Acupuncture News

Acupuncture shown to work on brain in pain relief says BBC2 programme. (24.01.2006)BBC2's programme "Alternative Health" showed researchers carrying out brain scans ...»

Relief for Tinnitus (28.10.2005)Acupuncture could offer relief for tinnitus, a ringing in the ears which affects ...»

Acupuncture: an effective treatment for tension headaches (29.07.2005)Acupuncture is an effective treatment for tension headaches, say German researcher...»

Acupuncture proven to go beyond placebo effect (02.05.2005)Brain scanning techniques were used to demonstrate acupuncture's impact is more th...»

Acupuncture lowers blood pressure (31.03.2005)U.S. researchers at the University of California have found that acupuncture treat...»

Acupuncture can relieve pain for mothers-to-be (18.03.2005)A research team from Gothenburg, Sweden, has found that acupuncture is effective a...»

Acupuncture relieves depression during pregnancy (03.03.2005)A recent clinical trial from Stanford University in the U.S. has found that 70% of...»

Acupuncture Aids Pain Relief for Knee Arthritis (21.11.2004)Acupuncture, used as a complementary therapy to drugs, is a more effective treatme...»

Acupuncture Helps to Relieve Allergies in Children (16.11.2004)According to a new study in the journal Paediatrics, acupuncture can help relieve ...»

Acupuncture can improve chances of successful fertilit
y treatment (02.11.2004)According to recent research in the USA, acupuncture can significantly improve a w...»


British Acupunture Council

Acupuncture: an effective treatment for tension headaches

Acupuncture is an effective treatment for tension headaches, say German researchers from the Centre for Complementary Medicine Research at Technische Universitat in Munich The ancient Chinese therapy cut the rates of headaches by nearly half in a study of 270 people.

"A significant proportion of patients with tension-type headaches benefited from acupuncture" said Dr Wolfgang Weidenhammer, one of the research team. Patients were given 12 sessions of acupuncture over 8 weeks.

The headache rate in patients given the traditional treatment dropped by almost half.

They experienced 7 fewer days of headaches in the four weeks after treatment had finished.

The results of the research, published in the British Medical Journal (29 July 2005) stated that "acupuncture was well tolerated and improvements lasted several months after completion of treatment"

Acupuncture shown to work on brain in pain relief

BBC2's programme "Alternative Health" showed researchers carrying out brain scans on people having acupuncture.

The BBC Two show also featured heart surgery done using acupuncture instead of a general anaesthetic.

The patient is conscious during the operation in China, but she was given sedatives and a local anaesthetic. In Alternative Medicine: The Evidence, volunteers were subjected to deep needling, which involves needles being inserted 1cm into the back of the hand at well-known acupuncture points.

A control group underwent superficial needling with needles placed only 1mm in. The needles are then twiddled until the participants feel a dull, achy or tingling sensation.

For those in the deep needling group this stimulates the nervous system. During these two procedures, the volunteers underwent brain scans to see what, if any, effect there was in the brain.

The team, including leading scientists from University College London, Southampton University and the University of York, found the superficial needling resulted in activation of the motor areas of the cortex, a normal reaction to pain.

But with deep needling, the limbic system, part of the pain matrix, is deactivated.

The finding was surprising because experts had always assumed acupuncture activates the brain in someway. Professor Kathy Sykes said: "The pain matrix is involved in the perception of pain - it helps someone decide whether something is painful or not, so it could be that acupuncture in some ways changes a person's pain perception.

"We have found something quite unexpected - that acupuncture is having a measurable effect on the human brain.

"We are not suggesting that it should be used during surgery, although it is in China, but just that it acts as a pain relief and should be taken seriously." Video clip: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4631930.stm

Acupuncture relieves depression during pregnancy

A recent clinical trial from Stanford University in the U.S. has found that 70% of women studied responded positively to treatment with acupuncture for depression during pregnancy.

Sixty-one pregnant women with major depressive disorder were studied in this double blinded controlled trial, with the researchers concluding that "acupuncture holds promise for the
treatment of depression during pregnancy"


British Acupunture Council

Acupuncture can improve chances of successful fertility treatment

According to recent research in the USA, acupuncture can significantly improve a woman's chances of successful fertility treatment.

Patients receiving acupuncture during IVF had higher rates of pregnancy and lower rates of miscarriage.

Researchers from the Reproductive Medicine and Fertility Centre in Colorado Springs studied 114 women undergoing IVF.

Only 36 per cent of the women on conventional treatment became pregnant, compared with 51 per cent of those who had acupuncture.

Just 8 per cent of the acupuncture patients suffered a miscarriage, compared to 20 per cent of the other patients.

The therapy also reduced the risk of ectopic pregnancy, where the embryo develops in the fallopian tube rather than the womb.

Live birth rates in the acupuncture women were 23 per cent higher for each IVF cycle.


British Acupunture Council

Acupuncture Helps to Relieve Allergies in Children

According to a new study in the journal Paediatrics, acupuncture can help relieve hay fever and other nasal allergies in children.

Researchers at a hospital in Hong Kong studied 85 children with allergies.

Half were given acupuncture according to traditional Chinese medical principles; the other half were given a sham acupuncture treatment.

The children who had received genuine acupuncture reported significantly fewer sneezing bouts and less congestion over the following months, compared with the placebo group, who saw no improvement.

British Acupunture Council

Acupuncture Aids Pain Relief for Knee Arthritis

Acupuncture, used as a complementary therapy to drugs, is a more effective treatment for knee osteoarthritis than medication alone, says a Spanish study in the latest British Medical Journal.

The research team treated 88 knee osteoarthritis patients with diclofenac - a standard anti-inflammatory painkiller.

Half the patients received 12 weekly acupuncture treatments as well, selecting acupuncture points on the basis of traditional treatment methods, while the other half had sham acupuncture that did not penetrate their skin.

At the end of treatment, it was found that those who received real acupuncture had taken less of their pain medication than those who had fake acupuncture.

Yet they had less pain, less stiffness, and better physical function.

British Acupunture Council