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Comment by shiftpgdn | Hacker News Reader

FYI there have been multiple legitimate studies on acupuncture that show it has a positive effect on the body in regards to arthritis and migraines.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/11/acupuncture-provide... http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=13575...

THAT SAID anybody who claims they can adjust your chi or cure cancer is a charlatan and deserves prison time.

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There are studies that show that sticking needles into the skin have various positive effects, but the whole chi/meridians/acupuncture points is complete pseudoscience.

So sticking needles places --which is what acupuncture does-- works fine, but the names used to describe it --which is what that chi/meridians stuff is-- mean that it's bunk? Why --because you saw a bunch of films attributing magic powers to chi? How are those films significantly different than any science-based event in any Hollywood film ever?

The difference is that acupuncturists claim that it is far more nuanced than it has been scientifically proven to be and justify that claim with a lot of pseudo-scientific woo.

There is basis for the claim that sticking needles in people can help with some ailments. There is no basis for the claim that meridians are a thing and in any way relevant to those effects.

I have always been interested in the fact that many insurance companies will pay for acupuncture. My guess was that their statisticians must of been able to determine that getting those treatments will at the very least reduce the overall cost of treating a patient.

That always led me to believe it must be having some sort of a provable positive effect on the patients.

Or it may simply be cheaper than having them go through the regular medical circuit with essentially no effect at the end of the bunch of expensive diagnosis. Some people just want the attention of a doctor and already feel better just because of that. A real doctor will tell them there is nothing wrong with them so there is nothing to fix which won't leave them satisfied so they'll go back over and over again.

By contrast, an acupuncturist that charges a fraction and pretends to cure them is more effective.

A US doctor almost never says there is nothing wrong with you which is a large part of why US healthcare is so expencive.

In my experience it's typically more like this:

"Well, there's probably nothing wrong, but there are some test we can run to be sure."

The patient agrees to the tests because it gives them peace of mind and they mostly don't pay for them, their insurance does.

The doctor orders the test because if they don't and there is some sort of rare problem that was actually present, they can be sued for malpractice. GPs in the US generally aren't making any money from these tests, but they do have a strong incentive to avoid a malpractice lawsuit as those are costly and time consuming.

But yes, this is part of why US healthcare is so expensive.

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