Is there really any point to acupuncture?


All in the mind? Recent research suggests acupuncture is no better at relieving headaches than a fake procedure

Acupunture's benefits are all in the mind, according to a new report.

Researchers found that fake acupuncture is as effective as the real thing at relieving headaches, suggesting the effects are psychological.

Here, a sceptic and a proponent explain their opposing views.

Science writer Simon Singh explains his scepticism about the treatment...

When I started looking into acupuncture, I remember hearing someone say: ‘There must be something to acupuncture. After all, you never see any sick porcupines.’

Unfortunately, when I examined the research, it became clear that sticking needles in patients is not as effective as many clinics claim. Indeed, research published last week reinforced the notion that the philosophy of Chinese acupuncture is mumbo-jumbo of the highest quality.

The most recent research was based on looking at several clinical trials in which acupuncturists treated patients with headaches.

According to Chinese philosophy, such complaints are due to imbalances in the flow of Ch’i (a supposed life energy) within meridians (channels that supposedly run through our bodies). Inserting needles at the right points along the meridians is meant to affect the Ch’i and cure the patient.

The recent research reviewed two types of acupuncture, namely real and fake. This means that one set of patients had needles inserted at key points along the meridians, while another set of patients had the needles inserted more or less anywhere.

On average, the patients receiving real acupuncture showed significant levels of improvement, but the patients receiving fake acupuncture typically showed similar levels of improvement.

In other words, the benefits of acupuncture have nothing to do with meridians of Ch’i, but are merely associated with sticking needles into the body willy-nilly.

This is not shocking news, because several pieces of research have shown that fake acupuncture is often just as effective as real acupuncture. So what’s going on?

Dr Simon Singh

Sceptic: Dr Simon Singh

How is acupuncture helping patients, and why are fake treatments as effective as real ones?

It is possible that needling has some kind of beneficial health impact, perhaps by confusing the body’s ability to sense pain. But the more likely explanation is that acupuncture has a powerful placebo effect on patients.

This means that patients are largely benefiting indirectly from the idea of receiving an exotic therapy, rather than benefiting from any actual effect of the needles.

We know that patients who feel cared for, who have an expectation of recovery and who have faith in the treatment, will often show signs of recovery even if the treatment is in reality useless.

The placebo effect is a wonderful phenomenon. Hence, many argue that we should have more acupuncturists on the High Street and in the NHS, even if the whole ritual is a charade. However, I believe the increased use of pure placebos would be a move back to the Dark Ages of medicine.

First, the placebo effect might be significant in helping with some conditions, such as pain or nausea, but for many conditions it has only a minor role or is of no help at all.

Also, for serious conditions, placebo treatments may be a distraction and delay patients from seeking proper advice.

For example, a Google search reveals an acupuncture clinic that offers to treat high blood pressure, kidney disorders, liver disease, depression, respiratory conditions, rheumatism, diabetes, as well as circulatory, gastrointestinal, heart, menopausal and urinary problems, and much more.

There is no convincing evidence to back up any of these claims.

And, of course, placebo treatments are not free. Is it fair to charge patients £50 for a placebo acupuncture session when the success of placebo treatments relies on misleading patients into believing that something is effective, when in reality it is probably not?

Moreover, the bigger the deception, the bigger the placebo effect. Do we want a culture of deceit within medicine? We would never encourage pharmaceutical companies to sell treatments that are purely placebo, so why do we tolerate it within the alternative medicine industry?

I should stress that conventional treatments all come with a placebo effect, but this is accompanied by a genuine benefit.

Finally, it is worth remembering that placebos can come with adverse effects. Studies have shown that roughly 10 per cent of acupuncture patients experience minor pain, bleeding or bruising.

More serious side-effects include fainting, dizziness and vomiting. The most serious risks are infection and punctured organs, with more than 60 reported cases of punctured lungs.

Although the common risks are not at all serious and the serious risks are not at all common, this has to be seen in light of the paucity of evidence in favour of acupuncture offering any real benefit.

