Acupuncture: Where Are the Data?

During the past few months, I had the pleasure to attend the American Academy of Medical Acupuncture (AAMA) and the Society of Acupuncture Research (SARS) symposiums. What I noticed in common was a focus of mechanistic research almost down to the molecular level. Presumably, this would also serve to delineate to our colleagues that acupuncture is more than magic. Western science is at its best when it can demonstrate a cause and effect relationship. It likes to hunker down into the depths of Mother Nature. For example, if in acupuncture, the changes in a particular neurotransmitter concentration “C” are related to needling specific acupuncture points over a period of time “T” could be demonstrated, we would then proceed to exhibit these results by use of a table or graph. Such data might be meaningful enough to convince our non-acupuncture colleagues that acupuncture is indeed very real. It must be because we have now shown similarities to Western pharmacological mechanisms; for example, concentration of antibiotics and its relationship to the destruction of bacteria over time.

Does this mean a more agreeable and acceptable relationship with Western medicine? It is naive to believe that if we continue to research small molecular foundations of acupuncture and if enough experiments could ever be performed, we would accumulate more and more data to convince the most stubborn non-acupuncture believer. Unfortunately, this may never happen and we should not lament. Acupuncture involves all aspects of life and nature. For example, not only do we treat what is seen, but also what appears to be invisible; our spirit and harmony with nature. I have witnessed suicidal patients who went on to enjoy life after not responding to Western medicine, but responded well to energetic acupuncture. We are not totally aware of all the mechanisms that are stimulated by needles in this process. Our ancestors respected a life energy.

Where are the data? We know that acupuncture has accumulated vast amounts of data over the centuries. Over the past decades, more of the fundamental laboratory research and clinical trials have added to this vast knowledge base. Criticism by the West has centered on clinical trial methodology and standards of excellence. Perhaps the real challenge is deciding how to integrate this technology. Medical acupuncturists are in an excellent position to foster this blending. After all, we already started the integration process a long time ago.

Recently, I was watching my Asian acupuncture colleagues using “chopsticks.” I was reminded that chopsticks had their origin about 5,000 years ago in China, and the eating utensil known as the “fork” was introduced into the West only several hundred years ago. In the West, prior to the use of this pronged instrument, people ate with their fingers. Chopsticks are less expensive to manufacture, exercise the fingers in elderly people, increase dexterity, and some of the wood used to make chopsticks emits an agreeable smell that stimulates the appetite. I doubt very much that clinical trials determined which were better: chopsticks or forks? Most likely, people really wanted to know on occasions: “Where's the beef?”