Acupuncture May Trigger a Natural Painkiller 215
Pickens writes "USNWR is reporting that the needle pricks involved in acupuncture may help relieve pain by triggering the natural painkilling chemical adenosine. There are also indications that acupuncture's effectiveness can be enhanced by coupling the process with a well-known cancer drug — deoxycoformycin — that maintains adenosine levels longer than usual. Dr. Maiken Nedergaard of the University of Rochester Medical Center and her colleagues administered half-hour acupuncture treatments to a group of mice with paw discomfort. The investigators found adenosine levels in tissue near the needle insertion points was 24 times greater after treatment, and those mice with normal adenosine function experienced a two-thirds drop in paw pain. By contrast, mice that were genetically engineered to have no adenosine function gained no benefit from the treatment."
Read below for some acupuncture skepticism engendered by other recent studies.
However, many remain skeptical of acupuncture claims. Ed Tong writes in Discover Magazine that previous clinical trials have used sophisticated methods to measure the benefits of acupuncture, including 'sham needles' (where the needle's point retracts back into the shaft like the blade of a movie knife) to determine if the benefits of acupuncture are really only due to the placebo effect. 'Last year, one such trial (which was widely misreported) found that acupuncture does help to relieve chronic back pain and outperformed "usual care". However, it didn't matter whether the needles actually pierce the skin [paper here with annoying interstitial], because sham needles were just as effective,' writes Tong. 'Nor did it matter where the needles were placed, contrary to what acupuncturists would have us believe.'"
Impressive (Score:3, Funny)
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Overusing placebo makes people resistant thus making them useless! We all know what happened when we overused antibiotics! We don't want the same thing to happen to placebo drugs
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So, poking the skin with a sharp object triggers the release of painkillers by the body?
I'm impressed.
Yes, but please let's keep homeopatic on this one ok.
Don't try this with a sword, it won't be better than a needle.
Re:Impressive (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah, and the therapies based on capsaicin actually work, and without serious side effects. I use capsaicin regularly, both internally and externally.
I suffer from a lot of headaches and over-the-counter medications do nothing for them. The only prescription meds that work have narcotics so they aren't really an option because of the frequency of my headaches, and I don't like the side effects as enough narcotics to kill the pain also make me high enough that everyday life--driving, working, etc... aren't really possible.
I take 2 to 4 cayenne capsules with food, depending on the heat rating of the cayenne, or eat a spicy meal with the heat coming from habenero peppers in home-made meals(say a bean burrito with 1/4 - 1/2 of a diced habenero in it), or the spices used in traditional Thai cooking in a restaurant meal(4 out of 5 stars on the heat level)--we have a very good local Thai restaurant run by a Thai immigrant who's one of the best cooks I've ever seen--and a headache severe enough to make my eyes very sensitive to light will disappear in a matter of minutes.
At those levels of heat there is no pain associated with the cure either as I eat spicy food on a regular basis, although what I think is bland most people say burns their mouth.
Re:Impressive (Score:4, Interesting)
>Headache starts
>Eat chilli
>Headache stops
>Body goes into withdrawl
>Headache starts
etc...
Re:Impressive (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, maybe he is wrong, but you're a bit of a douche for calling him an idiot for merely suggesting the possibility.
Re-read your first post, based on that it's a perfectly legitimate suggestion.
I think you should apologize and thank him for caring enough to reply to your post.
Hug it out you guys.
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Endorphin release due to pain from the heat = no more headache.
I know someone who uses a good whipping as a remedy for menstrual pain -- same principle, different endorphin trigger.
News for Hippies, Stuff that Smelly (Score:2, Funny)
Where's Cartman when you need him!
Acupuncture (Score:2)
An apt reminder... (Score:5, Informative)
...for those trying to defend the scientific method saying that a pseudoscience "cannot possibly work" because "there aren't any known methods through which it could operate".
The way to disprove a non-effect is by showing it indistinguishable from chance. Not by declaring that we can't think of any possible explanations.
Re:An apt reminder... (Score:5, Interesting)
Anybody who follows the scientific method knows at least one mechanism for acupuncture, ie. placebo, and I don't think many would shake their heads in abject disbelief if you say "irritating some part the body will produce natural pain killers". The skepticism will appear if you start saying "it matters where you stick the needles" and stuff like that.
Real "pseudoscience" is stuff like astrology, water divining, channeling the dead, perpetual motion, expensive HiFi tweaks, etc.
Re:An apt reminder... (Score:5, Interesting)
The skepticism will appear if you start saying "it matters where you stick the needles" and stuff like that.
