pstarr wrote:
However, chi is very real - but VERY misunderstood nowadays.

...and possibly not that very well articulated by many who are true experts?

SteveBruce wrote:

...and possibly not that very well articulated by many who are true experts?

True too true!

Some people try to keep the mysticism around it and sound esoteric about it. In my exp. this is just b/c they have no understanding of what they are saying and try to pass it off as though they do.

Most of my teachers were able to use the esoteric ideas, but put it into very practical knowledge. If asked a question about it they did not get all "mystical" they would answer it straight forward. Those that tried to sound all New agey and mystical I left, realizing it was a ploy.

The other difficult side is the translation and ideas upon which most Qi was founded. Ancient Chinese Masters had little ways to describe what they were feeling so they used a lot of Metaphor's and imagery, not to sound mystical but b/c in ancient china this was the best way to describe it.

Also, some were selfish and greedy (ala "Ancient Chinese Secret" so some wrote it in poetic terms and it was in a kind of code, that could only be taught, not read about. This adds to the difficulty of some of this, bringing me to the last difficult point, most of Qigong/Meditation was orally transferred in ancient times. Not written down, so some "disciples" would think they got all the "secrets" and leave a teacher when they were only scratching the surface.

On the related subject of acupuncture, this just in:

PUNCTURING THE ACUPUNCTURE MYTH

by Harriet Hall, M.D.


By definition, "alternative" medicine is medicine that has not been
scientifically proven and has not been accepted into mainstream
scientific medicine. The question I keep hearing is, "But what about
acupuncture? It's been proven to work, it's supported by lots of
good research, more and more doctors are using it, and insurance
companies even pay for it." It's time the acupuncture myth was
punctured -- preferably with an acupuncture needle. Almost
everything you've heard about acupuncture is wrong.

To start with, this ancient Chinese treatment is not so ancient and
may not even be Chinese! From studying the earliest documents,
Chinese scholar Paul Unschuld suspects the idea may have originated
with the Greek Hippocrates of Cos and later spread to China. It's
definitely not 3000 years old. The earliest Chinese medical texts,
from the 3rd century BC, do not mention it. The earliest reference
to "needling" is from 90 BC, but it refers to bloodletting and
lancing abscesses with large needles or lancets. There is nothing in
those documents to suggest anything like today's acupuncture. We
have the archaeological evidence of needles from that era -- they
are large; the technology for manufacturing thin steel needles
appropriate for acupuncture didn't exist until about 400 years ago.

The earliest accounts of Chinese medicine reached the West in the
13th century: they didn't mention acupuncture at all. The first
Westerner to write about acupuncture, Wilhelm Ten Rhijn, in 1680,
didn't describe acupuncture as we know it today: he didn't mention
specific points or "qi;" he spoke of large gold needles that were
implanted deep into the skull or "womb" and left in place for 30
respirations.

Acupuncture was tried off and on in Europe after that. It was first
tried in America in 1826 as a possible means of resuscitating
drowned people. They couldn't get it to work and "gave up in
disgust." I imagine sticking needles in soggy dead people was pretty
disgusting.

Through the early 20th century, no Western account of acupuncture
referred to acupuncture points: needles were simply inserted near
the point of pain. Qi was originally vapor arising from food, and
meridians were channels or vessels. A Frenchman, Georges Soulie de
Morant, was the first to use the term "meridian" and to equate qi
with energy -- in 1939. Auricular (ear) acupuncture was invented by
a Frenchman in 1957.

The Chinese government tried to ban acupuncture several times, from
1822 to the Chinese Nationalist government in World War II. Mao
revived it in the "barefoot doctor" campaign in the 1960s as a cheap
way of providing care to the masses; he did not use it himself and
he did not believe it worked. It was Mao's government that coined
the term "traditional Chinese medicine" or TCM.

