+ We are pretty sure acupuncture, done correctly, won't cause any harm
+ It is on par or sometimes slightly exceeds placebo
+ Sometimes "things that seem like acupuncture but are not acupuncture" also give the same kind of results.. even though they shouldn't?
I'd still be pretty skeptical about it, but the risk of trying it seems quite low
i'm told he strictly used it literally as a placebo ONLY when he knew the cause of the "problem" was not physical or something wrong because of infection or something. I'm told he would treat patients with depression by counseling without telling them (usually family members) and prescribing this "white medicine" to keep up appearances.
i'm told he never treated anyone outside of this usecase because well, there are medicines for that purpose.
remind you this is from 50 years ago when my town had 3 hospitals in total and there was no "medical equipment" like we have currently or that were available in major cities. Call it the neck of the woods so its not like there was modern medical care available but patients didn't seek it. He was the physician of his time and pretty successful at that.
People have even been documented to have died from acupuncture https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2951167/
The benefits are zero. Potentially living with a chronic disease like Hepatitis C because of a lazy provider that reuses a needle or contaminates it in some way, is a serious risk.
There's also the fact that by engaging in these activities you perpetuate junk science, just like Q anon people, just like climate change deniers, it's all the same insanity.
> We are pretty sure acupuncture, DONE CORRECTLY, won't cause any harm
Yes, if you get stabbed with a dirty needle, you might get a disease. That's true for acupuncture, a tattoo shop, and even a vaccine. Don't get stabbed with dirty needles! I fully suggest not getting stabbed with dirty needles. Bad. Avoid. 0/10.
> The benefits are zero
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3982837/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5984198/
It's probably about as effective as placebo? (Maybe?) That isn't zero, that's placebo - and that is an important difference
> you perpetuate junk science,
You're just wrong. This isn't even just a "you might have a different opinion". The absolute best science we have, the entirety of realms of research, is "well, it's probably placebo and maybe it's kind of an expensive placebo". The most scientific answer you can give is "we should do more studies and ask more questions", and it's part of why the medical industry has shifted from "Don't do acupuncture" to "Well, it probably won't do much for you, but sure if you like it, that seems fine".
On top of that, opportunity cost is a thing. If you pursue completely ineffective therapy - and spend time figuring out if your local acupuncture parlor uses dirty needles - you waste time and energy that would be spend pursuing worthwhile treatment.
That's in comparison to a sham acupuncture placebo. And the placebo effect is already pretty powerful. Even in the "no benefit" studies, that's usually in comparison to a sham acupuncture placebo that has a real effect compared to waiting. In terms of pain treatment, I'd say even a safe non-addictive placebo treatment is pretty good, better than getting hooked on opioids at least.
I wouldn't get acupuncture hoping for a cure to cancer. But it's not exactly a stretch to think that manipulating nerves with needles will help with pain.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6365227/figure/...
It's difficult to imagine how you would blind the acupuncturists performing the treatment. I suppose you could have one acupuncturist mark the needle location and another blinded one stick the needle in. But a skilled acupuncturist would probably be unblinded by their own knowledge of where it makes sense for the needle to go. So there is definitely risk of performance bias, but they're sticking needles into patients at predefined points - I don't think it's a very large risk.
Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS or TNS) : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcutaneous_electrical_ne...
Fibromyalgia (FM) : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibromyalgia
Perturbations.
Life isn't a double blind randomised placebo controlled study, mostly on rats / students / in a clinical setting / lab, and therefore there's a strong case to be made that we shouldn't necessarily use that model to model our behaviour.
Back to perturbations, I mean in the astronomical sense: deviation of a celestial body from a regular orbit about its primary, caused by the presence of one or more other bodies that act upon the celestial body.
You go to a one or more acupuncture sessions and your life is, in a very literal sense, changed.
It's not just a placebo, you actually went and did something you otherwise wouldn't have, with the intention of seeking improvement, thereby setting your life on a divergent path to what it otherwise would have been.
Over time, the divergence can be drastic.
This a very under appreciate power of our ability.
But placebo or not, I’ll also say that the physical impact was genuinely calming. And while the setting and circumstances might account for most of that—soothing music, dark room, being still for about an hour with no interruption—I also found different needle placements had noticeably different effectiveness.
It’s not for everyone. I wouldn’t dream of suggesting anyone try it who wasn’t already open to it. But it did really help me, regardless of the science. And I’m grateful for it.
And needles placed at random do seem to have significant placebo effect for some conditions and people.
