Interesting. I have studied tai chi and chi gong for some time now. I knew someone who had a pinched nerve in their shoulder and was seeing a professional accupuncturist. He was always telling me about his appointments and how the accupuncturist would use the needles to move the minor muscles and nerves back into alignment and he had a very noticeable affect. I dont doubt that the mind can make the hands bleed, but there are valuable things in eastern teachings.
@Psy0psAgent In reference to the above, there is a big difference in these type of 'arts'. Take martial arts schools for example. There are the types you find in cities that make you run around doing calisthenics, and stretching but never quite teaching the arts of death to your average joe. They get a sporty version of self defense. And then there are real Dojos. So there are practitioners of arts that are amatuers and there are very rare pros. The outnumbering amatuers give the rest a bad name
@Psy0psAgent The video displays the attitude of most professionals in our profit driven medical establishment. I had a recurring pinched nerve in my back. When I was 25 years old, decided to try acupuncture and it worked. The pinched nerve never came back after just one treatment. I also was infected with Hepatitis C and got homeopathic treatment from Joel Fuhrman, he was not famous when I was seeing him. I developed antibodies to the virus and I'm cured. Drugs are a terrible thing
@JZJYRWO You should reflect on all the factors that you underwent in your treatment for the pinched nerve. Did you absolutely only get acupuncture. Was there any massage or relaxation techniques with the treatment. Who diagnosed you with a pinched nerve. It is not physiologically possible to correct a pinched nerve with only acupuncture. The condition may have already been in the process of resolving, if that was even a proper diagnosis.
I read an article that claims "Acupuncture significantly reduces levels of a protein in rats linked to chronic stress, researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC) have found."
There was also some other study regarding inflammation where they used gene knockout mice and normal mice to compare acupuncture response. The gene knockout mice showed no benefit from acupuncture. So 1 mechanism of acupuncture has been isolated down to the genetic level. I'm not really into needles though.
The article you are referring to used electo-acupuncture (EA) and temperature stress in rats. That involves running electrical charge into the skin, which stimulates a lot of responses that have nothing to do with the presence of the needle.
I couldn't locate the second article with the information given.
@C0nc0rdance the second article should be found using the following search string "Acupuncture significantly reduces levels of a protein in rats linked to chronic stress"
You are right though. That study used electro-acupuncture. I'm not yet convinced that using electricity rules out acupuncture since the electrical stimulus was used to more accurately control the treatment dose. Electrical stimulation would tighten the muscles around the needle and would be equivalent to turning the needle.
@C0nc0rdance in a study how would you give each animal the same level of treatment if it involved too much of a human factor since a different amount of pressure etc would change the result. It would be interesting if another study followed that up without using electrical stimulus. I don't think the voltages involved would do much more than tighten muscles around the treatment area.
Whenever you can, try to track down the primary source. Sometimes popular articles badly misrepresent the research. For example, this is a laughable statement from the physorg article:
"In special "adenosine receptor knock-out mice" not equipped with the adenosine receptor, acupuncture had no effect."
and
"When adenosine was turned on in the tissues, discomfort was reduced even without acupuncture."
How is adenosine turned on? That's a nonsense phrase.
"Adenosine A1 receptors mediate local anti-nociceptive effects of acupuncture."
What I take from this article is that if the anti-nociception is a localized phenomenon that interacts with AdA1R, then it doesn't matter if needles are placed on "mystical points" or not. In fact, they speculate that any physical stimulation has a similar effect. Studies on chiro and massage are cited for support.
They also point out that most studies find an analgesic effect whether needles are inserted or not, suggesting that the pressure on skin cells is enough to replicate the effect. To quote them:
"...it is possible that ATP release from keratinocytes in response to mechanical stimulation of the skin results in an accumulation of adenosine that transiently reduces pain, as A1 receptors are probably expressed by nociceptive axon terminal in epidermis"
Shite. How am I gonna tell my girlfriend? We already fought over homeopathy just half a year ago, and now this? She's getting an acupuncture every second week, and it helps her knee problems. But since she's studying medicine she claims that inserting needles (or toothpicks) does very much have a medicinal physical effect WAY beyond a mere placebo-effect.
I kinda already suspected that it was all a sham, just couldn't back it up- until now. What should I do? (tooth)Pick another fight? Damn...
Despite being exposed to countless Chi/Qi/Ki demonstrations in more than 25 years of training in and teaching martial arts, I never did get to see a single one that was convincing.
Each and every time, the person giving the demo was deluding themselves, trying to delude their students or both.
In some cases, they were using physical trickery without even understanding what it was that they were doing. In others, it was the power of suggestion at work all were explicable.
As a PhD level scientist, I can approve this scientific way of thinking that the commentator.Placebo is a huge thing.That tells us that our brains know our bodies better than ourselves(conciously).I try to see acupuncture as effective as massage therapy.People go to spas etc.Massage and acupuncture are both ancient;as it makes sense.If one would compare massage to acupuncture,acupuncture would be slightly better,as I obtain from the video.modern medicine has alot to learn about human body.
AT 6:30 timing of video , it describes risks that are exactly the same for conventional medicine. About placebo effect, how it works in veterinary acupuncture , animal can be cheated too? .
Why do people like you make these idiotic posts? Can't you take five minutes to google "veterinary acupuncture study" before you say something so demonstrably stupid?
I don't believe in Qi but even it is real, I take it as something that science haven't tried to research to explain at all.
But I've actually had acupuncture before and it worked well. Pain is a relative thing. I felt no pain but I heard from others that it caused them pain. I guess to some people, a needle you can barely pick up hurts...
Chiropractic is a complete hoax that is based on the bogus theory that there is a condition called subluxation in the spine (movement and misalignment of vertebra) This condition (subluxation) has NEVER been proven to exist. It can't be seen on x-ray and has never been seen or observed on the more definitive tests such as MRI or CAT-Scan. And yet Chiros continue to claim that this never clinically proven to even exist condition is the cause of all disease and pain.
and all those who watched this will not be effected by placebos(possibly) unless they are not told, and acupuncture just became useless to those that finished this, but hey it was educational, more than what i can claim of daily life
You have been tricked my good friend by very clever and very evil tricksters real acupuncture is very effective - and so is the propaganda of those that run the organisations that have controlled your thinking in this respect.
Of course it works. It works about as well as a placebo (probably because it is one). The human mind can be fooled, and that is a special kind of medicine.
However, it's not an effective substitute for evidence based therapies, and it is more expensive and intrusive than some alternative placebos.
Mind control. If you base an opinion on data that has been created to control your mind and presented in the guise of real, fair, honest science then you can be quite convinced that you opinion is 'correct' when ... it isnt.
The term 'evidence based medicine' is part of a thinking control scheme as are many many hundreds of false studies on medicine that have been published in supposedly scientific magazines and journals.
This is a dangerous kind of thinking. If you can believe something because the evidence supports it, but also believe something because "false evidence" is being put out by a conspiracy of science... then you'll always believe it. It's a self-deluding process.
Is there some specific scientific evidence that you WOULD accept that acupuncture works primarily by a psychological mechanism? Such as not inserting the needles, inserting them wrong?
@C0nc0rdance What are you saying! Lies! Mind control! Mind control by referring to mind control! Lies about lies! Also, this video controls my mind because I had no plan of receiving those images yet they are IN MY MIND NOW. I will do your bidding. You and they are powerful.
I would agree fully with you, these facts are correct but I also wonder what is your intent? Any reasonable physician or person for that matter knows that meridians do not exist. Acupuncture or "dry needling" does have a very real effect on trigger points and can create a neurological response when inserted correctly. Of course that's not acupuncture. But here is the AMAZING data that no one wants to talk about... The placebo effect IS powerful medicine, an important contribution in pain relief.
Why people do not want to start to use more this beautiful gift called Brain?
Everyone can "leave" the brain inside the body. As for an acupuncture needle [or other metals].... if you're lucky you'll hear a "beep" in the airport scanner, if the scanner has a beeper.... If not, don't wander why you're so "changeable". And others around you.
I am a KHT disciple. My teacher/Kwanjang-nim has clinical certification. I have seen this method work on numerous occasions for patients that the hospitals could no longer help. Partial blindness, kidney stones, and paralysis amongst others. The numerous people KTH Acupuncture has healed would find your findings ridiculous, especially when Western medicine had thrown them in the 'impossible to cure' category. How do you explain this effectiveness?
How do I explain that you have seen people get better?
The same way that people have gotten better after prayer, blood-letting, voodoo, psychic healers, and, my favorite... exorcism. If your method can cure partial blindness, you should absolutely conduct a study in such a way as to convince skeptics like myself. We accept reproducible, peer-reviewed evidence produced in a controlled setting ("science"), not stories.
Sci. has not been able to explain 1/2 of what it professes to explain. Eg. origin of the universe: neutrinos. Fine, where did they come from? More neutrinos, perhaps? Controlled setting? Even a simple high school redox reaction depends upon the CHANCE, not control, that the outer electrons from one chemical will collide & bond with the electrons of the 2nd chemical. Science is based on more 'stories' and 'myth' than people often realise.
Finally, Did anyone actually see the falling apple of Newton or is that too an anecdote? If you didn't see it, it's called hearsay aka a story. It is impossible to reproduce exactly because that moment in time is past. (Unless of course you can time travel.) People need to stop believing in 'controlled setting' & realise we humans really have no supreme omnipotent control. It is an illusion.
This is called a "god of the gaps" argument. You are implying that science can't explain everything, therefore science explains nothing. I concede that not every puzzle is solved, but that doesn't mean that every thing we can conceive of is true, or that science as a process is worthless.
The onus is on the claimant to prove his or her claim, not on the skeptic to disprove it. Acupuncture has failed to meet the burden of evidence of a rational, skeptical person.
The interest I have is that KHT is a hand acupuncture. Internal organ damage is never a problem nor are the needles ever broken off as they are inserted only approx. 0.5mm into the skin. You talk only of Body Acu. but fail to address hand, ear, & foot acupuncture. I would say that your presentation lacks a grasp of the areas of acupuncture. It's like the 4 blind men who tried to describe what an elephant looks like by only touching one body part.
Thanks for the nice video! I think it's kinda hilarious that the 2nd video in the video suggestions is an expertvillage video telling you how to tread back pain via accupuncture... I can imagine the guys/gals looking through the videos and trying the stuff at home, happily poking into someone else...
