Gimme Some of that Placebo Acupuncture Because My Back Is Killing Me
A new study suggests that acupuncture–even fake acupuncture–does a better job of curing back problems than "conventional therapy":
Dr. Michael Haake of the University of Regensburg in Germany looked at 1,162 patients who had experienced chronic low back pain for an average of eight years. They ruled out people with back pain caused by spinal fractures, tumours, scoliosis or pregnancy.
On[e] third of the patients underwent twice a week 30-minute sessions of real acupuncture; another third received fake acupuncture; and the final third received conventional therapy.
The real acupuncture was based on Chinese medicine that targets traditional acupuncture points or meridians. In the fake acupuncture, the needles were not placed as deeply as the real thing and avoided meridian points. Those getting conventional therapy were prescribed a combination of medication, physical therapy and exercise.
After six months, patients were asked about their pain and functional ability. In the real acupuncture group, 47.6 per cent of patients said their condition improved. In the sham acupuncture group, 44.2 per cent did. In the conventional care group, 27.4 per cent described experiencing relief.
Some caveats: It's not clear what "conventional care" consisted of and there doesn't seem to have been a control group that received no treatment either.
reason looked at Harvard's attempts to legitimate complementary and alternative medicine here. and we looked at the bloody crossroads where chiropractors and the Federal Trade Commission collided here.