Apparently, there is at least one study [scienceblogs.com] that showed sticking them at random was actually better, or at least statistically the same, as the whole qi line thing. It is sad that this thing will be twisted and misrepresented by the alternative medicine quacks and used as a 'Nya nya we told ya so,' to skeptics who already suspected that the body does release pain killers when poked full of multiple small holes.
When it comes to alternative medicine, pretty much any skeptic knows that there are three main ones which may have some merit (even if not enough to justify mainstream usage): chiropractic, because it actively affects the spine, naturopathy/herbal, because plants contain active ingredients, and acupuncture, because it actively affects the skin. What skeptics want is robust evidence indicating that these things work better that other traditional techniques, and those have simply not materialized, and until they do, color me skeptical about acupuncture as a whole, even if there is some method to the madness.
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There has been a large study (about 150,000 participants) about the effectiveness of acupuncture as a painkiller, and it came out quite positive for acupuncture vs. traditional painkillers. But as you mentioned -- poking anywhere on your skin without taking care of meridians and qi lines has about the same effect as following the acupuncture rules.
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Yep, the herbal thing is a strange animal because pharmacognosy, the study of medicines derived from plants, is a perfectly valid legitimate field of science, whereas chewing on a twig because it's natural is just kinda silly. It ticks me off a bit because (some) herbal medicine has real power, it really does, and for many centuries it was used to some degree of success, and is still used by many who can't afford drugs, and I hate seeing pre-scientific people slime such a beneficial field with their nonsen
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The suggestion that this somehow makes acupuncture pseudoscience or not worthwhile is an idiotic conclusion to make. You don't hear people saying that sort of thing about Tylenol or most of t
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the thing is I have seen water divining work. The guy used a dowsing rod and found 4 wells for my neighbors, and 2 for my family. He even tracked the water from our neighbors well to our own. later geologists came through and mapped the entire area too. That old man was off by maybe 5%
How it works i can't answer, but I did witness it working. He was wrong once, and with that, he as off by 10 feet in depth. (he said 20' and in reality it was 30')
Re:Water Divining (Score:4, Informative)
Uh, that's because most water tables are large, so if you are above one, you can pretty much poke a well anywhere and find water. Of course the depth of each well may vary depending on substrate and which water table you actually hit. Also, the rate of available water (to pump or even if naturally pressurized) depends on the water table you strike.
Sorry man, you fell for the scam. (He may have "witched" past wells in the larger area and has studied the underlying aquifers. Every well drilled to depth and through various substrate will inform him. Shit, he may be a Geology drop-out.)
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It may not be fraudulent. He or she may be actually picking up clues, from experience, that a local farmer may not notice. Plant growth is certainly a useful indicator: layout of rock and hills may indicate where water from upstream or uphill is likely to channel into a particularly effective and reliable aquifer, effectively funneled by the underlying rock. That sort of expertise takes actual travel and study and practice that a local resident wouldn't have until pretty recently in history, so a traveling
Re:An apt reminder... (Score:4, Informative)
Water divining has been debunked many, many times. In randomized tests nobody can do it.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7461912885649996034# [google.com]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOsCnX-TKIY [youtube.com]
Fast: You can dig almost anywhere on Earth and find water, it's just a question of depth (keep on digging there until it appears).
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Because acupuncture has been poked and prodded so extensively by skeptics (pun not intended), there is now a great deal of evidence for it's effectiveness. Which is very much the scientific way: By resisting new ideas until there is undeniable evidence for them, we get a very strong protection against ideas that are wrong.
Re:An apt reminder... (Score:4, Informative)
Except that most of the best evidence shows that the "chi energy", the use of needles rather than pressure, and the use of it for treatment of body parts that are nowhere near the needle are complete nonsense. So scienctific testing shows that even the stopped clock of the magical thinking surrounding acupuncture can be right twice a day, and can even predict now what that twice a day will be.
I once spent a long, sad hour with an MD who tried to tell me that acupuncture worked because the nerves it stimulates are faster than pain nerves. I tried to explain to her the concepts of phase delays: if the pain came first by more than a matter of milliseconds, the pain signal was already present in the upstream nerve junctions or in the brain, and it doesn't matter how "swift" the signal is from the acupuncture needle, so the explanation is nonsensical.
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I tried to explain to her the concepts of phase delays
Note to the younger Slashdotters: Don't do this. The ladies really don't care.
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Only, this is not acupuncture. This is just piercing the skin with needles and then twisting them to see if you get a response. There are plenty of known methods through which that could operate.
