Acupuncture's molecular effects pinned down | Hacker News Reader

Acupuncture's molecular effects pinned down

machineslikeus.com

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A good source for reviews of acupuncture studies:

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=5112

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=4304

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=4065

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=2996

Bottom line: claims about efficacy of acupuncture, especially claims about efficacy of acupuncture for human use based on small-n animal studies, need to be carefully reviewed according to the usual guidelines for evaluating research studies.

http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html

This guy seems like kind of a crank, and from what I've read he's wrong as often as he's right. For example, in the first article you linked to he his saying that the idea that acupuncture creates anti-inflammatory proteins is extremely improbable, which is exactly what the parent article proves. And his rant about not believing in the placebo effect is an equally ridiculous strawman, since there are studies that show that if you replace a person's medicine with a placebo they will keep having the same physiological response as they did to the medicine. (See also the converse, Plastic Rose Syndrome.) And, similarly, there are other studies that show that people gain less weight eating liquified food (which tastes bad) as opposed to the same caloric content of non liquified food, and still more studies that show that how much weight people lose from exercise depends more on how long they think they're exercising than how long they're actually exercising.

I'm all for sound science, but this guy seems like he's really just a shill for whatever the trendy assumptions-of-the-day behind western medicine happen to be.

I'm interested in "plastic rose syndrome" but google isn't giving me anything that seems relevant. Happen to have a link to some info?

It seems to be about allergies, so add that to your search.

From what I can tell it's the idea that someone allergic to roses would also be allergic to plastic roses, if he thought the roses were real.

This is basically it, that someone who was allergic to roses would also have an allergic reaction if they saw a plastic rose. (The actual incident of a patient having an allergic reaction to a plastic rose was observed by a doctor in the late 19th century, but there are controlled studies showing placebos causing allergic reactions from the modern era.)

That is why the anecdotes about allergies being cured with LSD make sense, because if the allergy was psychosomatic to begin with then it would make sense that someone could get over their fear of the substance under the influence of the drug.

Sounds like another name for a nocebo.

from what I've read he's wrong as often as he's right

[citation needed]

I linked to articles by more than one scientifically trained medical doctor, so "he" is not the correct pronoun, unless you are referring to the more-cited author in my reply

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?page_id=223

in his role as executive editor of the Science Based Medicine site. He's not a crank, definitely, and the site has a number of pointed articles by various authors on the use of the "term" shill as an ad-hominem, invalid dismissal of scientific claims.

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?s=shill

My bad, I thought all the articles on SBM were written by the same person. In any event, I stand by my claim that a lot of the articles on the site are crap. Just look at the article you referenced, which says that calling out pharma industry shills is just a "means of smearing those [...] who have the temerity to ask them to provide scientific studies to back up their assertions."

And yet if you look at their article on the efficacy of antidepressants, the author says the meta-study showing that antidepressants are no better than placebos for mild and moderate depression is invalid because it excluded studies where the researchers wouldn't provide their data:

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=3722#more-3722

Double standard much? The author also criticizes the decision not to include studies that excluded placebo responders. WTF? The whole point of the study was to compare the effectiveness of antidepressants to placebos.

How is it that SBM can advocate the use of antidepressants despite the lack of evidence of efficacy and the tons of evidence of dangerous side effects, whereas about medical marijuana they say that, "it’s hard to envision any situation in which prescribing marijuana would be ethical."

I've read dozens of articles from that site, and the scientific rigor of their thinking seems to be limited at best.

There may be an interesting effect, but I previously read an article questioning whether the study did enough to rule out placebo effects:

"Taken on its own merits, this is a nice piece of biochemistry. But what does it really tell us about acupuncture? Does it actually validate this ancient method as a way of relieving pain? After reading the paper, you might walk away with that idea that we’re one step closer to understanding how a treatment with real medical benefits really works [...]

"But these results have to be considered in the light of those that came before it. As mentioned above, new scientific discoveries stand on the shoulders of giants and in the case of acupuncture – one of the most well-researched of all “alternative therapies” – those shoulders are particularly large.

"Many trials have demonstrated that acupuncture does have some pain-relieving effects – that is not in doubt. And as Steven Novella notes, unlike things like homeopathy or reiki, with acupuncture “something physical is actually happening… so it is therefore not impossible that a physiological response is happening”. But the big questions are whether this effect is genuine of nothing more than a placebo."

From: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2010/05/3...

Full text of article: http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nn.25...

How come I'm able to read the full text without any university proxy?

How would one measure discomfort from an injury in mice?

And on what scale was it reduced by 2/3s? What units are those?

"Well, the current discomfort level is only 23 microchafes."

You measure it like this: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/05/mouse-pain-express...

Basically rate the pain level, 1-10, then see how it changes.

My beef with some acupuncture is that it seems to provide pain relief, but I suspect it doesn't treat the underlying symptoms.

If your body hurts but you can still function, let it hurt IMO. It ain't broke so don't fix it.

There are two sides to this. One is that pain can be a severe impediment to living your life; I'm currently laying in bed, typing this on my phone, because my neck (which I injured last week) hurts too much to do much of anything else at the moment. I'd welcome pain relief in a heartbeat.

The other side, though, is that pain is often a sign that something is wrong. If you're simply getting rid of the pain, you may very well make the issue worse unintentionally, or not notice it getting worse.

So yes, pain relief is not necessarily a good thing in all cases, but it's not necessarily bad either.

We need a new term for anaesthetic acupuncture which distinguishes it from the much broader benefits claimed by acupuncture advocates.

Anaesthetic acupuncture is physiologically plausible and supported by experiment. But any headline about it gets generalized to "acupuncture works" which is misleading.

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