In 1972 James Reston accompanied Nixon to China and returned to tell
about his appendectomy. It was widely believed that his appendix was
removed under acupuncture anesthesia. In reality, acupuncture was
used only as an adjunct for pain relief the day after surgery, and
the relief was probably coincident with the expected return of
normal bowel motility. A widely circulated picture of a patient
allegedly undergoing open heart surgery with acupuncture anesthesia
was shown to be bogus. If acupuncture is used in surgery today, it
is used along with conventional anesthesia and/or pre-operative
meds, and it is selected only for patients who believe in it and are
likely to have a placebo response.

As acupuncture increased in popularity in the West, it declined in
the East. In 1995, visiting American physicians were told only 15-20
percent of Chinese chose TCM, and it was usually used along with
Western treatments after diagnosis by a Western-trained physician.
Apparently some patients choose TCM because it is all they can
afford: despite being a Communist country, China does not have
universal health coverage.

There were originally 360 acupuncture points (based on the number of
days of the year rather than on anatomy). Currently more than 2000
acupuncture points have been "discovered" leading one wag to comment
that there was no skin left that was not an acupuncture point. There
were either 9, 10, or 11 meridians -- take your pick. Any number is
as good as another, because no research has ever been able to
document the existence of acupuncture points or meridians or qi.

Does acupuncture work? Which type of acupuncture? And what do you
mean by "work"? There are various different Chinese systems, plus
Japanese, Thai, Korean and Indian modalities, most of which have
been invented over the last few decades: Whole body or limited to
the scalp, hand, ear, foot, or cheek and chin; deep or superficial;
with electrified needles; with dermal pad electrodes and no skin
penetration.

Acupuncture works in the same manner that placebos work too.
Acupuncture has been shown to "work" to relieve pain, nausea, and
other subjective symptoms, but it has never been shown to alter the
natural history or course of any disease. It's mostly used for pain
today, but the ancient Chinese maintained that it was not for the
treatment of manifest disease, was so subtle that it should only be
employed at the very beginning of a disease process, and was only
likely to work if the patient believed it would work. Now there's a
bit of ancient wisdom!

Studies have shown that acupuncture releases natural opioid pain
relievers in the brain: endorphins. Veterinarians have pointed out
that loading a horse into a trailer or throwing a stick for a dog
also releases endorphins. Probably hitting yourself on the thumb
with a hammer would release endorphins too, and it would take your
mind off your headache.

Psychologists can list plenty of other things that could explain the
apparent response to acupuncture. Diverting attention from original
symptoms to the sensation of needling, expectation, suggestion,
mutual consensus and compliance demand, causality error, classic
conditioning, reciprocal conditioning, operant conditioning,
operator conditioning, reinforcement, group consensus, economic and
emotional investment, social and political disaffection, social
rewards for believing, variable course of disease, regression to the
mean -- there are many ways human psychology can fool us into
thinking ineffective treatments are effective. Then there's the fact
that all placebos are not equal -- an elaborate system involving
lying down, relaxing, and spending time with a caring authority can
be expected to produce a much greater placebo effect than simply
taking a sugar pill.

There are plenty of studies showing that acupuncture works for
subjective symptoms like pain and nausea. But there are several
things that throw serious doubt on their findings. The results are
inconsistent, with some studies finding an effect and others not.
The higher quality studies are less likely to find an effect. Most
of the studies are done by believers in acupuncture. Many subjects
would not volunteer for an acupuncture trial unless they had a bias
towards believing it might work. The acupuncture studies coming from
China and other oriental countries are all positive -- but then
nearly everything coming out of China is positive. It's not
culturally acceptable to publish negative results because
researchers would lose face and their jobs.

The biggest problem with acupuncture studies is finding an adequate
placebo control. You're sticking needles in people. People notice
that. Double blinding is impossible: you might be able to fool
patients into thinking you've used a needle when you haven't, but
there's no way to blind the person doing the needling. Two kinds of
controls have been used: comparing acupuncture points to non-points,
and using an ingenious needle in a sheath that appears to have
penetrated the skin when it hasn't.

