5 Ways Acupuncture Can Fix Your Health Problems
For weeks, Nathan Suver had a serious pain in the neck. It was a recurring problem, related to a back injury, and nothing made it go away. Until, that is, his doctor jabbed him with pins. "He did it as part of a routine visit," recalls Suver, a 35-year-old software developer from Southington, Connecticut. "He has acupuncture training. He just said, 'This will help with the pain,' and stuck 10 little needles in me. He first put one in my neck, and then one in my wrist. It felt like lightning shooting through my body from my neck to my wrist. But it was actually only slightly uncomfortable."
The treatment was worth that slight discomfort, because Suver's pain went away. A week later, he bragged about the success on Facebook. "What's even more amazing is that while I was convinced it wouldn't work, it did anyway," he wrote. "So much for the placebo effect."
Acupuncture, from an Eastern perspective, is all about energy and its flow through your body. If that flow is blocked, the thinking goes, pain or illness results. By gently tapping as many as 20 thin needles into your body at strategic points, acupuncturists try to reestablish the flow. That's a compelling but not necessarily convincing explanation. So Western medicine is working to understand the mechanisms of acupuncture. "There are many details we still don't understand, but essentially, acupuncture seems to stimulate specific muscles and nerves, activating changes that reduce pain and symptoms and promote healing," says Kwokming James Cheng, M.D., whose June review in Acupuncture in Medicineaimed to identify the precise neurological significance of common "acupoints"—areas targeted in acupuncture.
How acupuncture works may be unclear, but the benefits stick out. Research shows that this ancient therapy can be an effective treatment for a wide variety of ailments, from back pain and sciatica to headaches, nausea, and asthma. We consulted experts and recent studies to find out which conditions seem to benefit most from acupuncture. If you're struggling with one of the following ailments, you might consider going under the needle.
Acupuncture for Headaches
Stick a Pin in . . . Headaches
For most men, popping an aspirin can thwart the occasional skull attack. If headaches become intense or unremitting, though, OTC therapy may not keep them at bay—while the pins-and-needles approach might. Acupuncture taps directly into recent research theorizing that tension headaches—the most common kind—are not caused by muscles alone. Neurochemicals associated with mood and emotional well-being, such as nitric oxide and serotonin, may also play a role. "The needles appear to send signals to the brain to adjust the levels of these neurochemicals," says Dr. Cheng.
Science says: If your headaches tend to rebound or linger for days, some deft needling can help reduce the frequency of their intrusions into your life. "Acupuncture is a preventive treatment to reduce headache frequency and intensity," says Klaus Linde, M.D., a complementary-medicine researcher at Technical University Munich, in Germany. In a recent review of 11 studies on people with frequent tension headaches, Dr. Linde found that nearly half of patients who had acupuncture reported a 50 percent decrease in the number of days they had headaches, compared with a 16 percent drop in study participants who received painkillers and other routine care instead.
Acupuncture for Gastrointestinal Problems
Stick a Pin in . . . Gastrointestinal Problems
Saverio Mancina couldn't eat a thing. "I had severe cramping and diarrhea constantly," the Boston marketing exec says of his digestive troubles of 3 years ago. No prescription drugs helped, and tests for parasites and celiac disease came back negative. In addition to altering his diet and exercise regimen, he also turned to acupuncture. After three sessions, his symptoms nearly vanished.
When Mancina had acupuncture, his practitioner poked not just in his torso but also in his arms and legs. Acupuncturists insert needles into seemingly unrelated parts of your body because they believe there are local points—areas from where the pain radiates—and distal points, which correspond to remote areas of your body. The Western explanation: "Your extremities have more nerve endings than your abdomen, so poking them can trigger a stronger response than a needle near your stomach can," says Dr. Cheng.
Science says: Acupuncture's ability to combat basic stress may be a key part of its effectiveness with gastrointestinal disorders, says Tony Chon, M.D., chairman of the acupuncture practice at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. "We know there's a strong link between stress and some GI symptoms, including indigestion," Dr. Chon says, "and acupuncture has been used for centuries for relief and treatment."