There are three things that i don't understand in this video: 1. how does the pain scale works, how can an error of +/- 4 be acceptable when the people that state it probably don't know the difference of 10 in 100? 2. how can toothpicks be considered a placebo if its used the same way as a needle, as they are used in the same areas and enter the flesh? 3. how can you actually consider acupuncture a placebo if a relaxation factor is involved? Any answers would be very appreciated.
Acupuncture is more than just a placebo. Although it does have a placebo effect, in fact for the pain relieving type of treatment, placebo is a very active part in acupuncture, it's more of manipulating the nervous system and other parts of the body. That's why the acupuncture points don't hurt and don't draw blood. Yes, they don't draw blood. I've seen acupuncture in action and they never drew blood.
"...I think a thoughtful examination of the risks and benefits do not support the use..."
"Examination" is singular. The correct phrasing should be "...I think a thoughtful examination [remove prepositional phrase] does not support the use..." This is a common error. That aside, this is another great vid
Acupuncture is repeatable experience. The problem: no double-blind, placebo-controlled study can be designed when the treatment for each patient is uniquely individual. Real acupuncture treats 100 patients 100 different ways. Science developed in China the same time as Greece; the modern experimental method does not define science. The criteria of science are 1) positive experience 2) unequivocality of statements 3) systematization of empirical data. China has had that for 2,500 years.
2,500 years old means it's out of date. For some reason, people respect tradition and "the ways of the past" more than they respect learning and progress. Just because something has been around a long time doesn't make it the truth. I wish the religious crazies would see it that way too.
The mind has incredible power over the body. Have you ever met someone with a stress or anxiety disorder? Look up some of the physical responses to stress (all in our heads) and tell me we can't trick ourselves!
@chishja You missed the point, chishja. 2,500 years of continuous development up to the present. It's not your fault you are ignorant of the history of science in China, or that you have a bias from unconscious cultural chauvinism. You probably think Gutenberg invented the movable type printing press, for example, but the Chinese did that 300 years earlier. Before Gutenberg was born, more than 40,000 volumes on medicine had been published in China. Nothing at all to compare in the West.
@yogaman28734 Not quite what I was getting a there, Mr. Yoga. I view acupuncturists the same way I view fortune tellers and tarot card readers, who would also argue that their fields draw from thousands of years of "continuous development." Does this mean that tarot readers and fortune tellers are in fact legitimate? I think not!
As for cultural chauvinism, where did I say anything about Chinese culture or compare Chinese medicine to Western medicine? *Read* comments before you reply to them!
@chishja Acupuncture is not tarot card reading. My point about cultural chauvinism wasn't personal, it had to do with people thinking only Western science is science, and putting Chinese science in the category of superstition.. Go to Chinese hospitals and watch acupuncture work for serious diseases. You should go back to school and learn logic, as you are using fallacy of sweeping generalization, argument by innuendo. connotation fallacies, proof by verbosity, and ad hominem attack.
@yogaman28734 Aromatherapy, Reiki, Ayruveda,Tarot Cards, Fortune Telling, Sound Therapy, Snake Massage, etc etc are all practices that are thousands of years old. Your logic of "continuous development" just validated all of them. No need to get into Gutenberg or any sort of East vs. West debate. Keep drawing at straws for an argument you cannot win! You could also try getting over yourself!
Thousands of years old. Just like the guys who built the pyramids, which we still can't replicate today using our technology, was thousands of years old. Not everything that's old is wrong. Maybe the beliefs of yin yang is wrong but whether or not acupuncture was created around that or not, it works. Why change something that doesn't work? The only two problems with acupuncture is if the needle is placed in the wrong point, it could cause death. And the whole AIDS thing.
@DarkZerkerX I can assure you that pyramids can be successfully constructed by human beings in the year 2011. We just don't bother building them anymore because over the years we've learned that spending that much time/currency/slaves on a burial chamber is a tad wasteful...and insane. See what I'm getting at here? Just because it's ancient doesn't make it true. The world used to be flat, remember?
Pyramids = A perfect casino, military fortress, second pentagon, mega mall etc. Just use steel instead of limestone(or was it sandstone?) and install a bunch of utilities like lighting inside. And you'd think that without using slaves and instead using cranes and bulldozers, we'd have a little better luck, hm?
Probably, the only reason people in the West scoff at acupuncture is because most people in the West who practice acupuncture don't do it right. It's true.
@DarkZerkerX You have stopped making sense. I thought that you said "we still can't replicate [pyramid building] today using our technology." But you contradict yourself in the next post. I'll just regard all further opinions of yours as complete nonsense. Regarding acupuncture and my initial point about how holding on to the past hinders enlightenment and human progress, look no further than the battle between religion and science over history. People cannot let go of what they "know" are fact
You'd think. But we don't have better luck. Either way, the past is the reason why we are where we are. If people like Newton didn't exist, we'd be a couple hundred years back in terms of physics. Regarding acupuncture, I believe that it works.
C0nc0rdance, are there any temporary, permanent, or long term side effects to acupuncture if the needles treat your body for over 1 hour (e.g: 1 and 1/2 OR 2 hrs)?
I strongly suggest you look up the effects of acupuncture for the treatment of fibromyalgia and for the treatment of nausea and vomiting (i.e. post-surgery, during chemotherpay, and during pregnancy).
I just finished writing a couple of research papers on this topic. The evidence was largely in favor of acupuncture (mainly electroacupuncture) against various forms of placebo, as well as no treatment.
The most thorough systematic review to date was by a German group, published in:
Rheumatology (Oxford). 2010 Apr;49(4):778-88.
Their conclusion?
"A small analgesic effect of acupuncture was present, which, however, was not clearly distinguishable from bias. Thus, acupuncture cannot be recommended for the management of FMS."
The obviously concurrent publication of pharmaceutical companies who kill us by chemical pills. Chinese peoples don't use european medicines and fill thelselv very good.
Actually, the CIA factbook gives China's life expectancy as 73.4, placing it about halfway down the list of nations, below most European countries. 73.4 is still a big improvement over the 1950 figures, which gave a life expectancy of 40.1, at a time when the same figure in the US was 68.2. China is modernizing their healthcare, and it shows.
The top three countries for longevity are Japan, Iceland and Switzerland, by the way.
Um. You obviously know nothing about the modern world. Acupuncture is not that popular in China. It's a fad of the western world. In fact, much of modern acupuncture isn't Chinese at all. Do a little reading.
@C0nc0rdance I have my own theory on acupuncture and acupressure; it's an alternative to placebo, i don't know if it's true it's just a suggestion:
correct if i'm wrong but doesn't the human brain work such that you stimulate one part of it more strongly it lowers the activity in the rest of the brain and lowers the response to previous more reduced stimuli? can that be the cause here? not placebo, but by causing "controlled pain", the response to the naturally occurring pain is lowered?
It's a subtle difference. A clinician might tell you that gate method is a form of placebo. The distinction lies in the fact that, unlike a pill placebo, touch methods distract the brain from pain.
But like placebo, it doesn't treat the problem. The problem is still there. That's why you notice it again in a day or two (or maybe less).
"The notion that acupuncture is an effective symptomatic treatment for fibromyaligia is not supported by the results from rigorous clinical trials. On the basis of this evidence, acupuncture cannot be recommended for fibromyalgia."
Individual papers often have methodological flaws. Systematic reviews look at ALL the data on a topic, rank it on the experimental design, and adjust accordingly.
you are a complete ass! And you have no basic knowledge of the science of acupuncture. But I guess we need someone to feed the narrow-minded twitts out there! Can I hear a Mao!
you are a complete ass! And you have no basic knowledge of the science of acupuncture. But I guess we need someone to feed the narrow-minded twitts out there! Can I hear a Mao!
Question for Concordance. Have you had any health problems and you used acupuncture yourself? This video is very biased. But I guess that's the point.
Unfortunately not everything in this world we can explain scientifically and with double blind studies. That's why a lot of things called theory. For instance: Religion and existence of God is not scientifically proven as well. It is never-ending argument and useless to prove one side or another. If it helps somebody let it be. Like praying.
Comforting illusions are only harmless when they don't affect our finances, time, actions, or emotional state. I don't demand the same level of proof of meditation or massage as I will demand of practitioners who put needles in people's skin for large amounts of money on a recurring basis.
There are other placebos that provide equivalent relief with less risk and lower cost.
@C0nc0rdance demand honesty? do you kno wthat your docs use meds they never studies? they didnt have recent meds when your doc was in school, so they just trust a drug rep who sells the drugs, can they honestly know what happens when combnng lets say prilosec with celexa etc? no, nobody does any studies on combining meds, you basically are a guinea pig as a patient, theirs no science behind combining any meds if they havent been studied together, yet everyones on a few meds at a time
I count 27 papers on omeprazole (Prilosec) interactions with citalopram (Celexa). I see animal studies, drug clearance kinetics, animal models and Phase III human clinical studies. There are studies talking about pharmacogenetics, molecular effects, and efficacy of each both individually and combined.
Just because you haven't read them doesn't mean they don't exist.
Physicians are just people, flawed and sometimes ignorant. However, the system of evidence based medicine is unique in that it progresses with our knowledge.
Acupuncture is a folk medicine tradition, based in supernatural "qi". If you have additional evidence to present, please do so.
@C0nc0rdance touche, i didnt feel like writing the whole thing, ok, so now add a cholesterol drug to the mix and a pain killer, and maybe a blood thinner, now show me how they interact, reality is that almost every patient we see is on 4-8 meds combined, and their is no science to that, its a joke that you would say that is science, and what you keep talkin about as qi is a language difference as i mentioned, what qi are you talking about? their are many, you would have to get more specific.
How familiar are you with clinical drug trials? Do you understand that real people, with med cocktails like you describe, are the subjects? This is not my favorite type of research, but it's important, because it produces safety data.
Can you prove the existence of any qi at all? Pick one.
@C0nc0rdance when you ask about a" qi: the digestoive process is a type of qi, the krebs cycel is a type of qi, the process if blood and oxygen is a type of qi, qi is just a language problem, it is not some hippie energy that has been made so popular for some reason.
So you're saying that qi has no mystical associations? Nothing supernatural at all, it's just a phrase used for chemical compounds? There's not, say, qi meridians invisibly flowing through the body, or numerology of 365 points and 12 meridians, or associations with the ancient Chinese elements?