Acupuncture on the other hand supposes that the body has "meridians" and "acupuncture points" which you put needles into to manipulate the health of the body or parts of the body.
To this notion I will still say that "there aren't any known methods through which it could operate."
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But doesn't acupuncture "mean": to stick with a needle?
Soooo... yeah.
Mechanism is helpful but not necessary (Score:2)
Mechanism is often lacking even in regular science, especially in medicine. Biochemistry and physiology are complicated, and we often have only a vague idea (if that) about what makes a particular drug work.
But mechanism isn't a necessary part. What is necessary is that something have measurable, demonstrable, repeatable effects. If you don't have that, you've got nothing. And this is especially important in medicine, where wishful thinking is extremely easy; people will fool themselves into thinking so
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>...for those trying to defend the scientific method saying that a pseudoscience "cannot possibly work" because "there aren't any known methods through which it could operate".
What? Skepticism isn't based on your little strawman. Its based on evidence. So, here's one study that was well thought out and well executed that might point to some kind of effect that isn't placebo. Great. Without this level of proof skepticism is 100% warranted, and is still warranted until we can see some replication of result
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Pseudo science is just that a fake. If there is a result to an act but we cannot explain it so what? Why do you need to spew some garbage to 'explain' it. Just define what is happening and test it until you have defined it's actions so you can go about applying it to real world problems. Hell we've done that with the transistor and so many other things. Who argues about how a water wheel works when it works? Later and in some cases centuries later we figure it out.
I pissed of a Ufer nut who claimed that a s
Why is the placebo effect a bad thing? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Why is the placebo effect a bad thing? (Score:4, Informative)
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I'd much rather have a positive effect from a placebo than from a drug that usually has nasty side-effects.
I've wondered about this. If there is an actual placebo effect, we're drastically underutilizing it in the practice of medicine. As a result, there's a whole snake-oil industry overcharging for it and misleading people about it.
It's not a bug it's a feature! (Score:5, Insightful)
Hah, but that's the paradox!
You can't have a placebo-effect unless you claim that the therapy actually works in itself.
You can't claim that a non-working therapy works unless you a a liar.
The placebo effect works better if the treatment is costly (in terms of money or discomfort - pain from needles)
So the placebo industry can only exist if they mislead and overcharge.
It's not a bug it's a feature!
X.
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That's exactly what Xenna said: you must claim that the therapy works in order to have the placebo effect.
If the acupuncturist said, "What I'm about to perform with these needles won't directly cause you pain relief (and I may not even prick your skin), but as long as you believe it works you may feel better", they might not get a lot of repeat customers.
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> You can't claim that a non-working therapy works unless you a a liar.
You miss the point. For many conditions a placebo is not a nonworking therapy. So if it works you're not a liar. And placebo treatments do work 30-40% of the time for certain problems. You're only a liar if you make claims about the treatment that aren't true.
Many drugs/procedures only work well for some people and some cases.
So for a noncr
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> You can't have a placebo-effect unless you claim that the therapy actually works in itself.
> You can't claim that a non-working therapy works unless you a a liar.
You miss the point. For many conditions a placebo is not a nonworking therapy. So if it works you're not a liar. And placebo treatments do work 30-40% of the time for certain problems. You're only a liar if you make claims about the treatment that aren't true.
Mmm, yes, that's exactly my point. Thank you for pointing that out ;)
The drug companies probably hate the placebo effect - a fair number of their candidate drugs can barely beat it in trials :).
Again you seem to mean the opposite. If the drugs aren't doing better than placebo's, they are placebo's!
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I'd much rather have a positive effect from a placebo than from a drug that usually has nasty side-effects.
I've wondered about this. If there is an actual placebo effect, we're drastically underutilizing it in the practice of medicine. As a result, there's a whole snake-oil industry overcharging for it and misleading people about it.
Expensive placebos work better, and expensive wines taste better. Asking for more money is not overcharging, it's upping the placebo dosage :\
Re:Why is the placebo effect a bad thing? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's bad when Jenny McCarthy and Oprah use "success" from the placebo effect to cast doubt on science-based medicine. This doubt helps other scam artists sell expensive water to a patient who could be cured by real medicine.
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Better not to read about its worthlessness then, isn't it?
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The placebo effect is real but less reliable than drugs. It does some good, but not all that much good, usually only a few percent.
And they rely on your belief that they are real drugs. If you were a good medical consumer you'd research your drugs before taking them, and you'd run into "this is just a sugar pill" pretty fast.
Every medical study controls for the placebo effect. If a drug doesn't work better than placebo, they don't sell it.