For upper-GI problems, acupuncture can beat antacids by a mile. In a 2007 University of Arizona study, people with chronic heartburn who didn't respond to prescription antacids underwent twice-weekly acupuncture. Their symptoms improved far more than thoAcuse of people who took a double dose of the drug. Their chest pain decreased 82 percent, heartburn dropped 83 percent, and acid reflux fell 77 percent. Researchers speculate that the needle treatments prompt a decrease in stomach acid and speed up digestion, so less acid backs up into the esophagus. "It also seems to reduce pain perception in the esoph agus," says study coauthor Ronnie Fass, M.D.
Acupuncture for Sports Injuries
Stick a Pin in . . . Sports Injuries
Many injured athletes use acupuncture for relief. When he was playing in the NFL, former New York Giants running back Tiki Barber turned to it frequently for his muscle strains. "It helps your body recover from injury faster," says Marianne Fuenmayor, MSLAc, chairwoman of the acupuncture department at the Pacific College of Oriental Medicine, in New York City. One theory, according to Dr. Cheng, is that your body may respond to the needles by further increasing the flow of oxygenated blood to the injured area, which helps speed the healing process.
Science says: You should see your doctor if you're injured, but if he or she says you don't need any treatment beyond rest, then ask if it's okay to go to an acupuncturist to help manage the pain or discomfort. "I've used it very effectively to treat ankle sprains, muscle soreness, tennis elbow, and tendinitis," says John Cianca, M.D., a rehabilitation specialist at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and the president of the American Road Race Medical Society.
This year, a Johns Hopkins study found that people with chronic tendinitis or arthritis who had 20-minute acupuncture sessions twice a week for 6 weeks had less pain and disability than people who only thought they were receiving acupuncture (the needles didn't penetrate the skin). Additionally, a 2008 study in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine found that participants who were jabbed for muscle soreness 24 and 48 hours after they exercised to exhaustion reported significantly less pain than people who didn't receive the treatment.
Stick a Pin in . . . Anxiety and Depression
A little setback—say, your team falling behind in the playoffs—can trigger mild anxiety. A big bummer—losing your job, for example—can cause serious depression. In either case, acupuncture can help. "In the recent recession, I've been treating a lot of men who are under stress," says Nicholas Zimet, a licensed acupuncturist with Prime Meridian Acupuncture, in Minneapolis. "After treatment, they feel more relaxed and able to deal with the pressures of life." Why the mental boost? When needles enter your earlobes, hands, or feet, Dr. Cheng says, your brain releases neuro transmitters and other chemicals that affect stress and mood.
Science says: A recent study published in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine found that depressed patients with severe anxiety can benefit from acupuncture. The study, which paired acupuncture with the medication fluoxetine (a generic form of Prozac) also reported benefits for patients who couldn't tolerate the side effects commonly caused by the medication, including decreased sex drive, difficulty maintaining erections, and delayed ejaculation. Not a bad tradeoff.
Acupuncture for Back Pain
Stick a Pin in . . . Back Pain
Treating back pain is by far the most common reason people turn to acupuncture. "It simply works much better than any of the pills we prescribe," says Dr. Cheng. Just as with sports injuries, the needles seem to increase bloodflow to muscles and tissues. (Sometimes the practitioners will also run electric current through the needles. Physical therapists have been using electrical stimulation for years to promote healing, and Dr. Cheng says the needles help the current travel deeper into the muscles.)
Science says: A University of Michigan study this year backed up Dr. Cheng's assessment. The researchers used brain imaging to see how needling the skin affects the brain's ability to control pain. "Acupuncture seems to help pain receptors in the brain bind more easily to opioids such as endorphins, our body's natural painkiller," says Richard Harris, Ph.D., coauthor of the study. It also helps the receptors bind to painkilling drugs such as codeine or morphine. And the better those work, the less you hurt.