If there's nothing supernatural about qi and acupuncture, I have been misinformed.
@C0nc0rdance theirs many methods and systems of acupuncture, as for meridians, really theirs nodes where certain points affect certain systems, and these points lay in a distribution of nereves that was called pathways, i dont think meridian as if some invisible canal is their is an accurate translation. However it has been translated as such to that is standard word used. Points have nothing to do with numerology that i know of, elements is a certain system of which i do not subscribe to
How were the acupoints determined? If I hook up a patient to a meter, can I measure the effects of a non-electric needle at a remote site? Can you cause gene activation in the liver as measured by real-time PCR or hormone tests? Because I have yet to see a paper detailing something as simple as a reproducible physiological change generated by a specific acupoint.
@C0nc0rdance we know that their is somatovisceral and viceralsomato pain, and that for inury to an area can cause visceral problems etc, so needling points to relive muscular problems in areas can actually affect organs or untrue? How were points found? its anatomy and phys, look up how many acu points land along travells exact trigger point locations and at attachment and insertion areas , and along spinal nerves, do you think they were guessing?
Respond to this video... their are actually point location meters, i never use them but are they legite? they are acurate, as i had to use one in school briefly?
Qi is an ancient Chinese word. It refers primarily to the energy we get from Respiration, Digestion, etc. Explanations of Qi in the ancient texts are Naturalist. Not Supernaturalist, not "Faith-based" like say Theism.
Respond to this video... so then are doctors crooked? if this is what they do? daba dot org? im confused, if you are saying medicine is science and acupuncture is folklore, then why are doctors doing acupuncture? I really cant grasp this is that science to say something is fake yet do it in their practice? Seems like either theirs something to it, or that Doctors are crooked and ripping people and insurance companies off? Wow, i cant wait for the scientific way you can explain this
Simple. Doctors use placebo treatments. They can also prescribe placebo pills, placebo drops, placebo treatments. This is part of conservative treatment. You may also find physicians who prescribe prayer, meditation, religious performances, etc.
Not all doctors rely exclusively on evidence based medicine. I don't have to defend all physicians, only EBM.
@C0nc0rdance i dont think doctors would pay to be licensed in placebo treatements and go through schooling and certification etc, for that. Trust me, theirs way to much hippie talk in usa on acupuncture, the system of medicine is good when based on anatomy and phys and just like where many meds say" exact mechanism is unknown" we dont know everything with acupuncture but i can say first hand that it works
It works in anecdotes, sure. You feel sick/hurt, you go to an acupuncturist, you feel better. Does that satisfy you intellectually? Don't you want to know if it works in tightly controlled studies? Don't you want a reproducible mechanism?
Why do so many studies find that experience makes no difference in relief, position of insertion makes no difference. Here's the one that really needs explaining: Not inserting the needle works as well as inserting it. WHY?
Respond to this video... what are the length of those studies? drug companies put up the meoney for drug studies, whos gnnna put up big money to do a huge and lengthy acu study when their nothing to patent and bring to the stock exchange? with medical studies many drugs have passed your scientific studies only to go and kill many people as well, is that science? how many drugs have been taken off the market? how did they pass all the scientific studies and later get pulled, science?
The US NCCAM has $123 million to give out for alt-med research. You could also create a central agency and donate a portion of your profits. It might hit you in the pocket book, but it would generate new info. Also, the schools of acupuncture get a lot of money, perhaps they might fund some research? You couldn't think of these sources?
Every product that affects the body carries a risk proportionate to its effect. Acupuncture=placebo=very low risk.
@C0nc0rdance drug studies are usually for a few years in general if that, i see patients who been on several med cocktails for over twenty years, and their are no studies mixing these drugs for those periods of time that i have seen. i am aware of drug studies and i am also aware of one of the major leading causes of death in usa being meds and hospitals etc.
This is called the Deadly Doctor gambit, and I have a video on the topic. To summarize: people dying in hospitals is the norm because that's where very sick people go. When you have cancer, you die of the cancer or you die of the overly aggressive treatment.
It's obvious you aren't familiar with clinical trials. Phase IV is called "pharmacovigilance" and it has no defined endpoint.
Sometimes drugs have adverse effects. How does that prove acupuncture's efficacy?
@C0nc0rdance im not saying that drugs adverse affects prove acupuncture, what im saying is that test for drugs try to prove a drug, especially when it comes to stock market and drugs money making potential, test for acu are usually tryoing to disprove it as theirs no patent and no big money to be made. are their physical therapy trials with back pain showing same result with placebo treatment?
I'm sure some scientific fraud happens, but there are lots of studies on drugs that are done by academic labs with no conflicts of interest.
Yes, physical therapy, acupuncture, massage, chiropractic and virtually every other conservative therapy have the same chronic LBP subjective relief on a 3 year time scale. Surgery is more heterogenous (both good and bad, depending on specific conditions), and painkillers are very effective but carry a lot of negatives.
Respond to this video... i will ask around for the guys that do work with the studies because in california they are leaning towards evidence based in acupncture as well and their is studies that have been brought up at meetings etc
So, the fact that accupunture is actually proven to treat many disorders and diseases is a lie I suppose. Unlike Western medicine that treats a patients symptoms, sciences like acupuncture aim to address root causes of many, many ailments, not just provide symptomatic relief. You're obviously cynical about anything of which you have no level of intelligence to grasp, and that's sad. You must be the life of the party.
Great, someone interested in evidence! Properly cite (Author, Journal, Year at a minimum) the best evidence for the effectiveness of acupuncture for any particular condition. Do any of these papers show better performance than any other placebo?
We know placebos work. Does acupuncture work BETTER than a placebo?
Make a 4th group: Group 4 should use a drug that's already known to work (for that type of illness), so that if the new drug works, you can see if it works better or not than the already existing drug.
My point is that ot of us acupuncturist treat according anatomy and phys, and the acupoints line up pretty much the same as janet travells trigger point charts, also points are along the vegas and other nerves that explain specific functions etc. Why do Docs and people try to disprove so hard, why dont you do a study on disproving western meds? how many people are medicated for a lifetime for depression, for anxiety, for diseases that many times are not even diagnosed by more than a questionare
the study is so flawed its riduculous, what is back pain? thats not even a diagnoses, what are you treating? any descent acupuncturist wouldnt do a study like this, we would want a diagnoses, what causes the back pain is it a herniation, is it a bulging disk, is it a kidney stone, is it a gallbladder problem, this study methods are a joke. This is care tactics, lol why dont you then tell stats on hospital deaths and death from drugs in america and doctor mistakes?
Which one? There are four papers cited here. Did you read the actual papers?
The number of accidental deaths from medical care has been estimated to be about 50,000 per year in the US. (BMJ 2009; 338:a3115). That's 1.8% of deaths annually, or the 11th leading cause of death.
I doubt chiropractic has killed more than a few dozen. However, chiropractors do not deal with high risk or critical medical issues. They give placebo relief for back pain.
@C0nc0rdance why not perform the hypothetical trial as to how many unneccesary surgeries are performed, or how many unneccessary drugs people are addicted to etc. How many deaths a year by acupuncture? when we treat with acu, many times we can go deeper into muscle origin and insertion than Physical therapy, how can we not get results? How can you make it out to be like witchcraft when its all science based? We treat by anatomy and phys, we all have same makeup, lol
@11cookeaw1 and other studies will show the opposite, when studies are done, you need to look at how the studies are done, and what is tested/ You say" acupuncture" what acupuncture? theirs many different styles of acupuncture all of which will use different point selections for an illness, so again you keep trying to "test" something non western based on western thinking. If it said"acupoints selected, or needle technique used were equal to placebo" thent it would make sense
@11cookeaw1 its like giving someone an aspirin for an ulcer and saying it was no better than placebo for this illness."western medicine is equal to placebo". The method of testing is very flawed. What style of acupuncture is used, what needle technique is used, what led to the injury or illness, what thickness needles were used etc etc, the test are a scam, it says nothing. also why is their the medical acupuncture board?/ all MD who are certified in acupuncture? Why do they use it if its fake?
I dislike the idea that there is a "Western thought" in contrast to the wise East. All scientific inquiry uses the same methodology, regardless of hemisphere. What you really should say is "Ancient Lore" vs. "Modern Science", or "subjective" vs. "objective" science.
Repeated studies have shown that needle insertion, technique and expertise makes no difference when all else is controlled.
Physicians are (usually) smart enough to use a placebo when it's appropriate.
@C0nc0rdance so again I ask if the science of acupuncture is fake then why are western doctors doing it? This is a simple question,lets just start with that
@MrZeus7 im guessin you didnt study acupuncture to say that, if its a quack thing it wouldnt be accepted by insurance and have a graduate level degree (masters in science), and Doctors wouldnt be getting certified in it. Thier are quacks out their using it as a some hippie thing, but same with western med docs theirs plenty of quacks. Its 6 years of accredited college total, to graduate, its not a joke and not some hippie quack thing.
Great idea! Hey, what physics journal did you find that covered the underlying mechanism of acupuncture?
Was it Biophysical Journal, or Journal of American Physics? Because I've been searching the literature and I don't see any support for acupuncture. What scientific article in a peer-reviewed journal do you base your beliefs on? Can you cite it accurately?
I don't quite get it, why does it matter if acupuncture is more effective with toothpricks? Why does that, specifically, debunk acupuncture? Does acupuncture have a rule that it must be metal needles? I always kinda thought the thing that's meant to make it work is being pierced in specific places, no matter by what.
The toothpicks were not inserted at all. They were merely used to give the impression of sharp pressure. They were not even used at specific "qi" points.
If being poked with a stick anywhere is causing the effect, I'll do it to you for free!
Repeated studies have shown that random placement of needles gives the same effect as a master acupuncturist designing a specific placement for each patient individually.
@Mithcoriel ther was no true diagnoses for the injuries, so anything the person felt would make them feel better would have helped, even a sugar pill if they belived in it, but then they would just say "pharmacutical drugs are fake and is bogus", the study was obviously done with an intent to disprove something
@Mithcoriel yes i am for acupuncture as i went through 6 years of college to learn it 4 of thoise were in acu college. i suggest your read the TAO OF ACUPUNCTURE if you seriously want to see what its about(medically).
@Mithcoriel as a side note, acupuncture is what gave me back use of my arm after a neck injury when physical therapy and injections fell short, thats what led me to study it.