Often, the placebo test is also used as a control for "no interven
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This is all correct; I was rather oversimplifying. (And felt like my post was too long even with that.)
In fact, some drugs we do use today are no better than placebos. This is most notably true of antidepressants, which were developed for use in severe depression but do little in mildly depressed patients. When tested rigorously they do little better (or no better) than placebo, but the placebo effect is good enough to produce some good. This is known to the doctors and even some of the patients, but th
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Hmm, you mean even ones like Tylenol that do basically nothing and run the risk of damaging the liver?
Uhh sorry, but NO, Tylenol is effective for fever and mild analgesia. It will wreak havoc on your liver if taken in excess, granted. But aspirin, ibuprofen (motrin and advil) will tear up your stomach lining if taken in excess. And analgesics like opiates have their own set of obvious drawbacks. Tradeoffs to all of them. Don't knock Tylenol. It's a bit wimpy, but with occasional usage tempered by common sense, it is effective. And it is NOT a placebo drug. WRONG.
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> Tylenol is effective for fever and mild analgesia.
Key here being "mild". Acetaminophen, in my experience, has absolutely no noticeable effect on real pain. Opiates are pretty much the only thing in the pharmacopoeia that really work for this. All drawbacks aside, if you have real pain, those pale in comparison. (The worst of them, imho, is the constipation :-)
(I recently had knee surgery involving drilling holes, hammers/chisels, screws & staples, and even 60mg Codeine did nothing in the first 48 h
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Oh well yeah, Tylenol isn't going to do anything for surgery pain. Real prescription-only painkillers then, please!
But for common aches, pains, headaches, and fever, Tylenol can be effective. I wouldn't take Codeine for a twisted ankle, but I'll want something and acetaminophen helps.
Where's your pseudoscience now! (Score:2, Flamebait)
Now that I have your attention bear with me...
It's one thing to say "this is BS"
It's another to say "we don't know how this may work, thus it doesn't mean that it works BUT IT ALSO DOESN'T MEAN IT DOESN'T"
There are skeptics and there are "skeptics". "skeptics" make their first reaction to everything "this is BS"
"Look, arteries may not have air inside them after all" "this is BS"
"hey maybe interactions between charged particles can be abstracted by using 'a field'" "this is BS"
It's ok to be skeptic, just kee
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There are skeptics and there are "skeptics"
This is BS!
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Exactly. There are many things that like acupuncture that have been used medicinally for centuries. Just because we may not, at the time, understand any underlying mechanisms doesn't mean that they don't work; it just means that we don't understand the underlying mechanisms and therefore, have no proof that it works or does anything. But saying that is very different from saying that same thing doesn't work at all.
For example, we didn't understand the underlying mechanism for aspirin until 1971, but befo
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For example, we didn't understand the underlying mechanism for aspirin until 1971, but before that salicylates had been used for centuries.
Exactly! Thank you!
Re:Where's your pseudoscience now! (Score:5, Insightful)
There are many things that like acupuncture that have been used medicinally for centuries.
Just because something is old, doesn't mean it works. There are plenty of old treatments that are either useless or even harmful. Which is why testing is the important part, you can't trust anecdotes, even if they have a long tradition.
Just because we may not, at the time, understand any underlying mechanisms doesn't mean that they don't work;
The issue isn't so much that we don't understand the underlying mechanism, but that we don't even have a clear indication that it works in the first place and you don't need to understand the workings of something to do the testing for its effectiveness.
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This isn't even a problem of not understanding the mechanisms, it's a problem of not having solid evidence that it even works. Again, see the latter part of the summary which is about existing studies that have come to the conclusion that it doesn't work at all (is reading even the summary too much to ask for on Slashdot? I guess it is). "People have been using it since a very long time ago" is not proper evidence as to its efficacy. Bloodletting was in use for centuries too, by many different peoples; toda
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"There are many things that like acupuncture that have been used medicinally for centuries."
Like mercury.
Re:Where's your pseudoscience now! (Score:4, Insightful)
And it's one thing to say "adenosine is released locally by needle pricks". And another to say that there are mysterious "meridians" that run through the body and connects your pinky toe to your heart, and your left butt cheek to your kidney or whatever, and that you can cure all kinds of diseases in those "connected" organs by poking the exactly right spots with needles.
Yep, that's what at the root of accupuncture theory in TCM, not random pin poking. And this experiments doesn't even attempt to explain what's going on there. So while I'm absolutely not saying that TCM is wrong, I am saying that this experiment says very little if anything about traditional accupuncture the way it's been practiced for 4000 years. It's just a feeble attempt at quickly saying "this is NOT BS".
