{"id":108,"date":"2016-03-25T10:39:26","date_gmt":"2016-03-25T10:39:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/development.henrymcgrath.com\/?p=108"},"modified":"2016-03-25T10:39:26","modified_gmt":"2016-03-25T10:39:26","slug":"how-does-acupuncture-actually-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.henrymcgrath.com\/2016\/03\/25\/how-does-acupuncture-actually-work\/","title":{"rendered":"How does acupuncture actually work?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Self introduction<\/strong><\/p>\n

Acupuncture is the insertion of tiny needles into certain points on the body, for the treatment of illness.\u00a0 It has been practised for over 2000 years in China, and is becoming ever more popular in the West.\u00a0 It is estimated that over one million treatments are given per year in the UK.<\/p>\n

There is increasingly good evidence that acupuncture can treat a wide range of conditions successfully.\u00a0 The World Health Organisation website lists 28 conditions for which acupuncture has been \u201cproved through controlled trials to be an effective treatment\u201d, including rhinitis, headache, high blood pressure, lowered immunity, rheumatoid arthritis, sciatica, back pain, and knee pain.\u00a0 It lists another 60 conditions for which some \u201ctherapeutic effect has been shown\u201d, including asthma, infertility, insomnia, and pre -menstrual syndrome.<\/p>\n

Thousands of western doctors and physiotherapists have undergone some training in acupuncture.\u00a0 Despite this, many people are still sceptical about acupuncture because it seems to make no sense that the insertion of tiny needles can treat disease.\u00a0 So how does acupuncture actually work?<\/p>\n

Part of the answer is that the insertion of acupuncture needles causes the release of chemicals called \u201cendorphins\u201d.\u00a0 (This word is short for \u201cendogenous morphine\u201d.\u00a0 Endogenous means it is produced inside the body, and the word morphine actually comes from the Greek God of sleep, Morpheus!)\u00a0 There are many kinds of endorphins in the human body, each with a different function.\u00a0 Some reduce pain, some promote the healing of damaged tissue, some promote good sleep, some calm anxiety, and some play a role in hormone production.\u00a0 So, we can see how acupuncture can be used to treat many conditions.<\/p>\n

Recent scientific investigations have given us more clues.\u00a0 Using an MRI scanner, it has been shown that the shallow insertion of needles at specific points causes increased activity in the pain control centres of the brain.\u00a0 However, what the neuroscientists found really interesting and surprising was that if the needles are inserted deeper into the skin, and manipulated until the patient feels a tingling around the needle, the pain control areas become less <\/em>active (you can see this remarkable experiment on You Tube).\u00a0 This would explain why experienced practitioners get better results than novices, as getting the tingling sensation is an acquired skill.\u00a0 One study showed that acupuncture caused changes in the brain which promoted to stroke recovery.\u00a0 In this experiment, normal acupuncture was compared to \u201csham\u201d acupuncture, where needles are deliberately inserted in the wrong points.\u00a0 Only the correct acupuncture had the desired effect.<\/p>\n

According to Chinese medicine, energy, or \u201cqi\u201d, gathers in certain points near the surface of the body, and flows along channels called \u201cmeridians\u201d.\u00a0 It has been speculated that this \u201cqi\u201d is a very low level of electrical impulse, and indeed acupuncture points and channels have been found to be areas of low electrical resistance.\u00a0 When a person is ill, the electrical activity at the acupuncture points changes from what it normally is.\u00a0 The insertion of needles helps to return the electrical activity of the acupuncture point to its normal level.\u00a0 Experiments have been done where substances have been injected into acupuncture points, and been observed to move along the acupuncture channels.<\/p>\n

So, there is mounting evidence that acupuncture has real health benefits, and that it has a scientific basis of action.<\/p>\n

Henry McGrath<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Self introduction Acupuncture is the insertion of tiny needles into certain points on the body, for the treatment of illness.\u00a0 It has been practised for over 2000 years in China, and is becoming ever more popular in the West.\u00a0 It…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.henrymcgrath.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.henrymcgrath.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.henrymcgrath.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.henrymcgrath.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.henrymcgrath.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.henrymcgrath.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.henrymcgrath.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.henrymcgrath.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.henrymcgrath.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}