If what your're saying is true then placebo cured me permanently of an ailment I was carrying for 20 years. It's now been five years since I got this placebo treatment, and the contrast of before-and-after is significant beyond any doubt.
To further confuse matters traditional western medicine had it's go at me for many years. I was in and out of hospitals. Was operated upon, medicinized (is that a word?) upon, to no avail.
Your very long list begs some granularity. Bundled with UFOs? Please
@ulfschack Simply your attempt at trying that, shows you had more faith in alternative medicine than in real, evidence-based medicine. And clearly if it worked for you it must work for the whole world right? I think you missed the point of the entire video.
@Murdulo Your're jumping to (own) conclusions AND putting words in my mouth. I dont' think I missed any points in the video. Clearly my view is that thera are too FEW points ... as comforting as generalisations might be. In Sweden, midwifes, are educated in putting one (just this single one) in the scalp of women in labor for anaesthetical purposes. Do I perceive this picking and choosing as hypocritical? Certainly! :)
@ulfschack Too few? Right, small but considerable chance of dying and evidence for it being equal as the placebo effect is "too few". Acupunture is a hoax for minds that require hoaxes to be real.
@Murdulo Look, I'm a mathematician, and I don't take the word evidence lightly, and neiher should you. In fact, you seem so certain it's a hoax (based on the empirical approach the maker of this video uses) that I'm tempted to call you narrow minded. Ah, to hell with ... you ARE a bigot. The "side" you're on doesn't automatically make you immune to such things, see? I'm joking a little, but think it's important to always question, and always keep an open mind. Here I question the questioner.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Your anecdote of a miraculous cure is not very strong evidence at all, and I have a high standard for any cure that is based on a magical vitalist force like "qi".
I'm glad you're finding relief, however you're finding it. I just want to encourage you to think critically about the correlation between getting acupuncture and feeling better. Besides your subjective experience, is there any objective documentation of your cure?
@C0nc0rdance But the prerequisites for this discussion are the opposite. The burden of evidence is not on acupuncture, but rather on the ones that seek to debunk it in ITS ENTIRETY. I'm an atheist and more importantly a sceptic, and I apply that wherever. For any new born sceptic acupuncture would be real easy target, but I'm on my "second lap", if you know what I mean :). We'll have a hard time proving anything, ever, but we certainly need more tests and broader scopes.
1. Acupuncture causes realignment of qi, resulting in mystical healing.
2. Acupuncture DOES NOT cause realignment of qi....
Which is the default position?
Is the burden on atheists to "debunk" God? Anytime someone make a positive claim, they have the burden. A negative claim, "Has not been proved", is always the default.
I assert that acupuncture has not been show to be more effective than placebo. That's the default.
@C0nc0rdance The only thing we admit to by denying the first point is that the wording, phrasing and the philosophy about the whole mumbo-jumbo chi life force thing is erroneous. Some (and perhaps even the majority) of the effects COULD be explained as placebo, but that's most likely not all-covering, seeing as there is still many obvious tests left to do. Besides it puts one hell of a demand on a more strict definition of "placebo", as something other than a conveniant debunk-tool.
It sounds like we are nearing a point of convergence. Would you say the following statement is accurate about acupuncture?:
"Acupuncture has yet to be shown to be more effective than a placebo in consistent patient-randomized, large population, double-blind, case-control studies. What data we DO have suggests the action of acupuncture is tied to the basic physical stimulation of skin, regardless of needle placement, or indeed insertion at all."
@C0nc0rdance To clarify, my answer f.i. to Q at 5:00 is "No" (resounding). I don't HOW (if) it works. Also just because there hasn't been enough interest and money invested in clinical testings as to the real effects doesn't mean it's not there. There are tests that go either way. I just read one that reaches the opposite conclusion. There's always a bias. Add to that the millions of "halleluljas" (that DO count, in my opinion) and I say both sides have yet far to go proving anything at all.
"just because there hasn't been enough interest and money invested in clinical testings as to the real effects doesn't mean it's not there."
Is that consistent with a skeptical mindset? Has anyone ever disproved Bigfoot, ESP, and fairies? Why don't you believe in those things?
Do you understand that I don't have to assert that acupuncture DOESN'T work, I just have to say it's never been SHOWN to work in rigorous controlled trials? That's the honest skeptical position.
@C0nc0rdance I understand that you don't HAVE to, but it's nevertheless what this video is trying to do, yes? You're basically just moving from one faith to another. Placebo is too variable in terms of effect, durability and individuality to seriously be a scientific alternative. If no attempts are made to explain placebo, how do we know that EVERYTHING is not just simply "chi" for instance. I AM sceptical to acupunture ... but alternatives doesn't offer much either. Why switch?
These are very non-skeptical statements. I've produced empirical data on rigorous studies to back my thesis that "thoughtful examination of risks and benefits do not support the use of acupuncture..."
The basis for your belief is a personal anecdote and subjective experience.
These are not equivalent positions.
I'm not advocating any alternatives, and I don't have to, to prove my point. You might consider something that doesn't involve a risk of paralysis or death, though.
Again, your videos are so important.
You are teaching people how to think properly,
Thank You so much for your work.
thenoeggplantzone 1 month ago
Cemophopy has a 2% success rate
q41n 1 month ago
Interesting. I have studied tai chi and chi gong for some time now. I knew someone who had a pinched nerve in their shoulder and was seeing a professional accupuncturist. He was always telling me about his appointments and how the accupuncturist would use the needles to move the minor muscles and nerves back into alignment and he had a very noticeable affect. I dont doubt that the mind can make the hands bleed, but there are valuable things in eastern teachings.
Psy0psAgent 1 month ago
@Psy0psAgent In reference to the above, there is a big difference in these type of 'arts'. Take martial arts schools for example. There are the types you find in cities that make you run around doing calisthenics, and stretching but never quite teaching the arts of death to your average joe. They get a sporty version of self defense. And then there are real Dojos. So there are practitioners of arts that are amatuers and there are very rare pros. The outnumbering amatuers give the rest a bad name
Psy0psAgent 1 month ago
@Psy0psAgent The video displays the attitude of most professionals in our profit driven medical establishment. I had a recurring pinched nerve in my back. When I was 25 years old, decided to try acupuncture and it worked. The pinched nerve never came back after just one treatment. I also was infected with Hepatitis C and got homeopathic treatment from Joel Fuhrman, he was not famous when I was seeing him. I developed antibodies to the virus and I'm cured. Drugs are a terrible thing
JZJYRWO 1 month ago
@JZJYRWO You should reflect on all the factors that you underwent in your treatment for the pinched nerve. Did you absolutely only get acupuncture. Was there any massage or relaxation techniques with the treatment. Who diagnosed you with a pinched nerve. It is not physiologically possible to correct a pinched nerve with only acupuncture. The condition may have already been in the process of resolving, if that was even a proper diagnosis.
Skullcracken 2 weeks ago
I read an article that claims "Acupuncture significantly reduces levels of a protein in rats linked to chronic stress, researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC) have found."
There was also some other study regarding inflammation where they used gene knockout mice and normal mice to compare acupuncture response. The gene knockout mice showed no benefit from acupuncture. So 1 mechanism of acupuncture has been isolated down to the genetic level. I'm not really into needles though.
RELIGIONmustDIE 1 month ago
@RELIGIONmustDIE
The article you are referring to used electo-acupuncture (EA) and temperature stress in rats. That involves running electrical charge into the skin, which stimulates a lot of responses that have nothing to do with the presence of the needle.
I couldn't locate the second article with the information given.
C0nc0rdance 1 month ago
@C0nc0rdance the second article should be found using the following search string "Acupuncture significantly reduces levels of a protein in rats linked to chronic stress"
You are right though. That study used electro-acupuncture. I'm not yet convinced that using electricity rules out acupuncture since the electrical stimulus was used to more accurately control the treatment dose. Electrical stimulation would tighten the muscles around the needle and would be equivalent to turning the needle.
RELIGIONmustDIE 1 month ago
@C0nc0rdance in a study how would you give each animal the same level of treatment if it involved too much of a human factor since a different amount of pressure etc would change the result. It would be interesting if another study followed that up without using electrical stimulus. I don't think the voltages involved would do much more than tighten muscles around the treatment area.
RELIGIONmustDIE 1 month ago
@C0nc0rdance Sorry, My mistake. The second article is on physorg with the title: "Acupuncture's molecular effects pinned down"
RELIGIONmustDIE 1 month ago
@RELIGIONmustDIE
Whenever you can, try to track down the primary source. Sometimes popular articles badly misrepresent the research. For example, this is a laughable statement from the physorg article:
"In special "adenosine receptor knock-out mice" not equipped with the adenosine receptor, acupuncture had no effect."
and
"When adenosine was turned on in the tissues, discomfort was reduced even without acupuncture."
How is adenosine turned on? That's a nonsense phrase.
C0nc0rdance 1 month ago
Physorg didn't cite the actual paper:
Nat Neurosci. 2010 Jul;13(7):883-8.
"Adenosine A1 receptors mediate local anti-nociceptive effects of acupuncture."
What I take from this article is that if the anti-nociception is a localized phenomenon that interacts with AdA1R, then it doesn't matter if needles are placed on "mystical points" or not. In fact, they speculate that any physical stimulation has a similar effect. Studies on chiro and massage are cited for support.
C0nc0rdance 1 month ago
They also point out that most studies find an analgesic effect whether needles are inserted or not, suggesting that the pressure on skin cells is enough to replicate the effect. To quote them:
"...it is possible that ATP release from keratinocytes in response to mechanical stimulation of the skin results in an accumulation of adenosine that transiently reduces pain, as A1 receptors are probably expressed by nociceptive axon terminal in epidermis"
C0nc0rdance 1 month ago
So what would you use in order to relive your pain?
Alternative Medicine or Olive Martini Medicine?
Dondonovan 1 month ago
wait, a cool laser?
aren't lasers by definition hot?
MrEpathykills 1 month ago
Shite. How am I gonna tell my girlfriend? We already fought over homeopathy just half a year ago, and now this? She's getting an acupuncture every second week, and it helps her knee problems. But since she's studying medicine she claims that inserting needles (or toothpicks) does very much have a medicinal physical effect WAY beyond a mere placebo-effect.
I kinda already suspected that it was all a sham, just couldn't back it up- until now. What should I do? (tooth)Pick another fight? Damn...