So we still don't know how this works or indeed if it works, we only knows some mice produce adenosine locally under certain conditions. Accupuncture if it works as claimed would have to be much deeper, this hardly penetrates the surface. (Pardon the pun.)
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And it's one thing to say "adenosine is released locally by needle pricks". And another to say that there are mysterious "meridians" that run through the body and connects your pinky toe to your heart, and your left butt cheek to your kidney or whatever, and that you can cure all kinds of diseases in those "connected" organs by poking the exactly right spots with needles.
And it's one thing to say "adenosine is released locally by needle pricks". And another to say that there are mysterious "meridians" that run through the body and connects your pinky toe to your heart, and your left butt cheek to your kidney or whatever, and that you can cure all kinds of diseases in those "connected" organs by poking the exactly right spots with needles.
That's part of the problem. It really isn't. We know scientifically that there are lines through the body that connect parts of the body. We call them nerves. One of the big problems is that when someone sees an effect, they try to find an explanation. Sometimes the explanation is that the effect is from wishful thinking, sometimes it is that they only think there was an effect, sometimes the explanation is a good rational guess.
When there is a real effect, and it isn't from a placebo, the scientifi
Re:Where's your pseudoscience now! (Score:5, Insightful)
There are skeptics and there are "skeptics". "skeptics" make their first reaction to everything "this is BS"
That's a load of crap. Skeptics make their first reaction to anything for which there is not sufficient evidence present "this is BS." That's a critical difference. As far as I know, acupuncture has not been exceptionally good at proving itself. It is based on the flow of some qi or whatever and claims to have all sorts of healing properties, neither of which have been proven in the least, and that is something to be rightfully skeptical about. If you make an extraordinary claim, I require extraordinary evidence. Plenty of new theories and ideas are accepted by skeptical types (for example, this was new [sciencemag.org], but there was no skeptic backlash, because it was a reasonable claim with reasonable evidence); just because some old time quackery is rejected doesn't mean skeptics are closed minded, that's just a way to distract form a lack of evidence. Medical skeptics have long admitted that minor injuries like sticking needles into yourself may trigger some pain-killer response, and this new thing, if indeed true, confirms that, not the validity of acupuncture. In fact, another study once showed that fake acupuncture [scienceblogs.com] outperformed 'real' acupuncture. It's not about simply denying everything, it is about denying everything until a reasonable amount of evidence exists to support it.
You know, homeopathy used to 'work' too, back when mercury was a medicine, because it didn't do anything whereas medicine killed you, which may be why it is still around. Chiropractic, originally claimed to cure all sorts of things, has the same affects as a good massage. Do they get vindicated too now? Sometimes things get lucky, or traditions are held for some reason, and maybe acupuncture is one of them due to this effect, but there is still no reason to not be skeptical about redirecting your qi or whatnot, or its ability to outperform any modern science based pain killing methods (I'd go with a good hit o' weed myself, but that's a different debate). It's good to have an open mind, but not so open your brains fall out.
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There are skeptics and there are "skeptics". "skeptics" make their first reaction to everything "this is BS"
That's a load of crap. Skeptics make their first reaction to anything for which there is not sufficient evidence present "this is BS." That's a critical difference.
Problem n.1: Very few things have 'sufficient evidence' at first. That's the point of research. But then people go "there's not enough evidence so this is BS and I'm not going to research this" GOTO 10
Problem n.2. Define "sufficient evidence". Sometimes "sufficient evidence" looks like "overwhelming evidence so I'm changing my opinion to save face"
What I'm questioning is "calling BS" when the answer should be "let's research, wait for more tests before taking a stance". And I'm not even saying that about ac
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Problem n.1: Very few things have 'sufficient evidence' at first. That's the point of research. But then people go "there's not enough evidence so this is BS and I'm not going to research this" GOTO 10
Problem n.2. Define "sufficient evidence". Sometimes "sufficient evidence" looks like "overwhelming evidence so I'm changing my opinion to save face"
Yeah, but they should at least have something going for them first. There are tons of new things [wikipedia.org] being worked on. Those weren't simply chosen at random, people start working on those fields because there is some reason to think they will yield results. The sufficient evidence is either fitting with models or predictions or well reasoned hypotheses or early testing or something. And sure, there are things out there that don't have sufficient yet but are perfectly valid. Tomorrow we might discover that o
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To paraphrase Sagan, 'They laughed at Einstein, ect., but they also laughed at Bozo' and there are a lot more Bozos than Einsteins, so it is preposterous to think that every stupid little thing should be investigated.