In George Ulett's research, he found that applying an electrical
current to the skin of the wrist -- a kind of TENS (transcutaneous
electrical nerve stimulation) treatment -- worked just as well as
inserting needles, and one point on the wrist worked for symptoms
anywhere in the body.

Guess what? It doesn't matter where you put the needle. It doesn't
matter whether you use a needle at all. In the best controlled
studies, only one thing mattered: whether the patients believed they
were getting acupuncture. If they believed they got the real thing,
they got better pain relief -- whether they actually got acupuncture
or not! If they got acupuncture but believed they didn't, it didn't
work. If they didn't get it but believed they did, it did work.

A 2005 study published in the Journal of the American Medical
Association compared the experiences of 302 people suffering from
migraines who received either acupuncture, sham acupuncture (needles
inserted at non-acupuncture points), or no acupuncture. During the
study, the patients kept headache diaries. Subjects were "blind" to
which experimental group they were in; the evaluators also did not
know whose diary they were reading. Professional acupuncturists
administered both the acupuncture and sham acupuncture treatments.
Interestingly, although 51 percent of the acupuncture group showed a
reduction in headache days by half (compared to 15 percent in the
control group), but 53 percent of the sham acupuncture group had a
50 percent reduction in headache days!

Considering the inconsistent research results, the implausibility of
qi and meridians, and the many questions that remain, it's
reasonable to conclude that acupuncture is nothing more than a
recipe for an elaborate placebo seasoned with a soupcon of
counter-irritant. You can play human pincushion if you want, and you
might get a good placebo response, but there's no evidence you'll
get anything more.

Note: Part of this article was adapted from a PowerPoint
presentation
<http://drspinello.com/altmed/acuvet/acuvet_files/frame.htm>
prepared by the late Dr. Robert Imrie. It's well worth a visit; it
includes great pictures of camelpuncture, goatpuncture, and
chickenpuncture.

The "placebo effect", insofar as acupuncture is concerned, was shot down a long time back since it's been shown to work on animals as well as unconscious humans...

We simply lack the technology to investigate it much further. It doesn't mean acupuncture is a farce. It means our science needs to advance further.

Not all that long ago, people insisted that the world was flat...until technology proved them wrong.

As for the AMA, take their statements with a mouthful of salt. They fought tooth and nail to keep acupuncturists from being licensed in the U.S. - probably because an acupuncturist can be trained and practicing in half the time required to train am allopathic physician...and the AMA loses $-

I gotta agree with Mr Starr here,

I have had accpuncture and I was sceptical at first. After the first few sessions I generally started feeling better so I kept going back.

I think people mis-understand what accpunture can. It was never a replacment treatment for disease, it is purely a way to help strengthen the body in oredr to heal itself.

One aspect that everyone fails to acknowledge is that part of accupuncture is the taking of Herbs. Herbs have been used for 1000's of years! Even in England we used herbal remedies before we was in contact with China. the herbs work internally helping us to digest food, and strenthen the organs by providing nutrients required to effect certain organs. The needles is a minor part of accupuncture really, accpuncture on its own is said to be pretty useless. It is always occompanied by massage and as I said, herbs.

There has been scientific evidence showing that having the needles inserted makes the brain trigger in certain ways. I remember they monitored the brain waves and found them to calm down after a few needles had been inserted, indicating a more relaxed mind.
We get more relaxed and calmer when we are more in balance do we not?

I think saying that accpuncture is nothing more than a hoax is a bit of an insult really.

Jamie Clubb,

First off understand this is NOT a personal attack against you. I understand you are just posting what you have found. However, this doctor is providing A LOT of false information let's start here:

Jamie Clubb wrote:
On the related subject of acupuncture, this just in:

Almost
everything you've heard about acupuncture is wrong.

To start with, this ancient Chinese treatment is not so ancient and
may not even be Chinese! From studying the earliest documents,
Chinese scholar Paul Unschuld suspects the idea may have originated
with the Greek Hippocrates of Cos and later spread to China.