GreyLabyrinthine 1 month ago
there is more recent systematic review on acupunture on PAIN journal by .... ummm i forgot the name. written in 2011
TheSeungjin 1 month ago
I had acupuncture and for me, it did nothing to help my knee pain.
truckcompany 1 month ago
Despite being exposed to countless Chi/Qi/Ki demonstrations in more than 25 years of training in and teaching martial arts, I never did get to see a single one that was convincing.
Each and every time, the person giving the demo was deluding themselves, trying to delude their students or both.
In some cases, they were using physical trickery without even understanding what it was that they were doing. In others, it was the power of suggestion at work all were explicable.
baldieman64 1 month ago
can i have permission to mirror this on my page? I'd appreciate it
ondamedjedi 1 month ago in playlist Pseudoscience
@ondamedjedi
I've just adjusted the license to Creative Commons Attribution... use as you like.
C0nc0rdance 1 month ago
: ) I'll go poke myself with the toothpicks.
SEThatered 1 month ago
As a PhD level scientist, I can approve this scientific way of thinking that the commentator.Placebo is a huge thing.That tells us that our brains know our bodies better than ourselves(conciously).I try to see acupuncture as effective as massage therapy.People go to spas etc.Massage and acupuncture are both ancient;as it makes sense.If one would compare massage to acupuncture,acupuncture would be slightly better,as I obtain from the video.modern medicine has alot to learn about human body.
inventorOz84 2 months ago
AT 6:30 timing of video , it describes risks that are exactly the same for conventional medicine. About placebo effect, how it works in veterinary acupuncture , animal can be cheated too? .
joseayerbe 3 months ago
@joseayerbe
Why do people like you make these idiotic posts? Can't you take five minutes to google "veterinary acupuncture study" before you say something so demonstrably stupid?
supowit 1 month ago
I don't believe in Qi but even it is real, I take it as something that science haven't tried to research to explain at all.
But I've actually had acupuncture before and it worked well. Pain is a relative thing. I felt no pain but I heard from others that it caused them pain. I guess to some people, a needle you can barely pick up hurts...
Ravensteinzh 3 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
Chiropractic is a complete hoax that is based on the bogus theory that there is a condition called subluxation in the spine (movement and misalignment of vertebra) This condition (subluxation) has NEVER been proven to exist. It can't be seen on x-ray and has never been seen or observed on the more definitive tests such as MRI or CAT-Scan. And yet Chiros continue to claim that this never clinically proven to even exist condition is the cause of all disease and pain.
sweetclaire06 4 months ago
and all those who watched this will not be effected by placebos(possibly) unless they are not told, and acupuncture just became useless to those that finished this, but hey it was educational, more than what i can claim of daily life
DemoticTruth 4 months ago
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TheNubbbler 5 months ago
You have been tricked my good friend by very clever and very evil tricksters real acupuncture is very effective - and so is the propaganda of those that run the organisations that have controlled your thinking in this respect.
All the best.
Akzimo 5 months ago
@Akzimo
Of course it works. It works about as well as a placebo (probably because it is one). The human mind can be fooled, and that is a special kind of medicine.
However, it's not an effective substitute for evidence based therapies, and it is more expensive and intrusive than some alternative placebos.
C0nc0rdance 5 months ago 10
@C0nc0rdance
Mind control. If you base an opinion on data that has been created to control your mind and presented in the guise of real, fair, honest science then you can be quite convinced that you opinion is 'correct' when ... it isnt.
The term 'evidence based medicine' is part of a thinking control scheme as are many many hundreds of false studies on medicine that have been published in supposedly scientific magazines and journals.
叫我你这个意见真像你跟我说"二进制跟电脑没有什么关系"。
好玩哦。
Akzimo 5 months ago
@Akzimo
This is a dangerous kind of thinking. If you can believe something because the evidence supports it, but also believe something because "false evidence" is being put out by a conspiracy of science... then you'll always believe it. It's a self-deluding process.
Is there some specific scientific evidence that you WOULD accept that acupuncture works primarily by a psychological mechanism? Such as not inserting the needles, inserting them wrong?
C0nc0rdance 5 months ago 7
@C0nc0rdance
Its not about believing - like faith or anything - haha- but anyway - cool haha .
Akzimo 5 months ago
@C0nc0rdance What are you saying! Lies! Mind control! Mind control by referring to mind control! Lies about lies! Also, this video controls my mind because I had no plan of receiving those images yet they are IN MY MIND NOW. I will do your bidding. You and they are powerful.
maljamin 1 month ago
@Akzimo C'mon, man... a thought-control scheme?
You are delusional. Acupuncture is voodoo, and voodoo doesn't work except as a placebo.
sincristo 4 months ago
@sincristo Haha .
Akzimo 4 months ago
I would agree fully with you, these facts are correct but I also wonder what is your intent? Any reasonable physician or person for that matter knows that meridians do not exist. Acupuncture or "dry needling" does have a very real effect on trigger points and can create a neurological response when inserted correctly. Of course that's not acupuncture. But here is the AMAZING data that no one wants to talk about... The placebo effect IS powerful medicine, an important contribution in pain relief.
backhealth 6 months ago
I think i will just get a massage.
FattyMcFox 6 months ago
Why people do not want to start to use more this beautiful gift called Brain?
Everyone can "leave" the brain inside the body. As for an acupuncture needle [or other metals].... if you're lucky you'll hear a "beep" in the airport scanner, if the scanner has a beeper.... If not, don't wander why you're so "changeable". And others around you.
silveraspen68 7 months ago
With respect,
I am a KHT disciple. My teacher/Kwanjang-nim has clinical certification. I have seen this method work on numerous occasions for patients that the hospitals could no longer help. Partial blindness, kidney stones, and paralysis amongst others. The numerous people KTH Acupuncture has healed would find your findings ridiculous, especially when Western medicine had thrown them in the 'impossible to cure' category. How do you explain this effectiveness?
Regards.
AintNoSuperiorStyle 7 months ago
@AintNoSuperiorStyle
This is what we call an "ANECDOTE". It's a story.
How do I explain that you have seen people get better?
The same way that people have gotten better after prayer, blood-letting, voodoo, psychic healers, and, my favorite... exorcism. If your method can cure partial blindness, you should absolutely conduct a study in such a way as to convince skeptics like myself. We accept reproducible, peer-reviewed evidence produced in a controlled setting ("science"), not stories.
C0nc0rdance 7 months ago 6
@C0nc0rdance
With respect,
Sci. has not been able to explain 1/2 of what it professes to explain. Eg. origin of the universe: neutrinos. Fine, where did they come from? More neutrinos, perhaps? Controlled setting? Even a simple high school redox reaction depends upon the CHANCE, not control, that the outer electrons from one chemical will collide & bond with the electrons of the 2nd chemical. Science is based on more 'stories' and 'myth' than people often realise.
AintNoSuperiorStyle 7 months ago
@C0nc0rdance
Finally, Did anyone actually see the falling apple of Newton or is that too an anecdote? If you didn't see it, it's called hearsay aka a story. It is impossible to reproduce exactly because that moment in time is past. (Unless of course you can time travel.) People need to stop believing in 'controlled setting' & realise we humans really have no supreme omnipotent control. It is an illusion.
AintNoSuperiorStyle 7 months ago
@AintNoSuperiorStyle
This is called a "god of the gaps" argument. You are implying that science can't explain everything, therefore science explains nothing. I concede that not every puzzle is solved, but that doesn't mean that every thing we can conceive of is true, or that science as a process is worthless.
The onus is on the claimant to prove his or her claim, not on the skeptic to disprove it. Acupuncture has failed to meet the burden of evidence of a rational, skeptical person.
C0nc0rdance 7 months ago
@C0nc0rdance
The interest I have is that KHT is a hand acupuncture. Internal organ damage is never a problem nor are the needles ever broken off as they are inserted only approx. 0.5mm into the skin. You talk only of Body Acu. but fail to address hand, ear, & foot acupuncture. I would say that your presentation lacks a grasp of the areas of acupuncture. It's like the 4 blind men who tried to describe what an elephant looks like by only touching one body part.
AintNoSuperiorStyle 7 months ago
Thanks for the nice video! I think it's kinda hilarious that the 2nd video in the video suggestions is an expertvillage video telling you how to tread back pain via accupuncture... I can imagine the guys/gals looking through the videos and trying the stuff at home, happily poking into someone else...
thargor2k 8 months ago
There are three things that i don't understand in this video: 1. how does the pain scale works, how can an error of +/- 4 be acceptable when the people that state it probably don't know the difference of 10 in 100? 2. how can toothpicks be considered a placebo if its used the same way as a needle, as they are used in the same areas and enter the flesh? 3. how can you actually consider acupuncture a placebo if a relaxation factor is involved? Any answers would be very appreciated.
godshades 9 months ago
Acupuncture is more than just a placebo. Although it does have a placebo effect, in fact for the pain relieving type of treatment, placebo is a very active part in acupuncture, it's more of manipulating the nervous system and other parts of the body. That's why the acupuncture points don't hurt and don't draw blood. Yes, they don't draw blood. I've seen acupuncture in action and they never drew blood.
DarkZerkerX 9 months ago
I'm sure a massage could give a good placebo effect too.
Tamizushi 10 months ago
"...I think a thoughtful examination of the risks and benefits do not support the use..."
"Examination" is singular. The correct phrasing should be "...I think a thoughtful examination [remove prepositional phrase] does not support the use..." This is a common error. That aside, this is another great vid
thirtysilver 11 months ago
Does anyone know if there are serious side effects when overdosing acupuncture hours?
iseachaixx 11 months ago
Acupuncture is repeatable experience. The problem: no double-blind, placebo-controlled study can be designed when the treatment for each patient is uniquely individual. Real acupuncture treats 100 patients 100 different ways. Science developed in China the same time as Greece; the modern experimental method does not define science. The criteria of science are 1) positive experience 2) unequivocality of statements 3) systematization of empirical data. China has had that for 2,500 years.
yogaman28734 11 months ago 2
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iseachaixx 11 months ago
2,500 years old means it's out of date. For some reason, people respect tradition and "the ways of the past" more than they respect learning and progress. Just because something has been around a long time doesn't make it the truth. I wish the religious crazies would see it that way too.
