BETHESDA-NIH advisers have declared that an ancient Chinese therapy has a point or two.
A 12-member consensus panel agreed that acupuncture can have limited success as an antiemetic, particularly for chemotherapy, surgery, and morning sickness, and as an analgesic after dental surgery. Therapeutic use should complement Western medicine, not replace it, the panel said.
Though the panel’s report ruled out virtually none of acupuncture’s other purported powers, it conceded there were little hard data to prove efficacy for anything else. The gathering was initiated primarily by NIH’s Office of Alternative Medicine.
There’s reasonable evidence that needles ease pain from menstrual cramps, tennis elbow, and fibromyalgia, said the panel, chaired by Dr. David Ramsay, president of the University of Maryland School of Medicine. It cited “exciting potential areas” such as treatment for addiction, carpal tunnel syndrome, osteoarthritis, and headache. Post-stroke rehab also made this list. But there’s no point in trying to use needles to quit smoking, it said.
There were two acupuncturists on the panel. Rather than try to prejudice their colleagues, said Penn’s Dr. Marjorie Bowman, “they offered a level of understanding that wasn’t always easy to obtain.” Admittedly, the panel had to struggle with a dearth of randomized clinical trials and a wealth of small observational studies. Most papers were “inadequate to assess efficacy.”
Establishing controls for acupuncture is difficult. Using sham needling produces physiological effects. Also, there are 2,000 acupuncture points, and practitioners often disagree on which to choose. -Anne S. Harding
BETHESDA-NIH advisers have declared that an ancient Chinese therapy has a point or two.
