IndexThe benefits of acupunctureAcupuncture and its placebo effectThe risks associated with acupunctureConclusionFor many centuries the miraculous results and captivating ideology surrounding the practice of acupuncture have fascinated the world. Classified as part of complementary and alternative medicine (treatments or practices that are not part of a country's traditional healthcare system), it is generally recognized that the therapy originated in China approximately 3,000 years ago and was used to treat conditions and alleviate the pain ever since. Over the last century, especially as interest in acupuncture has developed outside of China, the level of its integration into the broader health systems of other countries has also grown. During this wave of integration, we should ask ourselves: How good is the use of acupuncture for improving physical and mental well-being? Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Acupuncture was developed along with Qi; a concept that is seen as one of the “roots” of traditional Chinese medicine. Qi (pronounced chee) can be directly translated to “life energy” and is believed to flow around the human body in pathways known as meridians. According to the principles, the imbalance of Yin and Yang (the two opposite aspects of Qi) can lead to the shift of a person's Qi, causing disease. Acupuncture was a therapy developed to correct the imbalance of Ying and Yang, restoring a person's Qi and returning them to good health. During an acupuncture therapy session, thin needles are inserted through the skin into specific acupuncture points in the connective tissue or muscles of the body. Most of the effects of acupuncture treatment are explainable. It has been explained that pain relief is caused by acupuncture needles stimulating A-delta fibers which then enter the gray matter of the dorsal horn and cause an inhibition of the slower unmyelinated C fibers (the fibers through which they travel pain impulses). Another cause of pain relief from therapy is the activation of enkephalin in interneurons, resulting in the inhibition of pain impulses traveling to the brain. Acupuncture can also cause the brain to produce endorphins and endogenous opioids which also result in pain relief for the patient. While all of these points can be used to explain some of the effects of therapy, there are no clear explanations for other effects. This includes the effects that acupuncture can have on the body's internal organs and the effects of ear acupuncture; external ear acupuncture resulting in relief of symptoms caused by allergies and relief of symptoms caused by endocrine system disorders. The Benefits of Acupuncture Several acupuncture practitioners who practice different forms of acupuncture around the world claim that the therapy is able to help with a wide range of conditions. Although the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) only recommends the therapy for chronic tension-type symptoms such as migraines, in the West the therapy is also commonly used for conditions such as: osteoarthritis, epicondylitis and fibromyalgia, as well as commonly manifested symptoms such as nausea/vomiting. In addition to the physical conditions mentioned above, a large number of patients who use CAM, including acupuncture, do so because they experience symptoms related to mental disorders such as insomnia. In 1998 it was recorded that in the UK and USA 25.3% of patients using CAM therapies had at least one anxiety disorder. Acupuncture in particular ishas been linked to generating a calming effect, leading patients with anxiety disorders and minor depression to experience a decrease in their symptoms. Because the therapy has attracted interest for such a wide range of conditions, there has been an increased interest in research into whether acupuncture can actually relieve a patient's pain or decrease symptoms for the broad spectrum of conditions for which is used. Interestingly, in the West only a quarter of doctors recommend the therapy and refer patients to acupuncture practitioners because skepticism is still prevalent in the medical community. Therefore, patients who use acupuncture are the most frequently self-reported (39%). Skepticism within the Western medical community is most likely due to the difficulty in proving the effectiveness of acupuncture therapy. Most of the common uses of acupuncture in the US and UK, mentioned above, have been shown through several hundred randomized control trials (RCTs) and also controlled clinical trials (CCTs) to have effects that are not caused by a placebo effect. However, the same cannot be said for all conditions. According to a national survey conducted in the United Kingdom in 2006, the most common reason patients sought symptom relief through acupuncture was due to musculoskeletal problems. While some musculoskeletal symptoms can be relieved through therapy, for example: back pain, which has had 25 randomized studies conducted indicating that acupuncture is effective, some studies on musculoskeletal conditions indicate that acupuncture is not effective in this 'area. For osteoarthritis, 10 RCTS and 2 CCT have been conducted to determine therapeutic efficacy, and reviews of the results of these studies indicate that acupuncture is not effective in relieving associated pain. Reviews of studies on neck pain (14 RCTs) and shoulder pain (9 RCTs) also show that acupuncture is ineffective when it comes to pain relief. However, for some conditions the study results are auspicious; fibromyalgia (3 RCTs and 4 cohort studies), dental pain (16 CCTs) and nausea/vomiting (26 RCTs) all demonstrate the effectiveness of the therapy. Psychological disorders were the second most likely reason for using acupuncture in the UK (11%) and clinical trials into the effectiveness of the therapy in this area are generally promising. Studies on psychological symptoms such as insomnia have been reviewed and concluded to demonstrate that acupuncture can actually increase sleep quality and latency. In 2003, an interesting RCT comparing the effect of acupuncture and the effect of drugs on decreasing clinical symptoms in patients with anxiety neurosis found that a similar percentage of patients had alleviated symptoms with acupuncture as with medications (94.3% acupuncture, 96.4% medications). Although this study shows favorable results, it must be said that although it involved randomization of patients into the two comparable groups, it did not involve blinding of patients or blinding of assessors. Those clinical studies that demonstrate that acupuncture is not effective contribute to the hypothesis that acupuncture therapy has a placebo effect. Acupuncture and its Placebo Effect Placebo acupuncture needles (fake needles) were produced to provide clinical trials with a way to test whether real acupuncture needles have a significant difference in effect compared to a needle that actually does not penetrate the skin. Hundreds of randomized studies have been conducted using these dummy needles, many of which have concluded that for most conditions there is no significant difference..