The mind has incredible power over the body. Have you ever met someone with a stress or anxiety disorder? Look up some of the physical responses to stress (all in our heads) and tell me we can't trick ourselves!
chishja 10 months ago
@chishja You missed the point, chishja. 2,500 years of continuous development up to the present. It's not your fault you are ignorant of the history of science in China, or that you have a bias from unconscious cultural chauvinism. You probably think Gutenberg invented the movable type printing press, for example, but the Chinese did that 300 years earlier. Before Gutenberg was born, more than 40,000 volumes on medicine had been published in China. Nothing at all to compare in the West.
yogaman28734 10 months ago
@yogaman28734 Not quite what I was getting a there, Mr. Yoga. I view acupuncturists the same way I view fortune tellers and tarot card readers, who would also argue that their fields draw from thousands of years of "continuous development." Does this mean that tarot readers and fortune tellers are in fact legitimate? I think not!
As for cultural chauvinism, where did I say anything about Chinese culture or compare Chinese medicine to Western medicine? *Read* comments before you reply to them!
chishja 9 months ago
@chishja Acupuncture is not tarot card reading. My point about cultural chauvinism wasn't personal, it had to do with people thinking only Western science is science, and putting Chinese science in the category of superstition.. Go to Chinese hospitals and watch acupuncture work for serious diseases. You should go back to school and learn logic, as you are using fallacy of sweeping generalization, argument by innuendo. connotation fallacies, proof by verbosity, and ad hominem attack.
yogaman28734 9 months ago
@yogaman28734 Aromatherapy, Reiki, Ayruveda,Tarot Cards, Fortune Telling, Sound Therapy, Snake Massage, etc etc are all practices that are thousands of years old. Your logic of "continuous development" just validated all of them. No need to get into Gutenberg or any sort of East vs. West debate. Keep drawing at straws for an argument you cannot win! You could also try getting over yourself!
chishja 9 months ago
Thousands of years old. Just like the guys who built the pyramids, which we still can't replicate today using our technology, was thousands of years old. Not everything that's old is wrong. Maybe the beliefs of yin yang is wrong but whether or not acupuncture was created around that or not, it works. Why change something that doesn't work? The only two problems with acupuncture is if the needle is placed in the wrong point, it could cause death. And the whole AIDS thing.
DarkZerkerX 9 months ago
@DarkZerkerX I can assure you that pyramids can be successfully constructed by human beings in the year 2011. We just don't bother building them anymore because over the years we've learned that spending that much time/currency/slaves on a burial chamber is a tad wasteful...and insane. See what I'm getting at here? Just because it's ancient doesn't make it true. The world used to be flat, remember?
chishja 9 months ago
Pyramids = A perfect casino, military fortress, second pentagon, mega mall etc. Just use steel instead of limestone(or was it sandstone?) and install a bunch of utilities like lighting inside. And you'd think that without using slaves and instead using cranes and bulldozers, we'd have a little better luck, hm?
Probably, the only reason people in the West scoff at acupuncture is because most people in the West who practice acupuncture don't do it right. It's true.
DarkZerkerX 9 months ago
@DarkZerkerX You have stopped making sense. I thought that you said "we still can't replicate [pyramid building] today using our technology." But you contradict yourself in the next post. I'll just regard all further opinions of yours as complete nonsense. Regarding acupuncture and my initial point about how holding on to the past hinders enlightenment and human progress, look no further than the battle between religion and science over history. People cannot let go of what they "know" are fact
chishja 9 months ago
@chishja
You'd think. But we don't have better luck. Either way, the past is the reason why we are where we are. If people like Newton didn't exist, we'd be a couple hundred years back in terms of physics. Regarding acupuncture, I believe that it works.
DarkZerkerX 9 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
C0nc0rdance, are there any temporary, permanent, or long term side effects to acupuncture if the needles treat your body for over 1 hour (e.g: 1 and 1/2 OR 2 hrs)?
iseachaixx 11 months ago
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iseachaixx 11 months ago
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iseachaixx 11 months ago
I strongly suggest you look up the effects of acupuncture for the treatment of fibromyalgia and for the treatment of nausea and vomiting (i.e. post-surgery, during chemotherpay, and during pregnancy).
I just finished writing a couple of research papers on this topic. The evidence was largely in favor of acupuncture (mainly electroacupuncture) against various forms of placebo, as well as no treatment.
Starbat88 1 year ago
@Starbat88
The most thorough systematic review to date was by a German group, published in:
Rheumatology (Oxford). 2010 Apr;49(4):778-88.
Their conclusion?
"A small analgesic effect of acupuncture was present, which, however, was not clearly distinguishable from bias. Thus, acupuncture cannot be recommended for the management of FMS."
C0nc0rdance 1 year ago 12
@C0nc0rdance
The obviously concurrent publication of pharmaceutical companies who kill us by chemical pills. Chinese peoples don't use european medicines and fill thelselv very good.
DrConst50 4 months ago
@DrConst50
Actually, the CIA factbook gives China's life expectancy as 73.4, placing it about halfway down the list of nations, below most European countries. 73.4 is still a big improvement over the 1950 figures, which gave a life expectancy of 40.1, at a time when the same figure in the US was 68.2. China is modernizing their healthcare, and it shows.
The top three countries for longevity are Japan, Iceland and Switzerland, by the way.
C0nc0rdance 4 months ago
@DrConst50
Um. You obviously know nothing about the modern world. Acupuncture is not that popular in China. It's a fad of the western world. In fact, much of modern acupuncture isn't Chinese at all. Do a little reading.
supowit 1 month ago
@C0nc0rdance I have my own theory on acupuncture and acupressure; it's an alternative to placebo, i don't know if it's true it's just a suggestion:
correct if i'm wrong but doesn't the human brain work such that you stimulate one part of it more strongly it lowers the activity in the rest of the brain and lowers the response to previous more reduced stimuli? can that be the cause here? not placebo, but by causing "controlled pain", the response to the naturally occurring pain is lowered?
RoScFan 1 month ago
@RoScFan
What you're describing is "gate method" of pain control. It is not exactly placebo, but it has similar effects... and it's only temporary.
supowit 1 month ago
@supowit okay... so... might that be what acupuncture does? gate method? rather than placebo? or maybe it's a bit of both?
RoScFan 1 month ago
@RoScFan
It's a subtle difference. A clinician might tell you that gate method is a form of placebo. The distinction lies in the fact that, unlike a pill placebo, touch methods distract the brain from pain.
But like placebo, it doesn't treat the problem. The problem is still there. That's why you notice it again in a day or two (or maybe less).
supowit 1 month ago
You might also consider:
Rheumatology (Oxford). 2007 May;46(5):801-4.
"The notion that acupuncture is an effective symptomatic treatment for fibromyaligia is not supported by the results from rigorous clinical trials. On the basis of this evidence, acupuncture cannot be recommended for fibromyalgia."
Individual papers often have methodological flaws. Systematic reviews look at ALL the data on a topic, rank it on the experimental design, and adjust accordingly.
C0nc0rdance 1 year ago 24
Come on, how could you talk extensively about the placebo effect in this video and not mention Pavlov and classical conditioning?
KingOfMadCows 1 year ago
I'd say the humours are more accurate-- At least we do actually *have* blood, bile, and the other humours.
GoblinXXX 1 year ago
you are a complete ass! And you have no basic knowledge of the science of acupuncture. But I guess we need someone to feed the narrow-minded twitts out there! Can I hear a Mao!
wow
rikkewaagnes 1 year ago
you are a complete ass! And you have no basic knowledge of the science of acupuncture. But I guess we need someone to feed the narrow-minded twitts out there! Can I hear a Mao!
rikkewaagnes 1 year ago
except acupuncture cures many pains that western medicine cannot. own up to it.
foxclown 1 year ago
@foxclown
On what factual basis do you make that claim? What strong evidence convinces you that acupuncture is effective?
C0nc0rdance 1 year ago
Question for Concordance. Have you had any health problems and you used acupuncture yourself? This video is very biased. But I guess that's the point.
Unfortunately not everything in this world we can explain scientifically and with double blind studies. That's why a lot of things called theory. For instance: Religion and existence of God is not scientifically proven as well. It is never-ending argument and useless to prove one side or another. If it helps somebody let it be. Like praying.
yulf8 1 year ago
@yulf8
I care that my beliefs are true.
I demand honesty from my health-care provider.
Comforting illusions are only harmless when they don't affect our finances, time, actions, or emotional state. I don't demand the same level of proof of meditation or massage as I will demand of practitioners who put needles in people's skin for large amounts of money on a recurring basis.
There are other placebos that provide equivalent relief with less risk and lower cost.
C0nc0rdance 1 year ago
@C0nc0rdance demand honesty? do you kno wthat your docs use meds they never studies? they didnt have recent meds when your doc was in school, so they just trust a drug rep who sells the drugs, can they honestly know what happens when combnng lets say prilosec with celexa etc? no, nobody does any studies on combining meds, you basically are a guinea pig as a patient, theirs no science behind combining any meds if they havent been studied together, yet everyones on a few meds at a time
shifudan 1 year ago
@shifudan
I count 27 papers on omeprazole (Prilosec) interactions with citalopram (Celexa). I see animal studies, drug clearance kinetics, animal models and Phase III human clinical studies. There are studies talking about pharmacogenetics, molecular effects, and efficacy of each both individually and combined.
Just because you haven't read them doesn't mean they don't exist.
Clin Pharmacokinet. 2007;46(4):281-90.
Br J Clin Pharmacol. 2005 Sep;60(3):287-90.
cont.
C0nc0rdance 1 year ago
Eur J Clin Pharmacol. 2008 Dec;64(12):1175-9.
Drug Metab Dispos. 2001 Aug;29(8):1102-9.
Biol Psychiatry. 1999 Sep 15;46(6):839-49.
J Clin Pharm Ther. 2000 Jun;25(3):197-220.
Physicians are just people, flawed and sometimes ignorant. However, the system of evidence based medicine is unique in that it progresses with our knowledge.
Acupuncture is a folk medicine tradition, based in supernatural "qi". If you have additional evidence to present, please do so.
C0nc0rdance 1 year ago
@C0nc0rdance touche, i didnt feel like writing the whole thing, ok, so now add a cholesterol drug to the mix and a pain killer, and maybe a blood thinner, now show me how they interact, reality is that almost every patient we see is on 4-8 meds combined, and their is no science to that, its a joke that you would say that is science, and what you keep talkin about as qi is a language difference as i mentioned, what qi are you talking about? their are many, you would have to get more specific.
shifudan 1 year ago
@shifudan
How familiar are you with clinical drug trials? Do you understand that real people, with med cocktails like you describe, are the subjects? This is not my favorite type of research, but it's important, because it produces safety data.
