News
Deep and shallow needling
produce similar brain response.
Both deep and superficial needling of acupuncture points appear to elicit similar responses in the brain.
Volunteers were needled either superficially or deeply at LI 4 Hegu, while their brains underwent fMRI scanning, which calculates the activity of brain regions by measuring oxygen uptake by the tissue. The result of both types of needling was that deactivation of brain regions predominated over activation.
No significant differences in signal responses were seen between the two needling methods. This is consistent with the equivalent therapeutic outcomes that are reported by practitioners of Japanese and Chinese styles of acupuncture that utilise shallow and deep needling, respectively. (1)
Acupuncture improves
headache treatment
A German study of over 15,000 patients shows that acupuncture made a large improvement int the treatment of headaches. In the study, published in "Cephalalgia" in July 2008, long term follow-up showed a continued improvement in both pain and quality of life.
Qigong helps Diabetes
A recent American study compared a control group of Type 2 diabetes patients with a group using resistance strength training, and a group practicing qigong. After 3 months the qigong group had lower blood sugar and reduced fasting glucose levels with an increase in insulin resistance (3).
Imaging Acupuncture Meridians
Two different imaging methods have provided evidence for the existence of acupuncture meridians. In one Chinese study, the optical transport properties along the pericardium meridian path and a parallel non-meridian path one centimetre away from it were measured. Lasers were shone onto volunteers’ arms on points at one end of the path and the amount of emitted light was measured at points on the other end. Light propagation characteristics along the pericardium meridian path differed from that along the non-meridian path, with less attenuation of the light occurring along the meridian. This suggests that that the optical properties of the meridian differ from those of the surrounding tissue (5).
Another study, also carried out in China, used infrared thermal imaging to observe the time-dependent development of infrared radiant tracks along the course of meridian pathways in volunteers (6).
For a range of scholarly research articles, see the Journal of Chinese Medicine archive. or the British Acupuncture Council research fact sheets.
(1) Brain image of acupuncture: Comparing superficial with deep needling. Neurosci Lett. 2008 Jan 31with thanks to the Journal of Chinese Medicine News
(2) Fertility and Sterility 2002;78:1149-1153
(3) see http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/33/1/e8.full
(4) Acupuncture in patients with dysmenorrhea: a randomized study on clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness in usual care. AM J OBSTET GYNECOL. 2008 FEB;198(2):166.E1-8
(5) Differences in optical transport properties between human meridian and non-meridian. AM J CHIN MED. 2007;35(5):743-52
(6) Appearance of human meridian-like structure and acupoints and its time correlation by infrared thermal imaging. AM J CHIN MED. 2007;35(2):231-40
Reproduced with thanks to the Journal of Chinese Medicine News
© Gordon Peck
