GUEST POST :Simulated or Not, Acupuncture Works:
New studies show benefits in cancer patients
A hotly debated topic in the medical realm is the effectiveness of alternative and complementary therapies. One of these main subjects is the use of acupuncture. There have been many studies throughout the years debating over if it works or not, or if the effects are just psychological. But now there has been a long study in Sweden, researching the effects of simulated acupuncture and actual acupuncture in reducing the effects of nausea in cancer patients.
To those that may not understand simulated acupuncture, it is the process of using blunt telescopic placebo needles to certain points on the body. The pressure of the needles is said to produce the same effect as traditional acupuncture, without the insertion of a needle.
A new study from the Karolinska Institutet and Linköping University in Sweden has revealed that patients receiving simulated or traditional acupuncture show similar improvements of conventional treatment symptoms, mainly nausea. To conduct the study, 215 patients that were receiving radiotherapy for abdominal-region cancer, were blindly assigned traditional or simulated acupuncture. After treatments the acupuncture patients were compared to 62 patients who had received only the standard care regime for nausea.
The results were impressive. Patients who had received a form of acupuncture felt much less nausea compared to those following the conventional therapies. The differences was about half; the acupuncture patients only had 37 people who felt nausea and seven percent that vomited, compared to the conventional group which had 63 percent feel nausea and 17 percent vomit. The best part was that there was no difference amongst the two acupuncture groups.
So far traditional acupuncture has been common in cancer patients, and many integrative doctors recommend it to any patient. Since any unfavorable diagnosis, like a pancreaticcancer or mesothelioma prognosis, is stressful and painful acupuncture is beneficial. But since some people are turned off to the idea of needles, acupuncture isn’t the best complementary therapy to suggest. This is why the study is so important. Since Swedish study found no difference between the simulated and traditional acupuncture people that are scared or shy to needles can reap the benefits of the traditional medicine. This extends the benefits and popularity of acupuncture so much more.
Written by Allison Brooks
Allison graduated from University of Mississippi, with a degree in biomedical anthropology. She is currently studying in the field to finish an ethnography on the effects of biomedicalization on Bolivian cultures.
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