By Carl Laron on June 3, 2010 in
Acupuncture, a centuries-old Chinese medical therapy that uses hair-thin needles to relieve pain symptoms, has heretofore been shrouded in mystery. There's plenty of anecdotal evidence that acupuncture provides some relief in some cases to some individuals -- enough so that even some hospitals now offer acupuncture as an option for pain management -- but no solid proof. Now, a new study conducted by researchers from the University of Rochester, Boston University and the U.S. National Institutes of Health and published in Nature Neuroscience has shed light on the science behind acupuncture to explain how and why it works.
Patient, heal thyself
As explained in this article at ArsTechica.com, the researchers discovered that acupuncture needles reduce pain by tricking the body into producing high levels of its own natural pain killer, called adenosine. Working with mice, they found that acupuncture treatments increased levels of adenosine by some 24 times above normal, and that the levels of the pain killer remained high even well after the treatment ended.
Researchers also proved that increased levels of adenosine translated directly into reduced pain. Mice with different types of pain were tested, and less pain was observed in them after acupuncture. However, mice that lacked the needed receptors for adenosine saw no pain reduction at all from the treatment, giving further weight to the study's findings.
Along the way, scientists also learned some interesting things about why certain acupuncture techniques work. For example, acupuncturists typically manipulate the needles during treatment. During the study, scientists learned that rotating the needles at regular intervals was essential, as no pain relief was noted when the needles were just inserted and left in place.