Can you prove the existence of any qi at all? Pick one.
C0nc0rdance 1 year ago
@C0nc0rdance when you ask about a" qi: the digestoive process is a type of qi, the krebs cycel is a type of qi, the process if blood and oxygen is a type of qi, qi is just a language problem, it is not some hippie energy that has been made so popular for some reason.
shifudan 1 year ago
@shifudan
So you're saying that qi has no mystical associations? Nothing supernatural at all, it's just a phrase used for chemical compounds? There's not, say, qi meridians invisibly flowing through the body, or numerology of 365 points and 12 meridians, or associations with the ancient Chinese elements?
If there's nothing supernatural about qi and acupuncture, I have been misinformed.
C0nc0rdance 1 year ago
@C0nc0rdance theirs many methods and systems of acupuncture, as for meridians, really theirs nodes where certain points affect certain systems, and these points lay in a distribution of nereves that was called pathways, i dont think meridian as if some invisible canal is their is an accurate translation. However it has been translated as such to that is standard word used. Points have nothing to do with numerology that i know of, elements is a certain system of which i do not subscribe to
shifudan 1 year ago
@shifudan
How were the acupoints determined? If I hook up a patient to a meter, can I measure the effects of a non-electric needle at a remote site? Can you cause gene activation in the liver as measured by real-time PCR or hormone tests? Because I have yet to see a paper detailing something as simple as a reproducible physiological change generated by a specific acupoint.
C0nc0rdance 1 year ago
@C0nc0rdance we know that their is somatovisceral and viceralsomato pain, and that for inury to an area can cause visceral problems etc, so needling points to relive muscular problems in areas can actually affect organs or untrue? How were points found? its anatomy and phys, look up how many acu points land along travells exact trigger point locations and at attachment and insertion areas , and along spinal nerves, do you think they were guessing?
shifudan 1 year ago
Respond to this video... their are actually point location meters, i never use them but are they legite? they are acurate, as i had to use one in school briefly?
shifudan 1 year ago
@C0nc0rdance
Qi is an ancient Chinese word. It refers primarily to the energy we get from Respiration, Digestion, etc. Explanations of Qi in the ancient texts are Naturalist. Not Supernaturalist, not "Faith-based" like say Theism.
ErosenninXXX 6 months ago
Respond to this video... so then are doctors crooked? if this is what they do? daba dot org? im confused, if you are saying medicine is science and acupuncture is folklore, then why are doctors doing acupuncture? I really cant grasp this is that science to say something is fake yet do it in their practice? Seems like either theirs something to it, or that Doctors are crooked and ripping people and insurance companies off? Wow, i cant wait for the scientific way you can explain this
shifudan 1 year ago
@shifudan
Simple. Doctors use placebo treatments. They can also prescribe placebo pills, placebo drops, placebo treatments. This is part of conservative treatment. You may also find physicians who prescribe prayer, meditation, religious performances, etc.
Not all doctors rely exclusively on evidence based medicine. I don't have to defend all physicians, only EBM.
C0nc0rdance 1 year ago
@C0nc0rdance i dont think doctors would pay to be licensed in placebo treatements and go through schooling and certification etc, for that. Trust me, theirs way to much hippie talk in usa on acupuncture, the system of medicine is good when based on anatomy and phys and just like where many meds say" exact mechanism is unknown" we dont know everything with acupuncture but i can say first hand that it works
shifudan 1 year ago
@shifudan
It works in anecdotes, sure. You feel sick/hurt, you go to an acupuncturist, you feel better. Does that satisfy you intellectually? Don't you want to know if it works in tightly controlled studies? Don't you want a reproducible mechanism?
Why do so many studies find that experience makes no difference in relief, position of insertion makes no difference. Here's the one that really needs explaining: Not inserting the needle works as well as inserting it. WHY?
C0nc0rdance 1 year ago
Respond to this video... what are the length of those studies? drug companies put up the meoney for drug studies, whos gnnna put up big money to do a huge and lengthy acu study when their nothing to patent and bring to the stock exchange? with medical studies many drugs have passed your scientific studies only to go and kill many people as well, is that science? how many drugs have been taken off the market? how did they pass all the scientific studies and later get pulled, science?
shifudan 1 year ago
@shifudan
The US NCCAM has $123 million to give out for alt-med research. You could also create a central agency and donate a portion of your profits. It might hit you in the pocket book, but it would generate new info. Also, the schools of acupuncture get a lot of money, perhaps they might fund some research? You couldn't think of these sources?
Every product that affects the body carries a risk proportionate to its effect. Acupuncture=placebo=very low risk.
C0nc0rdance 1 year ago
@C0nc0rdance if these schools get alot of money then they are holding out as most are private owned and always have money problems
shifudan 1 year ago
@C0nc0rdance drug studies are usually for a few years in general if that, i see patients who been on several med cocktails for over twenty years, and their are no studies mixing these drugs for those periods of time that i have seen. i am aware of drug studies and i am also aware of one of the major leading causes of death in usa being meds and hospitals etc.
shifudan 1 year ago
@shifudan
This is called the Deadly Doctor gambit, and I have a video on the topic. To summarize: people dying in hospitals is the norm because that's where very sick people go. When you have cancer, you die of the cancer or you die of the overly aggressive treatment.
It's obvious you aren't familiar with clinical trials. Phase IV is called "pharmacovigilance" and it has no defined endpoint.
Sometimes drugs have adverse effects. How does that prove acupuncture's efficacy?
C0nc0rdance 1 year ago
@C0nc0rdance im not saying that drugs adverse affects prove acupuncture, what im saying is that test for drugs try to prove a drug, especially when it comes to stock market and drugs money making potential, test for acu are usually tryoing to disprove it as theirs no patent and no big money to be made. are their physical therapy trials with back pain showing same result with placebo treatment?
shifudan 1 year ago
@shifudan
I'm sure some scientific fraud happens, but there are lots of studies on drugs that are done by academic labs with no conflicts of interest.
Yes, physical therapy, acupuncture, massage, chiropractic and virtually every other conservative therapy have the same chronic LBP subjective relief on a 3 year time scale. Surgery is more heterogenous (both good and bad, depending on specific conditions), and painkillers are very effective but carry a lot of negatives.
C0nc0rdance 1 year ago
Respond to this video... i will ask around for the guys that do work with the studies because in california they are leaning towards evidence based in acupncture as well and their is studies that have been brought up at meetings etc
shifudan 1 year ago
@C0nc0rdance start with vision med dot org and look for acupuncture on left then use google translator, theirs a few thousand studies available
shifudan 1 year ago
@C0nc0rdance
yulf8 1 year ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@C0nc0rdance start with vision med dot org and look for acupuncture on left then use google translator, theirs a few thousand studies available
shifudan 1 year ago
So, the fact that accupunture is actually proven to treat many disorders and diseases is a lie I suppose. Unlike Western medicine that treats a patients symptoms, sciences like acupuncture aim to address root causes of many, many ailments, not just provide symptomatic relief. You're obviously cynical about anything of which you have no level of intelligence to grasp, and that's sad. You must be the life of the party.
KidFaw 1 year ago
@KidFaw
Great, someone interested in evidence! Properly cite (Author, Journal, Year at a minimum) the best evidence for the effectiveness of acupuncture for any particular condition. Do any of these papers show better performance than any other placebo?
We know placebos work. Does acupuncture work BETTER than a placebo?
C0nc0rdance 1 year ago
@KidFaw Haha your an idiot :-)
emiliecookie 1 year ago
About dealing with pain.
There are many psychological techniques that help to eliminate psychogenic pain.
(psychalgia; pain that has no physiological or biological proof; phantom pain)
But strangely it also works if applied to real pain.
Our brain is capable of eliminating pain if needed,
for example in a state of mental shock (acute stress reaction).
So i'm not surprised that placebo in wichever form has an effect on people.
But if you feel pain, to be sure go visit a licensed doctor.
SEThatered 1 year ago
Make a 4th group: Group 4 should use a drug that's already known to work (for that type of illness), so that if the new drug works, you can see if it works better or not than the already existing drug.
daddyleon 1 year ago
@daddyleon Well, presumably, that data would already exist for the treatment known to work-- otherwise, how would it BE known to work?
GoblinXXX 1 year ago
@daddyleon Well, presumably, that data would already exist for the treatment known to work-- otherwise, how would it BE known to work?
GoblinXXX 1 year ago
My point is that ot of us acupuncturist treat according anatomy and phys, and the acupoints line up pretty much the same as janet travells trigger point charts, also points are along the vegas and other nerves that explain specific functions etc. Why do Docs and people try to disprove so hard, why dont you do a study on disproving western meds? how many people are medicated for a lifetime for depression, for anxiety, for diseases that many times are not even diagnosed by more than a questionare
shifudan 1 year ago
the study is so flawed its riduculous, what is back pain? thats not even a diagnoses, what are you treating? any descent acupuncturist wouldnt do a study like this, we would want a diagnoses, what causes the back pain is it a herniation, is it a bulging disk, is it a kidney stone, is it a gallbladder problem, this study methods are a joke. This is care tactics, lol why dont you then tell stats on hospital deaths and death from drugs in america and doctor mistakes?
shifudan 1 year ago
@shifudan
Which one? There are four papers cited here. Did you read the actual papers?
The number of accidental deaths from medical care has been estimated to be about 50,000 per year in the US. (BMJ 2009; 338:a3115). That's 1.8% of deaths annually, or the 11th leading cause of death.
I doubt chiropractic has killed more than a few dozen. However, chiropractors do not deal with high risk or critical medical issues. They give placebo relief for back pain.
C0nc0rdance 1 year ago 2
@C0nc0rdance why not perform the hypothetical trial as to how many unneccesary surgeries are performed, or how many unneccessary drugs people are addicted to etc. How many deaths a year by acupuncture? when we treat with acu, many times we can go deeper into muscle origin and insertion than Physical therapy, how can we not get results? How can you make it out to be like witchcraft when its all science based? We treat by anatomy and phys, we all have same makeup, lol
shifudan 1 year ago
@shifudan Just because it's science based doesn't mean it's true. Acupuncture has shown here to be no better then a placebo!