Umm, suspects? You premise a Scientific paper on "suspects"? Really? On Wiki it quotes this "The renowned sinologist Paul Unschuld maintains based on phonetic resemblances that the elusive Qibo might actually have been Hippocrates." Which leads us to our next paragraph, if "The earliest Chinese medical texts,from the 3rd century BC, do not mention it. The earliest referenceto "needling" is from 90 BC," (see below) Then how can she agree with Paul Unschuld that Hippocrates ((ca. 460 BC – ca. 370 BC)) may have originated the medicine?


It's
definitely not 3000 years old. The earliest Chinese medical texts,
from the 3rd century BC, do not mention it. The earliest reference
to "needling" is from 90 BC, but it refers to bloodletting and
lancing abscesses with large needles or lancets. There is nothing in
those documents to suggest anything like today's acupuncture. We
have the archaeological evidence of needles from that era -- they
are large; the technology for manufacturing thin steel needles
appropriate for acupuncture didn't exist until about 400 years ago.

This entire paragraph is false..where is she getting her information? Why does she not site sources? This is poor here is what we do KNOW here is the history of the Huangdi Di Nei Jing (Yellow Emperor's classic, the first text of Chinese Medicine):

"Dating of
The scholar Nathan Sivin (University of Pennsylvania professor of Chinese culture and history of science) is of the opinion (1998) that the Suwen and Lingshu probably date to the 1st century BCE. He does not go into detail other than mentioning the Mawangdui excavations. Sivin (1998) is also of the opinion that "no available translation is reliable."

In pages 89-90 of the book Celestial Lancets (first published in 1980), authored by the highly respected scholars Joseph Needham (1900-1995) and Lu Gwei-Djen (1904-1991), it states that the consensus of scholarly opinion is that the Suwen belongs to the second century BCE. They further state that evidence shows that the Suwen is earlierthan the first of the pharmaceutical natural histories, the Shennong Bencao Jing (Divine Husbandman's Classic of the Materia Medica). So suggestive are parallels with third and fourth century BCE literature that doubt arises as to whether the Suwen be better ascribed to the third century BCE, implying that certain portions of the Suwen may be of that date. The dominant role the theories of yin and yang and the five elements play in the physiology and pathology means that these medical theories are not older than about 320 BCE.
The German scholar Unschuld states several twentieth century scholars are of the opinion that the language and ideas of the Neijing Suwen were composed between 400 BCE and 260 CE. Further, versions existing today are a simply the last in a series of compilations and that none of the versions that exist today are identical to the texts of the same name from the Han Dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE) era. (See Unschuld pages 1-3 and Sivin page 68 in cited references below.)

Lü Fu a fourteenth-century literary critic, was of the opinion that the Suwen was compiled by several authors over a long period. It contents were then brought together by Confucian scholars in the Han Dynasty era. (See page 1 in Unschuld.)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huangdi_Neijing

So if you are going to quote a scholar such as Paul Unschuld, maybe you should read his ENTIRE book!

Also, practicing TCM some are suggesting that it is 3000 plus years old is here:

"Antiquity
In China, the practice of acupuncture can perhaps be traced as far back as the Stone Age, with the Bian shi, or sharpened stones. Stone acupuncture needles dating back to 3000 B.C. have been found by archeologists in Inner Mongolia. [12][13] Clearer evidence exists from the 1st millennium BCE, and archeological evidence has been identified with the period of the Han dynasty (202 BC–220 AD).

Recent examinations of Ötzi, a 5,000-year-old mummy found in the Alps, have identified over 50 tattoos on his body, some of which are located on acupuncture points that would today be used to treat ailments Ötzi suffered from. Some scientists believe that this is evidence that practices similar to acupuncture were practiced elsewhere in Eurasia during the early Bronze Age. According to an article published in The Lancet by Dorfer et al., "We hypothesised that there might have been a medical system similar to acupuncture (Chinese Zhenjiu: needling and burning) that was practiced in Central Europe 5,200 years ago... A treatment modality similar to acupuncture thus appears to have been in use long before its previously known period of use in the medical tradition of ancient China. This raises the possibility of acupuncture having originated in the Eurasian continent at least 2000 years earlier than previously recognised."[14], [15].

