
Acupuncture's molecular effects pinned down - fogus
http://www.machineslikeus.com/news/acupunctures-molecular-effects-pinned-down
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tokenadult
A good source for reviews of acupuncture studies:

<http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=5112>

<http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=4304>

<http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=4065>

<http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=2996>

Bottom line: claims about efficacy of acupuncture, especially claims about
efficacy of acupuncture for human use based on small-n animal studies, need to
be carefully reviewed according to the usual guidelines for evaluating
research studies.

<http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html>

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Alex3917
This guy seems like kind of a crank, and from what I've read he's wrong as
often as he's right. For example, in the first article you linked to he his
saying that the idea that acupuncture creates anti-inflammatory proteins is
extremely improbable, which is exactly what the parent article proves. And his
rant about not believing in the placebo effect is an equally ridiculous
strawman, since there are studies that show that if you replace a person's
medicine with a placebo they will keep having the same physiological response
as they did to the medicine. (See also the converse, Plastic Rose Syndrome.)
And, similarly, there are other studies that show that people gain less weight
eating liquified food (which tastes bad) as opposed to the same caloric
content of non liquified food, and still more studies that show that how much
weight people lose from exercise depends more on how long they think they're
exercising than how long they're actually exercising.

I'm all for sound science, but this guy seems like he's really just a shill
for whatever the trendy assumptions-of-the-day behind western medicine happen
to be.

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daeken
I'm interested in "plastic rose syndrome" but google isn't giving me anything
that seems relevant. Happen to have a link to some info?

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ars
It seems to be about allergies, so add that to your search.

From what I can tell it's the idea that someone allergic to roses would also
be allergic to plastic roses, if he thought the roses were real.

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Alex3917
This is basically it, that someone who was allergic to roses would also have
an allergic reaction if they saw a plastic rose. (The actual incident of a
patient having an allergic reaction to a plastic rose was observed by a doctor
in the late 19th century, but there are controlled studies showing placebos
causing allergic reactions from the modern era.)

That is why the anecdotes about allergies being cured with LSD make sense,
because if the allergy was psychosomatic to begin with then it would make
sense that someone could get over their fear of the substance under the
influence of the drug.

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skybrian
There _may_ be an interesting effect, but I previously read an article
questioning whether the study did enough to rule out placebo effects:

"Taken on its own merits, this is a nice piece of biochemistry. But what does
it really tell us about acupuncture? Does it actually validate this ancient
method as a way of relieving pain? After reading the paper, you might walk
away with that idea that we’re one step closer to understanding how a
treatment with real medical benefits really works [...]

"But these results have to be considered in the light of those that came
before it. As mentioned above, new scientific discoveries stand on the
shoulders of giants and in the case of acupuncture – one of the most well-
researched of all “alternative therapies” – those shoulders are particularly
large.

"Many trials have demonstrated that acupuncture does have some pain-relieving
effects – that is not in doubt. And as Steven Novella notes, unlike things
like homeopathy or reiki, with acupuncture “something physical is actually
happening… so it is therefore not impossible that a physiological response is
happening”. But the big questions are whether this effect is genuine of
nothing more than a placebo."

From:
[http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2010/05/3...](http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2010/05/30/a-biological-
basis-for-acupuncture-or-more-evidence-for-a-placebo-effect/)

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mikexstudios
Full text of article:
[http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nn.25...](http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nn.2562.html)

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pygy_
How come I'm able to read the full text without any university proxy?

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diziet
How would one measure discomfort from an injury in mice?

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tedreed
And on what scale was it reduced by 2/3s? What units are those?

"Well, the current discomfort level is only 23 microchafes."

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ars
You measure it like this: [http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/05/mouse-
pain-express...](http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/05/mouse-pain-
expression/)

Basically rate the pain level, 1-10, then see how it changes.

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jaekwon
My beef with some acupuncture is that it seems to provide pain relief, but I
suspect it doesn't treat the underlying symptoms.

If your body hurts but you can still function, let it hurt IMO. It ain't broke
so don't fix it.

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daeken
There are two sides to this. One is that pain can be a severe impediment to
living your life; I'm currently laying in bed, typing this on my phone,
because my neck (which I injured last week) hurts too much to do much of
anything else at the moment. I'd welcome pain relief in a heartbeat.

The other side, though, is that pain is often a sign that something is wrong.
If you're simply getting rid of the pain, you may very well make the issue
worse unintentionally, or not notice it getting worse.

So yes, pain relief is not necessarily a good thing in all cases, but it's not
necessarily bad either.

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nix
We need a new term for anaesthetic acupuncture which distinguishes it from the
much broader benefits claimed by acupuncture advocates.

Anaesthetic acupuncture is physiologically plausible and supported by
experiment. But any headline about it gets generalized to "acupuncture works"
which is misleading.