11cookeaw1 1 year ago
@11cookeaw1 and other studies will show the opposite, when studies are done, you need to look at how the studies are done, and what is tested/ You say" acupuncture" what acupuncture? theirs many different styles of acupuncture all of which will use different point selections for an illness, so again you keep trying to "test" something non western based on western thinking. If it said"acupoints selected, or needle technique used were equal to placebo" thent it would make sense
shifudan 1 year ago
@11cookeaw1 its like giving someone an aspirin for an ulcer and saying it was no better than placebo for this illness."western medicine is equal to placebo". The method of testing is very flawed. What style of acupuncture is used, what needle technique is used, what led to the injury or illness, what thickness needles were used etc etc, the test are a scam, it says nothing. also why is their the medical acupuncture board?/ all MD who are certified in acupuncture? Why do they use it if its fake?
shifudan 1 year ago
@shifudan
I dislike the idea that there is a "Western thought" in contrast to the wise East. All scientific inquiry uses the same methodology, regardless of hemisphere. What you really should say is "Ancient Lore" vs. "Modern Science", or "subjective" vs. "objective" science.
Repeated studies have shown that needle insertion, technique and expertise makes no difference when all else is controlled.
Physicians are (usually) smart enough to use a placebo when it's appropriate.
C0nc0rdance 1 year ago
@C0nc0rdance so again I ask if the science of acupuncture is fake then why are western doctors doing it? This is a simple question,lets just start with that
shifudan 1 year ago
@shifudan The word "Quack" comes to mind.
MrZeus7 1 year ago
@MrZeus7 im guessin you didnt study acupuncture to say that, if its a quack thing it wouldnt be accepted by insurance and have a graduate level degree (masters in science), and Doctors wouldnt be getting certified in it. Thier are quacks out their using it as a some hippie thing, but same with western med docs theirs plenty of quacks. Its 6 years of accredited college total, to graduate, its not a joke and not some hippie quack thing.
shifudan 1 year ago
I suggest you educate yourself and study recent quantum physics
Acupuncture deals with energy
Your knowledge is incredibly limited!
singinglady48 1 year ago
@singinglady48
Great idea! Hey, what physics journal did you find that covered the underlying mechanism of acupuncture?
Was it Biophysical Journal, or Journal of American Physics? Because I've been searching the literature and I don't see any support for acupuncture. What scientific article in a peer-reviewed journal do you base your beliefs on? Can you cite it accurately?
C0nc0rdance 1 year ago 13
ChUck Norris once decided to try Acupuncture, but no needles would penetrate his body.... , not even Knifes...
ignacio1200 1 year ago
I don't quite get it, why does it matter if acupuncture is more effective with toothpricks? Why does that, specifically, debunk acupuncture? Does acupuncture have a rule that it must be metal needles? I always kinda thought the thing that's meant to make it work is being pierced in specific places, no matter by what.
Mithcoriel 1 year ago
@Mithcoriel
The toothpicks were not inserted at all. They were merely used to give the impression of sharp pressure. They were not even used at specific "qi" points.
If being poked with a stick anywhere is causing the effect, I'll do it to you for free!
Repeated studies have shown that random placement of needles gives the same effect as a master acupuncturist designing a specific placement for each patient individually.
Does that sound like $40 worth of therapy?
C0nc0rdance 1 year ago 2
@C0nc0rdance Ah, ok. So merely pretending to administer the treatment gave the same effect as the actual treatment. That's different.
Mithcoriel 1 year ago
@Mithcoriel ther was no true diagnoses for the injuries, so anything the person felt would make them feel better would have helped, even a sugar pill if they belived in it, but then they would just say "pharmacutical drugs are fake and is bogus", the study was obviously done with an intent to disprove something
shifudan 1 year ago
@shifudan I don't get what you are trying to say. Are you arguing for acupuncture?
Mithcoriel 1 year ago
@Mithcoriel yes i am for acupuncture as i went through 6 years of college to learn it 4 of thoise were in acu college. i suggest your read the TAO OF ACUPUNCTURE if you seriously want to see what its about(medically).
shifudan 1 year ago
@Mithcoriel as a side note, acupuncture is what gave me back use of my arm after a neck injury when physical therapy and injections fell short, thats what led me to study it.
shifudan 1 year ago
@shifudan Cool. Well I'm a bit too busy to study it right now. ^^
Mithcoriel 1 year ago
World Health Organization found acupuncture to be effective for a wide variety of conditions.
kalevraa 1 year ago
Hah, i hope those acupuncture needles didn't come from china!
mmmmmarcus 1 year ago
@mmmmmarcus what if you have a lead deficiency?
youvexme 1 year ago
If what your're saying is true then placebo cured me permanently of an ailment I was carrying for 20 years. It's now been five years since I got this placebo treatment, and the contrast of before-and-after is significant beyond any doubt.
To further confuse matters traditional western medicine had it's go at me for many years. I was in and out of hospitals. Was operated upon, medicinized (is that a word?) upon, to no avail.
Your very long list begs some granularity. Bundled with UFOs? Please
ulfschack 1 year ago
@ulfschack Simply your attempt at trying that, shows you had more faith in alternative medicine than in real, evidence-based medicine. And clearly if it worked for you it must work for the whole world right? I think you missed the point of the entire video.
Murdulo 1 year ago
@Murdulo Your're jumping to (own) conclusions AND putting words in my mouth. I dont' think I missed any points in the video. Clearly my view is that thera are too FEW points ... as comforting as generalisations might be. In Sweden, midwifes, are educated in putting one (just this single one) in the scalp of women in labor for anaesthetical purposes. Do I perceive this picking and choosing as hypocritical? Certainly! :)
ulfschack 1 year ago
@ulfschack Too few? Right, small but considerable chance of dying and evidence for it being equal as the placebo effect is "too few". Acupunture is a hoax for minds that require hoaxes to be real.
Murdulo 1 year ago
@Murdulo Look, I'm a mathematician, and I don't take the word evidence lightly, and neiher should you. In fact, you seem so certain it's a hoax (based on the empirical approach the maker of this video uses) that I'm tempted to call you narrow minded. Ah, to hell with ... you ARE a bigot. The "side" you're on doesn't automatically make you immune to such things, see? I'm joking a little, but think it's important to always question, and always keep an open mind. Here I question the questioner.
ulfschack 1 year ago
@ulfschack
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Your anecdote of a miraculous cure is not very strong evidence at all, and I have a high standard for any cure that is based on a magical vitalist force like "qi".
I'm glad you're finding relief, however you're finding it. I just want to encourage you to think critically about the correlation between getting acupuncture and feeling better. Besides your subjective experience, is there any objective documentation of your cure?
C0nc0rdance 1 year ago 7
@C0nc0rdance What he said.
Murdulo 1 year ago
@C0nc0rdance But the prerequisites for this discussion are the opposite. The burden of evidence is not on acupuncture, but rather on the ones that seek to debunk it in ITS ENTIRETY. I'm an atheist and more importantly a sceptic, and I apply that wherever. For any new born sceptic acupuncture would be real easy target, but I'm on my "second lap", if you know what I mean :). We'll have a hard time proving anything, ever, but we certainly need more tests and broader scopes.
ulfschack 1 year ago
@ulfschack
Great! You're a skeptic.
Given two propositions:
1. Acupuncture causes realignment of qi, resulting in mystical healing.
2. Acupuncture DOES NOT cause realignment of qi....
Which is the default position?
Is the burden on atheists to "debunk" God? Anytime someone make a positive claim, they have the burden. A negative claim, "Has not been proved", is always the default.
I assert that acupuncture has not been show to be more effective than placebo. That's the default.
C0nc0rdance 1 year ago
@C0nc0rdance The only thing we admit to by denying the first point is that the wording, phrasing and the philosophy about the whole mumbo-jumbo chi life force thing is erroneous. Some (and perhaps even the majority) of the effects COULD be explained as placebo, but that's most likely not all-covering, seeing as there is still many obvious tests left to do. Besides it puts one hell of a demand on a more strict definition of "placebo", as something other than a conveniant debunk-tool.
ulfschack 1 year ago
@ulfschack
It sounds like we are nearing a point of convergence. Would you say the following statement is accurate about acupuncture?:
"Acupuncture has yet to be shown to be more effective than a placebo in consistent patient-randomized, large population, double-blind, case-control studies. What data we DO have suggests the action of acupuncture is tied to the basic physical stimulation of skin, regardless of needle placement, or indeed insertion at all."
That's my assertion.
C0nc0rdance 1 year ago
@C0nc0rdance To clarify, my answer f.i. to Q at 5:00 is "No" (resounding). I don't HOW (if) it works. Also just because there hasn't been enough interest and money invested in clinical testings as to the real effects doesn't mean it's not there. There are tests that go either way. I just read one that reaches the opposite conclusion. There's always a bias. Add to that the millions of "halleluljas" (that DO count, in my opinion) and I say both sides have yet far to go proving anything at all.
ulfschack 1 year ago
@ulfschack
"just because there hasn't been enough interest and money invested in clinical testings as to the real effects doesn't mean it's not there."
Is that consistent with a skeptical mindset? Has anyone ever disproved Bigfoot, ESP, and fairies? Why don't you believe in those things?
Do you understand that I don't have to assert that acupuncture DOESN'T work, I just have to say it's never been SHOWN to work in rigorous controlled trials? That's the honest skeptical position.
C0nc0rdance 1 year ago
@C0nc0rdance I understand that you don't HAVE to, but it's nevertheless what this video is trying to do, yes? You're basically just moving from one faith to another. Placebo is too variable in terms of effect, durability and individuality to seriously be a scientific alternative. If no attempts are made to explain placebo, how do we know that EVERYTHING is not just simply "chi" for instance. I AM sceptical to acupunture ... but alternatives doesn't offer much either. Why switch?
ulfschack 1 year ago
@ulfschack
These are very non-skeptical statements. I've produced empirical data on rigorous studies to back my thesis that "thoughtful examination of risks and benefits do not support the use of acupuncture..."
The basis for your belief is a personal anecdote and subjective experience.
These are not equivalent positions.
I'm not advocating any alternatives, and I don't have to, to prove my point. You might consider something that doesn't involve a risk of paralysis or death, though.
C0nc0rdance 1 year ago
Comment removed
ulfschack 1 year ago