Acupuncture's origins in China are uncertain. The earliest Chinese medical text that first describes acupuncture is the Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine (History of Acupuncture) Huangdi Neijing, which was compiled around 305–204 B.C. However, the Chinese medical texts (Ma-wang-tui graves, 68 BC) do not mention acupuncture. Some hieroglyphics have been found dating back to 1000 B.C. that may indicate an early use of acupuncture. Bian stones, sharp pointed rocks used to treat diseases in ancient times, have also been discovered in ruins; some scholars believe that the bloodletting for which these stones were likely used presages certain acupuncture techniques.[16]" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acupuncture

The earliest accounts of Chinese medicine reached the West in the
13th century: they didn't mention acupuncture at all.

Then what the heck did they mention? I have a friend of mine who is a medical anthropologist (graduated from Stanford) who studies the Mayan civilization and Chinese Medicine and remarked on MANY perplexing similarities between Mayan medicine (and philosophy) and Chinese Medicine.


Through the early 20th century, no Western account of acupuncture
referred to acupuncture points: needles were simply inserted near
the point of pain. Qi was originally vapor arising from food, and
meridians were channels or vessels. A Frenchman, Georges Soulie de
Morant, was the first to use the term "meridian" and to equate qi
with energy -- in 1939. Auricular (ear) acupuncture was invented by
a Frenchman in 1957.

Umm, really? That "Frenchman" was Paul Nogier and she also never mentions some of the very scientific studies done by Morant. For example Morant, would actually hook up patients to and EKG meter and use acupuncture on the heart meridian. He would do tests where he did NOT puncture the meridian, and tests when he did.

He noted that when he did NOT puncture the meridian (or a different meridian all together) he did NOT get a response on the EKG. However, when he did puncture the Heart meridian, the EKG would respond.

He also carried out various other methods of testing including monitoring patient's hormone levels and blood levels before, during and after acupuncture treatment showing improvements. These improvements varied from point to point as to which was punctured. Sometimes when he needled off a meridian there was no improvement.

These are the kind of studies that are going on in Japan right now. They are able to measure the acupuncture is having some physiological effects on the body and it is more than just "Endorphin release" and "Opiod release" because in some instances these are not known to cause these kind of chemical changes in the body.

Other studies in Japan have been done investigating how Acupuncture helps varios drugs to be assimilated and accepted in the body easier. Somehow, it increases absorption rate into the cells.

These studies however, are not being seen in the West because no one is really seeking to translate them.

The Chinese government tried to ban acupuncture several times, from
1822 to the Chinese Nationalist government in World War II. Mao
revived it in the "barefoot doctor" campaign in the 1960s as a cheap
way of providing care to the masses; he did not use it himself and
he did not believe it worked. It was Mao's government that coined
the term "traditional Chinese medicine" or TCM.

This is a pretty blanket statement and "Puts the fear of god" into people. The reason the Chinese government (A COMMUNIST government) tried to ban it was because it has roots in Shamanism and Religion (Taoism and Confucianism), conveinient that is left out...it was NOT banned because it did not work.

There were originally 360 acupuncture points (based on the number of
days of the year rather than on anatomy). Currently more than 2000
acupuncture points have been "discovered" leading one wag to comment
that there was no skin left that was not an acupuncture point. There
were either 9, 10, or 11 meridians -- take your pick. Any number is
as good as another, because no research has ever been able to
document the existence of acupuncture points or meridians or qi.

False, false, false!!! Orginally in the Huang Di Neijing, most scholars pick out approx 150-200 points (based solely on their names). The other thing she does not mention is that the numbering system is purely Western! The Chinese only used the point names, THEY NEVER NUMBERED THE POINTS!

Her "2000 points" discovery is also way off base, there is approximately 2000 point NAMES! Some acupuncture points (mind you the -same- point) have upwards of 10 names that have changed throughout the centuries. THEY ARE NOT ADDITIONAL POINTS!