Oh, of course, It's not only a matter of 'may be interesting to investigate' but resources are limited, and grants are limited, etc. So yeah, we shouldn't investigate everything...
Discovered qi or chakra or whatever flowing through the body? That's new, then it's time to reopen acupuncture. Got a well designed study indicating superior results? Same thing. But until then, no amount of accusations of being closed minded is a substitute for good proof.
That's the idea! Cheers.
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There are skeptics and there are "skeptics". "skeptics" make their first reaction to everything "this is BS"
That's a load of crap. Skeptics make their first reaction to anything for which there is not sufficient evidence present "this is BS." That's a critical difference.
You missed the fact that he talks about skeptics and "skeptics". Notice the ". He put double-quotes to indicate irony, and that went right over your head.
He was wrong to attempt subtle irony on the internet, that's a recipe for misunderstanding, but you were nonetheless wrong for missing his irony and flaming him for something you misunderstood.
Now kiss and make up.
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Did you even read the rest of the summary, particularly the part about existing studies that conflict with this one?
So, what you're saying is that studies that contradict this one are more important?? That they should be taken more seriously, because everybody knows "acupunture is BS" right?!
As it is, there's not a whole lot of research on acupuncture, and much of it appears to conflict each other.
They usually don't, but it looks like that due to people exaggerating the scope of the conclusions.
If you're suddenly rushing to mock skeptics ...you either don't understand how this "science" thing works at all,
No, it's the "skeptics" that don't understand how this 'science' thing works. And worse, don't know squat about the history of science.
As the example I gave in my post, most of the initial development of electromagnetism/electricity was
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I'm saying they're CONFLICTING , nothing more, nothing less. It means something's up with something, and unless you've got some method of deal with this conflict (with supporting evidence, of course), it's quite early to go "LOL ALL YOU 'SKEPTICS' SURE WERE WRONG HUH"
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I'm saying they're CONFLICTING , nothing more, nothing less. It means something's up with something, and unless you've got some method of deal with this conflict (with supporting evidence, of course), it's quite early to go "LOL ALL YOU 'SKEPTICS' SURE WERE WRONG HUH"
Oh, ok. But as I said, the way to solve this conflicts is to look at the scope of the conclusion. Either that, or someone messed up.
Now, I left something important out of my first post (yikes). The title is meant to be trollish and exaggerated. It's not a Nelson laugh!
Again, you are leaping to the conclusion that skepticism against acupuncture was unwarranted based on the results of a single study which conflicts with multiple existing studies.
Hum... No. Not unwarranted. But as this study shows you can always discover something new where many thought 'there was nothing there'. And that's the good thing about science.
You most certainly do not know how science works. You don't just pick and choose studies and go "welp I like the results of this one more so it's way more important than the others".
There's a field of studies called meta-analysis just for that. To s
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The results of this paper are "acupuncture has a real mechanism and a real and measurable effect". The results of the other paper (along with other similar studies) are "there is no measurable difference in effect between real acupuncture and faked acupuncture". These can't both be true. "Someone messed up" is the obvious conclusion. And that's not even getting into the fact th
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The results of this paper are "acupuncture has a real mechanism and a real and measurable effect".
No, the results of this paper are: "Inserting needles in rats triggers adenosine production in the area of needle insertion" (and you don't need to use a needle to stimulate adenosine)
Do the other papers say "We inserted needles in rats and we measured adenosine and the nominal levels were found"??
Well?
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Well that's the "real mechanism" part. As for the "measurable effect", please see figure 3 [nature.com] of the paper [nature.com]. They used an injection to cause inflammation and then tested the response of the mice to touch and heat, showing both increased sensitivity after injection and a return to lower levels of sensitivity after their acupuncture, with mice without the receptors that would cause the adenosine to be produced having no such reduction.
The results of this paper are exactly as I said. To quote the paper itself, "Th
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Thanks for the link.
Well, at least this is Nature (as opposed to 'magazine for people that need to publish an article or else no grant money'), people will start examining their claims now (as it should be)...
The results of this paper are exactly as I said. To quote the paper itself, "These findings suggest that A1 receptor activation is both necessary and sufficient for the clinical benefits of acupunctures."
Well, you're right. But that's the conclusion they've drawn. The authors may be exaggerating a bit (for visibility reasons).
If they had said "inserting needles" instead of acupuncture we probably wouldn't be having this conversation. And in the end it doesn't matter.