In short, it seems inadvisable to waste money and to run the risk of harm by investing your hopes in a treatment that is based on a misguided philosophy and which is probably nothing more than a placebo.

* Trick Or Treatment? Alternative Medicine On Trial, by Simon Singh, is published by Bantam Press (£16.99).

Daily Mail columnist Amanda Platell has been having acupuncture for years. Here, she explains why she’s convinced it works... 

Let's get a few things straight here. You would have to travel far and wide to find a person more sceptical about alternative medicine than I was.

One of my brothers was a pharmacist with a thriving business dispensing drugs, the other is a surgeon and academic. I have countless cousins and in-laws who are doctors and physiotherapists - anything in traditional medicine, we Platells do it.

I have had medics coming out of my ears my entire life. I have also had a series of major operations, some life-saving, where I have relied entirely upon traditional medicine and would not have countenanced anything else.

Amanda Platell

Convinced: Amanda Platell

So when after a particularly gruelling divorce my eye started to play up, I headed straight for my GP, who sent me directly to Harley Street.

In the months that followed, I would come to know that street very well, as I was sent from one eye specialist to another trying to diagnose the incredibly painful condition in my left eye.

I would wake each morning with it feeling sore. By lunchtime, the deep red lines spreading from my pupil resembled Birmingham’s spaghetti junction at peak hour and I could only just see out of it.

By evening, it was weeping and virtually sightless.

Consultant after consultant locked my head in one of those Hannibal Lecter head braces, turned my eyelid inside out with instruments borrowed from the 18th century, wiped the eye, put drops in it, blinded it with light, and yet still they all shook their heads.

As a last resort, I was sent to a hospital for rare tropical eye diseases. The closest anyone came to a diagnosis was to suggest it might be a virus.

Then late one night, as I was lying with my eyes closed on the sofa, my neighbour Jos called - again! She is one of those pesky alternative people with great faith in conventional medicine - when it works - but who also believes homeopathy and acupuncture can work hand in hand with it.

And so eventually, to shut her up, I went to see her acupuncturist.

My motives in going were practical: I’d go once, nothing would happen and then I’d be able to have an evening drink with Jos without her going on about bloody acupuncture.

Adrian, the acupuncturist, took down my medical history and, to be honest, spent more time with me exploring my past than any NHS GP had done in years.

Eventually, he reached for his needles, inserted them in the socket around my left eye - not the eyeball. It felt a bit creepy.

Then he put a few more needles in bits I care not to remember. I’ll not mislead anyone by pretending having needles stuck in your sensitive bits is a pleasant experience. It is not. But it doesn’t actually hurt - indeed, far less than a dentist’s needle.

I lay there for half an hour thinking about what I had to do at work that day, what a cad my husband had been, then got up and left for the office.

The next day, my eye felt better. Not healed, but less painful. I had two sessions a week for the next few weeks, then one a week. Adrian did for me what no medical man could do - he healed what ailed me.

I simply couldn’t believe it. But the evidence was there. I had two normal, not painful, non-weepy eyes. I could date again!

And this was no psychosomatic condition. Harley Street’s finest pored over me with as much bewilderment as the first-time British zoologists viewed a platypus - totally confused by what lay before them.

Acupuncture was a last resort for me and in the times since then, when I have had serious medical conditions, I have always gone first to a traditional doctor.

But I’ve never lost faith in acupuncture and even after having physiotherapy years ago for a back injury after a car crash, I have acupuncture to help keep the problem in check.

It’s also great for increasing your energy levels and reducing stress.

So when I hear people dismiss acupuncture as having purely a placebo effect, I know they’re wrong. It was a last resort for me once, but now it would always be part and parcel of any treatment I have.

And who is to pronounce on what is and what is not a placebo effect, or what it even means when traditional professionals confess even their drugs have a placebo effect?

I think, with my background and my family, you would be hard-pushed to find anyone more sceptical about the benefits of non-traditional medicine, but here I am, a believer.

There aren’t many things I agree with Prince Charles about, but the benefit of alternative medicine is one of them.

So is there any point to acupuncture?


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