The yellow Emperor classic has always maintained "12 meridians" there maybe others that are used more frequently, but that has NEVER changed. What people (including scholars) get confused is that each meridian has 3 other meridians associated with it. You have:

The Luo Meridian
The Divergent Meridian
The Muscle Meridian (which oddly enough matches up remarkably well with current anatomy trains)

Thus making a grand total of 36 meridians, something the Nei Jing has always mentioned.

Does acupuncture work? Which type of acupuncture? And what do you
mean by "work"? There are various different Chinese systems, plus
Japanese, Thai, Korean and Indian modalities, most of which have
been invented over the last few decades: Whole body or limited to
the scalp, hand, ear, foot, or cheek and chin; deep or superficial;
with electrified needles; with dermal pad electrodes and no skin
penetration.

Check out above, scholars believe that Acupuncture has spread from Eurasia to these other countries. And a lot sooner than "A few centuries ago" Japan has had acupuncture since circa 600 A.D. (based on findings by Japanese scholars).

Acupuncture works in the same manner that placebos work too.
Acupuncture has been shown to "work" to relieve pain, nausea, and
other subjective symptoms, but it has never been shown to alter the
natural history or course of any disease. It's mostly used for pain
today, but the ancient Chinese maintained that it was not for the
treatment of manifest disease, was so subtle that it should only be
employed at the very beginning of a disease process, and was only
likely to work if the patient believed it would work. Now there's a
bit of ancient wisdom!

What a cheap shot, if she had looked more deeply at Morant's work, she would see that he found Acupuncture being able to stimulate WBCs (white blood cells) and even the Phagocytic activity of these cells, thus increasing immunity. In ancient China, if you were the Emperor's physician and the Emperor got sick...you were "fired" (if not killed) because the principal of the Medicine has always been to PREVENT disease.

The yellow Emperor's classic states: "An inferior physician treats disease, a superior physician treats disease before it occurs." Also, we have to get out of our Western Minds that Chinese Medicine practiced in Ancient China had NOTHING TO GAIN, but it being put into practice!

Most doctors were not paid (if they were they were paid poorly), they were not considered "Glamourous", parents wanted their children to get jobs in the Government. Most Chinese Doctors were just barely considered to be higher than a Peasant. So they had no reason to do this, other than to help people, they had no reason to spread false lies.

Also, I have studied these ancient chinese classics, and NO WHERE does it state: "was only likely to work if the patient believed it would work." That is her own addition.

"Acupuncture works in the same manner that placebos work too." Umm, hate to break it to ya, but Western drugs are also to known to work with a certain amount of Placebo effect too. Seriously, if you study Pharmacology and find out how many things can go wrong (or have to go right) to get the optimum benefit from Western drugs, its amazing they work at all.

So to just isolate the plaebo effect to Eastern medicine is lame.

Studies have shown that acupuncture releases natural opioid pain
relievers in the brain: endorphins. Veterinarians have pointed out
that loading a horse into a trailer or throwing a stick for a dog
also releases endorphins. Probably hitting yourself on the thumb
with a hammer would release endorphins too, and it would take your
mind off your headache.

(See above japanese studies)

Psychologists can list plenty of other things that could explain the
apparent response to acupuncture. Diverting attention from original
symptoms to the sensation of needling, expectation, suggestion,
mutual consensus and compliance demand, causality error, classic
conditioning, reciprocal conditioning, operant conditioning,
operator conditioning, reinforcement, group consensus, economic and
emotional investment, social and political disaffection, social
rewards for believing, variable course of disease, regression to the
mean -- there are many ways human psychology can fool us into
thinking ineffective treatments are effective. Then there's the fact
that all placebos are not equal -- an elaborate system involving
lying down, relaxing, and spending time with a caring authority can
be expected to produce a much greater placebo effect than simply
taking a sugar pill.

