ALTERNATIVE RESEARCH

Is there any evidence that alternative therapy actually works?

We hope that the following will help educate and enlighten our readers on the advances of empirical research studies in the area of alternative therapy and its effectiveness.
STUDY RESULTS AND HEALTH NEWS
  • NIHSenior Health Adds Complementary and Alternative Medicine Information(12/12/08)   http://www.nih.gov/news/health/dec2008/nia-12.htm
  • According to a New Government Survey, 38 Percent of Adults and 12 Percent of Children Use Complementaty and Alternative Medicine (12/10/08)   http://nccam.nih.gov/news/2008/121008.htm
  • Acupuncture Shows Promise in Improving Rates of Pregnancy Following IVF
    Manheimer E, Zhang G, Udoff L, et al. Effect of acupuncture on rates of pregnancy and live birth among women undergoing in vitro fertilization: systematic review and meta-analysis. British Medical Journal. Published online February 2008.
  • Acupuncture May Help Symptoms of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
    Michael Hollifield, Nityamo Sinclair-Lian, Teddy D. Warner, and Richard Hammerschlag, "Acupuncture for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: A Randomized Controlled Pilot Trial." The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, June 2007.
  • “ A landmark study has shown that acupuncture provides pain relief and improves function for people with osteoarthritis…” (12/20/04)  University of Maryland, Center for Integrative Medicine
    http://nccam.nih.gov/news/2004/acu-osteo/pressrelease.htmAcupuncture statistically beneficial therapy for Fibromyalgia
    The Alberta Health Technology Assessment, Acupuncture: Evidence from Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses (2002)8 and the United Kingdom National Health Service Center for Reviews and Dissemination: Effective HealthCare on Acupuncture (2001)
UNITED HEALTHCARE RESEARCH EVIDENCE FOR COVERAGE OF ACUPUNCTURE FOR COMMERCIAL CONTRACTS

The National Institutes of Health (NIH): The NIH sponsored a Consensus Conference on acupuncture in November 1997. The statement issued by the Consensus Development Panel convened is favorable in tone beyond what objective analysis of the data suggests. This statement is an independent finding of the Consensus Panel and is not a policy of the NIH or the United States Federal Government.2

In a 1998 review of 2302 references, the NIH found that the majority of the studies were flawed by design, sample size, and other factors, and that controls such as placebo and sham acupuncture contributed to the equivocal results. However, they did state that several applications of acupuncture treatment appear promising, including postoperative pain, myofascial pain, and low back pain. Other conditions for which there is less convincing evidence include addiction, stroke rehabilitation, carpal tunnel syndrome, osteoarthritis, menstrual cramps, asthma, and headache. The NIH also states that "There is clear evidence that needle acupuncture is efficacious for adult post-operative and chemotherapy nausea and vomiting, and probably for the nausea of pregnancy."2 The NIH concludes that further research is likely to uncover additional conditions for which acupuncture will be useful.

World Health Organization (WHO): According to WHO, acupuncture has been proven effective by controlled trials for nausea/vomiting, morning sickness, and the following conditions related to pain: acute epigastralgia, biliary pain, dysmenorrhea, facial pain (including craniomandibular disorders), headache, knee pain, low back pain, neck pain, pain in dentistry, periarthritis of shoulder, postoperative pain, renal colic, rheumatoid arthritis, sciatica, sprain, and tennis elbow.3

 

 

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