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Fake remedy, real relief
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Studies reveal that acupuncture, even if it's fake, works
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A sham version of acupuncture works just as well for treating migraine headaches as the real thing, and both fake and real acupuncture work better than no treatment at all, a new study has found.
In the study, published in The Journal of the American Medical Association, German researchers divided 302 migraine sufferers into three groups. The patients were told that one group would receive acupuncture "similar to the acupuncture treatment used in China," and that the second would receive a type of acupuncture that did not follow the Chinese principles but "has been associated with positive outcomes in clinical studies."
The patients did not know which group they were assigned to. A third group was put on a waiting list and received treatment later.
Although the patients in the second group were unaware of it, they received a faked version of acupuncture.
The treatments went on for 12 weeks, and success was defined as having 50 per cent fewer days with headaches in the weeks after the end of treatment.
By this measure, real acupuncture succeeded with 51 per cent of the patients, and the sham procedure succeeded with 53 per cent, a statistically insignificant difference. Only 15 per cent of the waiting list group attained the 50 per cent reduction in headache days.
The effectiveness of both the sham and the real acupuncture, the authors write, is about the same as treatment with drugs and has fewer side effects. The results, they conclude, "may be due to non-specific physiological effects of needling, to a powerful placebo effect, or to a combination of both."
New York Times
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