Again, look above and list any of those things above that DON'T apply to western medicine either...Go ahead take your time. Everything she lists above that "Psychologists can list plenty of other things that could explain the
apparent response to acupuncture." can and does apply to Western Medicine. Once again, trying to down play the Placebo effect in Western medicine.

"an elaborate system involving lying down, relaxing, and spending time with a caring authority can be expected to produce a much greater placebo effect than simply taking a sugar pill." I agree with this statement, in fact my mentor often said "If people just rest and drink water, many diseases would not happen." But that is not my point, my point here is maybe some western doctors should practice this a bit more: "spending time with a caring authority ".

The acupuncture studies coming from
China and other oriental countries are all positive -- but then
nearly everything coming out of China is positive. It's not
culturally acceptable to publish negative results because
researchers would lose face and their jobs.

She needs to understand her "Chinese Culture" more in most Asian cultures (as I am sure many of us can attest) it is considered a Great Dis-Honor to misrepresent yourself (or worse) your teachers! What she does NOT understand is China, is seeking to become a world power, the Chinese Government has been known to show and say anything to make China appear superior. It is NOT the Researchers, but usally the Government.

The reason there are more people going into Western Medicine in China is because the Government offers HIGHER incentives for those that do! I know both Western and Eastern Doctors from China and many can say that being in Western Medicine in China is more Lucrative than studying Acupuncture.


Guess what? It doesn't matter where you put the needle. It doesn't
matter whether you use a needle at all. In the best controlled
studies, only one thing mattered: whether the patients believed they
were getting acupuncture. If they believed they got the real thing,
they got better pain relief -- whether they actually got acupuncture
or not! If they got acupuncture but believed they didn't, it didn't
work. If they didn't get it but believed they did, it did work.

Again, this is only going from the basis of pain relief. How does she explain relief from other ailments? I see it all the time, patients come in thinking acupuncture only good for pain relief, but they commonly report "Oh, my headaches are getting less too!" Or "My eyesight is improving" "My digestion is getting much better too." How is this possible?





Finally, she is hardly biased: http://quackfiles.blogspot.com/2006/01/review-of-energy-medicine-scientific.html

She writes for Skeptic magazine...yeah no bias there.

Finally I wanted to add this:

My mentor once treated a patient who had a low RBC (Red blood cell), WBC (White blood cell) count and complications with the pacreas making insulin, he also was showing signs of pancreatic disease, his Western M.D. told him, he would need to be medicated all his life. This patient did NOT want to go on Western drugs, despite being pressured to do so by his western M.D.

Instead this man came to my Mentor and asked what he could do. My mentor simply said "We'll see". Within 2 months this patient went back to his Western M.D. and they re-did his tests. To their surprise his pancreas was completely normal. When asked what he did, he simply stated: "Acupuncture" the Western M.D. audibly laughed out-loud and said: "I doubt it, seems like 'Spontaneous Remission'"

So she would rather admit that a disease can "Spontaneously" go away, rather than something else working. "In medicine, spontaneous remission is recovery without known reason or cause."

I think the main issue with the effectiveness (or lack) of acupuncture is that the successes are usually based on anecdotal evidence rather than being supported by large tests.

Please correct me if I'm wrong as I would love to see a test that has been carried out scientifically that shows acupuncture as having a larger success rate than the tests seem to invariably show.

I'd like to know if the fact that the insertion of needles causes the brain to produce natural opiates does depend on whether the needles are put on pressure points or meridians.

As far as I'm concerned if it works for you then great. I'd just like to see some further proof of what it actually does and how and why it works if indeed it does.

Thanks for being open to discussion:

Check this out: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1997288

This is an older study: admittedly not on an unbiased website. http://www.emofree.com/Research/meridianexistence.htm
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2474/8/17
This article is about how acupuncture has been used to treat muculoskeletal issues. It is long and drab, I suggest to just the edit, find on page function and type in "Acupuncture Needles"

And another: http://www.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/~vitaly/PDF/napadow_ieee_2005.pdf

Try this link it gives some good to and fro as wl as various links
http://sceptic.darkbb.com/martial-arts-f27/chi-master-t44.htm

No doubt I shall be poo pooed off as being biased closed minded bigot but thats ok, I get that quite often

Im sure it will stir the conversational pot however

Warm regards,

Den.