Does this validate qi, channels thro
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Again, you are leaping to the conclusion that skepticism against acupuncture was unwarranted
I don't think that's what he's doing. I think he's being ironic and you're missing out on it: He's saying 'skeptics' and '"skeptics"', and he's pointing out that the ones in double-quotes aren't really skeptical, they're really obtuse; they have decided that something is bullshit and nothing will ever make them stray from that position.
His mistake was using subtle irony; On the net, that's sure to get you burned.
His point is that skepticism is about having doubt, not certainty.
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Yes, it's obvious that the double-quote "skeptics" are supposed to be what he sees as "idiots who irrationally deny it to the bitter end". The problem is that his conception of this appears to be equivalent to ordinary skeptics who are not irrational idiots, as though anyone who demands extraordinary evidence for extraordinary claims is just sticking their head in their sand. Though perhaps he just doesn't understand what people mean when they call something "bullshit".
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as though anyone who demands extraordinary evidence for extraordinary claims is just sticking their head in their sand. Though perhaps he just doesn't understand what people mean when they call something "bullshit".
I think he's talking about the ones who demand extraordinary proof for ordinary claims. There's people out there who just call things "bullshit" reflexively and they won't ever admit they're wrong, even as you show them more and more proof they just continue to pretend to be skeptics, but they aren't being cautious or critical: they just don't want to accept facts that contradict their established beliefs. And they call themselves skeptics, so we have reasons to be skeptical of the actual skeptical nature
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There is a tremendous amount of research. Much of it is complete scientific balderdash, a few papers written on a few case studies without double blind technique or with very vague, interview based evaluation of the results. This is, sadly, very common in medical science.
For an example, review this article on the famous "acupuncture appendectomy" during the Nixon administration.
Paw discomfort! (Score:5, Funny)
Dr. Maiken Nedergaard of the University of Rochester Medical Center and her colleagues administered half-hour acupuncture treatments to a group of mice with paw discomfort.
Family-friendly euphemism for "with their paws hacked off by the grad students".
My Brain Pain Increased by Two-Thirds ... (Score:3, Insightful)
mice with normal adenosine function experienced a two-thirds drop in paw pain
CC.
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after wondering how they measure
"mice with normal adenosine function experienced a two-thirds drop in paw pain"
By facial expression.
http://www.google.fr/search?hl=fr&q=facial+expression+mice+pain+&meta= [google.fr]
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By facial expression.
http://www.google.fr/search?hl=fr&q=facial+expression+mice+pain+&meta= [google.fr]
It's a phishing attack!! Everybody knows google is in AMERICA! Crazy frenchy.
:P
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It's judged by measuring neurological response in the brain. Essentially hook a meter to the right part of the brain and squeeze a toe at a given pressure level. Watch the meter and judge how much response the brain is making.
I vaguely recall that some similar setup was used a while back during research to gauge effectiveness of human anaesthesia during surgery (due to the problem of some patients "waking up" in mid-operation).
The problem is that every person is unique (Score:2, Informative)
Similar pains in different people are triggered by different energetic imbalances. Oriental medicine has five elements, five rhythms that run through a person: Water, Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal (Air). Each meridian has characteristics of one of the elements.
But westerners who study acupuncture try to use the same points in their trials, when the study should be designed to address the individual's specific imbalances.
I've met a few mystics in the last few years, and my experience says that people who "scoff"
People should be less arrogant and more interest (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:People should be less arrogant and more interes (Score:5, Insightful)
In 2 months the disorder was completely under control without any changes in my life but acupunture.
Your anecdotal evidence is fantastic.
Now lets find 100 other people with the same positive outcome and figure out why acupuncture is working for all of you.
People should spend less time trying to proof its or its not BS and more time trying to understand how to make people life better!
::facepalm::
I'm glad your life is better, but many of us are not happy having gaps in our knowledge and filling in the blank with "magic" or "it works".
If acupuncture works so well, understanding why/how is critical for having it turned into a mainstream treatment.
It is mainstream (Score:2)
Now lets find 100 other people with the same positive outcome and figure out why acupuncture is working for all of you.
Or find some people who have had multiple doctors shrug their shoulders at, who have received reliable, repeatable relief from acupuncture, and just be grateful that there was something that provided a solution when western medicine failed them. Or you can present your argument to these people and see if it provides them relief.
I'm glad your life is better, but many of us are not happy having gaps in our knowledge and filling in the blank with "magic" or "it works".
Many people who have gotten relief would trade that kind of unhappiness for relief from the physical symptoms they experienced. It works well in some cases, and for those people, u
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Anedoctal? Depend on how you observe it.
Not at all.
