43 postmenopausal women with early breast cancer who were being treated with AI and experiencing arthralgia. They were randomised to receive true acupuncture (TA - auric ...

Chronic pelvic pain syndrome in men

Categories: Male disorders, Acupuncture, Comment

Acupuncture repeatedly demonstrates beneficial effect in this difficult and intractable disorder.

Nanofibres explain healing properties of yunnan baiyao

Categories: Herb research

American scientists using atomic force microscopy (AFM) have discovered nano-scale fibres in Yunnan Baiyao, the traditional Chinese herbal medicine used to treat wounds. AFM images revealed an abundance of uniform nanofibres, about 25nm in diameter and 86-726nm in length, in a solution of Yunnan Baiyao powder. The authors suggest that the unique adhesive and structural properties of nanofibres may ...

Unilateral acupuncture anaesthesia measurable bilaterally

Categories: Acupuncture research

Acupuncture induces objectively measurable anaesthesia on both the treated and untreated sides of the body. In a German study, twenty-four healthy volunteers received three different forms of acupuncture - manual acupuncture, low-frequency electroacupuncture, and high-frequency electroacupuncture - in a single-blinded crossover design. All forms of acupuncture were applied unilaterally at Sanyinji ...

Expectancy enhances acupuncture's immune benefits

Categories: Immunity, Acupuncture research

Not only does acupuncture enhance immunity, telling subjects that it does so increases the benefit. Sixty healthy volunteers were randomised to receive acupuncture at Quchi L.I.-11 (groups one and two) or relaxation (group three) twice a week for four weeks. Only acupuncture group one and the relaxation group were provided with the additional suggestion that the treatment might strengthen the immu ...

Deqi switches off brain's pain regions

Categories: Miscellaneous, Acupuncture research

Acupuncture that elicits deqi has a deactivating effect on specific areas of the brain associated with pain processing. A UK team has investigated the effect of deqi and acute pain needling sensations on brain fMRI blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) signals. Seventeen healthy participants received acupuncture at Hegu L.I.-4 while in an MRI scanner. The fMRI measurements were classified into those ...

Acupuncture more than a placebo for pain

Categories: Miscellaneous, Acupuncture research

In order to clarify whether acupuncture is more effective than placebo for pain relief, two British authors have combined evidence gathered from systematic reviews of high-quality RCTs that compared acupuncture with sham acupuncture for chronic pain conditions. Eight systematic reviews with meta-analyses of pooled data were included in their analysis. For short-term outcomes, acupuncture showed si ...

Acupuncture safe, risks negligible

Categories: Acupuncture research

Two prospective surveys conducted among different groups of professionals in the UK, including doctors, physiotherapists and practitioners primarily trained in acupuncture, monitored adverse events to acupuncture over a defined period of time. A total of 652 acupuncturists reported 6733 adverse reactions in 66,229 patients, an adverse event rate of 10.2%. The most common events were tiredness (3%) ...

Acupuncture increases nitric oxide synthesis

Categories: Acupuncture research

Acupuncture significantly increases the concentration of nitric oxide (NO, a key biological signalling molecule involved in vasodilation and neurotransmission) in local body tissues. In a randomised, double-blind, crossover study, 20 volunteers underwent one session each of real and non-invasive sham acupuncture in a single hand and forearm, with a one-week interval between treatments. NO concentr ...

Chinese herbal extract prevents polycystic kidneys

Categories: Kidney / Urinary disorders

Triptolide, a compound derived from the Chinese medicinal herb, Lei Gong Teng (Tripterygii wilfordii Radix) has been demonstrated to prevent the formation of kidney-destroying cysts in a mouse model of polycystic kidney disease. Researchers from Yale University found that the compound corrected cellular calcium signalling mechanisms that are disrupted in the disease, leading to abnormal cell growt ...

Needle manipulation has cellular consequences

Categories: Acupuncture research

Subtle differences in needle manipulation techniques can affect the cellular response of connective tissue to acupuncture. American researchers subjected subcutaneous tissue samples from mice to varying amounts of bidirectional needle rotation, before examining them by confocal microscopy. Fibroblast cells were observed to respond to bidirectional rotation with morphological changes, which occurre ...