Well guys that's some good accupuncture debating there! I know these things can move into different area's of conversation and this post certainly did just that!!

Although interesting this post was more about the existance of Chi, energy etc and if it is a scientific or spiritual phenomenon.

I do see the relation between the accupuncture and this topic but it started moving into more of a debate about if accpuncture works which I believe is on another thread in the 'Health and Nutrition' area.

Don't mean to be a kill joy or anything but you know what I'm saying guys!! Really appreciate the time that went into those posts though! good stuff :)

Mr Sceptic - I seen these links before, and I agree with you on the fact that this kind of Chi power's are not quite right. I think that maybe it's more trickery than chi. I mean is it possible that a clever master of the mind can manipulate people into believeing this stuff works, and then they end up acting out the effects because they have been taught to believe it??

Like training to be thrown around by invisible forces? almost like hypnosis or something!! I wonder...

Den,

You have shown nothing but respect to me and my views so far, so I will do the same with you. I understand skepticism is healthy, I am not one of those people that say "Oh, this must be real! Now, oh this must be real too! Oh, you don't know.." Blah, blah, blah.

I am not that gullible, I have seen some charlatans in my own search for the truth (and honestly paid them money for their garbage too). However, I have also seen some things I honestly cannot fully explain. To admit that we can explain everyting (even through straight scientific means) is the opposite end of the same extreme.

Just think, if some ancient scientists did not push the limits and question the norm (even known scientific "laws" would we be where we are today?

-The world is flat?
-The earth revolves around the sun?
-Nothing smaller than atoms?
-Spontaneous life? (Leading to the discovery of microorganisms)

I could go on and on, the point is, it is also healthy to question "laws" and presently maintained ideals. What is not healthy (imo) is to follow the extremes. And worst of all, get into pointless arguments and forget we are human beings first and foremost. To that end I always welcome a good discussion and am open to yours (or anyone elses) skepticism Den.

With that being said,
I am not debating the existence of Qi above, You have seen my belief on what Qi was posted under the acupuncture thread (if I remember right). I believe it is an undiscovered mechanism within the human nervous system (as also postulated by the experiments I have posted above).

What I was pointing out was the false lies in the article that is on both the websites now. I don't know where this lady got her information, but it is incorrect, even in the scholarly circles. Also the other difficulty I have is she is an M.D. so check this out: http://www.medicalacupuncture.org/

This is acupuncture done by WESTERN MDs, they have received all the same training as regular MDs in addition to another 1 1/2 years of acupuncture training. So even the Western MDs are saying there is something to it.

That is all I wanted to point out. Thanks for a civil discussion! :)

Taoquan,

Thank you for your in depth reply, rational approach and interesting information. Unfortunately scepticism - a discussion for another thread - gets labelled as just being argumentative. I see scepticism as critical thinking. It is not closed-mindedness just not "open-headedness" Therefore well reasoned and researched arguments like the one you put forward are always welcome. We are NOT cynics or pseudosceptics, and it is a regular concern of mine not to go into these extremes.

SteveBruce,

I am with all the way on this one so far. If some of this stuff does work - be it qi/chi/ki or acupuncture/acupressure and can be proven under strictly objective scientific conditions I am all for it.

Ryushi,

This is a great topic and I completely agree that it should stay on track. I am sorry for going off track, but the article came in and saw acupuncture being referenced on this thread, and I did not check for the acupunture thread. The whole qi/chi/ki issue is a major one in the world of traditional martial arts and we need to be debating this on wider issues. By the way my views on chi were expresed on my first posting on this thread if you are interested.

One other thing, however, I cannot go with the "it has been around for 1,000 years so it must work" type idea. Many illogical and bad ideas have lasted for very long periods of time it does not prove their validity.