You don't seem to understand the difference between anecdotal evidence and scientific evidence
Taking your one case and stretching it to conclude "acupunture works" is anecdotal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anecdotal_evidence [wikipedia.org]
The WHOLE concept of eastern medicine is around principles that statistical annalysis is NOT A PROOF of anything, because youa re an individual, not a "representation of a popualtion" and the cure must be for YOU, not for the statistic. Until people can understand that there exist this fundamental rift in views of what define truth neither sides will ever agree on anything.
Statistics are the best we can do when dealing with 6 billion unique genetic combinations.
Maybe some day we'll discover that the spiritual aspects of eastern medicine are valid,
but until then, things like "scientific evidence" and "statistical analysis" are what we have.
Like
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Poe's Law rears it's head once again.
In case people actually took that seriously, fisrt off, there is no such thing as 'western' medicine. That's a load of crap to try to act as if there are two valid forms of treatment. There aren't. There is scientifically proven medicine, and medicine that has not been proven/has been disproven. And that part about not trying to prove stuff, that's either great parody or bad logic. Anything that works, works. The proof of the pudding is in the tasting. If a treatm
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Um... yes?
Many things have been used for thousands of years. Many of those things have no positive effect. Many of *those* things are actively harmful.
You sound like a woman my wife had an argument with a decade or so ago, who insisted it was perfectly safe to give her children belladonna (and, yes, I *do* mean 'deadly nightshade') "because it's natural".
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So just to be clear: acupuncture is a cult, a pseudo-science without basis in fact, just like its home companions homeopathy, yoga and Reiki.
Ah! You think Yoga has no basis in fact? There's some very toned and flexible hotties out there proving you wrong.
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Ah! You think Yoga has no basis in fact? There's some very toned and flexible hotties out there proving you wrong.
Well, ridiculous health claims (eg, treating autoimmune disorders, etc) associated with yoga are pseudo-science.
Similarly:
Chiropractic care for the treatment of back issues? Fact. Chiropractic care for the treatment of asthma? Pseudo-science.
Homeopathic treatment of dehydration? Fact. Homeopathic treatment of basically anything else? Pseudo-science.
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Ah! You think Yoga has no basis in fact? There's some very toned and flexible hotties out there proving you wrong.
Well, ridiculous health claims (eg, treating autoimmune disorders, etc) associated with yoga are pseudo-science.
Ok, yes, there's True Believers that will tell you yoga cures cancer, feeds the poor and plugs the gulf of mexico's oil hole. But there is significant merit in the practice of Yoga for health benefits, even if it doesn't protect us from asteroid strikes.
Re:Acupuncture cult pseudo-science (Score:4, Informative)
Chiropractic care for asthma when your asthma is caused by pressure and irritation to the lungs based on your crooked ass posture: Fact.
No, it's not. It's bullshit. Show me a single study that proves chiropractic care treats asthma, and I'll show you a flawed study.
And as an aside, anyone who believes "asthma is caused by pressure and irritation to the lungs based on your crooked ass posture" has no fucking clue what asthma actually is.
Not that I ever had asthma officially
Ah. I see. So you feel you can make concrete statements about asthma treatment when you've never actually been diagnosed with it. Well, I'll definitely take your opinions seriously...
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Um... This is slashdot, after all.
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Um... This is slashdot, after all.
Touché.
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And now, because we understand the mechanism of action upon which acupuncture is based, scientists may be able to develop more effective treatments, either by optimizing acupuncture treatment, or creating new treatments that make use of the same mechanism.
You should be thanking science, here. We now understand more about the world than we did before, and the result may be improved medicine for people such as yourself.
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Then I advise you to avoid medical journals. Would you rather they induce pain in you then try to relief it?
Re:Induced Pain (Score:4, Insightful)
If that is really your goal, feel free to lead by example.
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Yes, this always comes up (and indeed it has come up here a bunch of times, already). Whereas aspirin (or the latest psoriasis treatment tested in a double blind placebo controlled trial) works exactly the same for everyone all of the time under every conceivable condition, the "alternative medicine" treatment du jour is simply too special to be examined in any sort of an objective way.
Of course, this is, ultimately, bullshit.
What it really means is no one has ever demonstrated the safety and effectiveness
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[hefting my copy of the Physicians Desk Reference to Herbal Medicines] Because if the plethora of side effects, harmful or even lethal effects, drug interactions, and contraindiations ever became public knowledge, a whole lot of very profitable quackery would go out of business... ...at least until the next generation of new-ager 'educated idiots' came along with their desire to believe in "magic".