Acupuncture point specificity

Are there real acupuncture effects or just placebo effects in acupuncture treatment? This is a question many readers will ask. Not surprise, because this is one of core scientific issues in acupuncture development and clinical study. The issue of acupuncture placebo effects raised mainly from pain relief clinical studies. It was reported that pain relief was similar between needling into acupoints (along the meridian) and needling into non-acupoints (not on the meridian) in some clinical studies of headache including migraine.

If a needle is inserted into the body, regardless of superficial or deeper, the effective stimulation triggers physiologic responses from body. Acupuncture stimulation at acupoint induces both specific effects and non-specific physiologic effects, while stimulation at non-acupoint elicits non-specific physiologic effects. Brain imaging studies reported that acupoint specific stimulation and non-acupoint stimulation elicit activations of different brain areas. Studies of acupoints found that acupoints along meridians are often located on regions where nerve endings and nerve receptors are densely distributed and neural and neural active components are highly concentrated. It has been reported that acupoint stimulation induces marked changes in relevant biomarkers.

A recent clinical trial, assessing specific and non-specific effect of acupuncture on knee osteoarthritis, found that non-acupoint needling achieved pain relief with patient response rate of 48%; Classic Chinese acupoint needling achieved pain relief with patient response rate of 73%. However, knee flexibility measured by physicians was significantly higher in patients with classic Chinese acupoint treatment. The authors conclude “a specific effect of acupuncture in knee mobility and both non-specific and specific effects of needling in pain relief.”

Reference:

Karner M et al., Objectifying specific and nonspecific effects of acupuncture: a double-blinded randomised trial in osteoarthritis of the knee. Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. 2013;2013:427265. doi: 10.1155/2013/427265.   http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=karner+m%2C+acupuncture