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Jan. 11, 2002 -- Doctors hate to admit that acupuncture can work. Why? They find it hard to believe what they can't see. Now there's something to look at.
Researchers at Vermont College of Medicine, Burlington, noted that acupuncture involved more than just sticking a person with needles. The therapist first inserts the needles into precise locations, then works them with twisting or pumping movements.
Neurologist Helene M. Langevin, MD, and co-workers found that this needle motion has a definite biological effect -- an effect that may explain many things.
"This study for the first time demonstrates a link between acupuncture needle manipulation and biomechanical events," Langevin and co-workers write in the Journal of Applied Physiology. These biomechanical events, they report, could be associated with long-lasting effects.
Patients don't usually feel much pain when the fine needles go in. But when the needles are worked, patients describe an ache or heaviness in the surrounding area.
And they aren't the only ones who feel something. Practitioners say they feel a tug they call "de qi." They say it feels "like a fish biting on a fishing line." This feeling is stronger, they say, when the needle is placed in an acupuncture point than when it is placed in some other part of the body.
Langevin's team decided to put this sensation to the test. Western science needs a bit more to go on than the feeling of a fish on the line -- so the researchers developed a computerized needling device. The handheld machine places and twists the needles. It measures exactly now hard and how often it pulls and twists.
Sixty volunteers agreed to get poked with the computerized needler. One side of their body was needled at eight acupuncture points, and the other side of their body was needled in places not considered to be active.
The result: when the needle was twisted in the same direction, it was 167% harder to pull out than if not twisted. When twisted back and forth, it was 52% harder to pull out. And it was slightly but significantly harder to pull the needle out of acupuncture points than non-acupuncture areas.
What's going on? Langevin and co-workers say they believe the needle is winding up tiny bits of connective tissue, like a fork in a plate of spaghetti. Typically, an acupuncture point occurs where connective tissue spans the space between muscles -- and nerve bundles are there, too. So this pulling could have effects that go far beyond the needled area, just as acupuncture predicts.
The researchers are quick to note that their study doesn't prove a thing. But it does give Western science a starting point, as it tries to understand the ancient mysteries of the East.
WebMD does not provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. See additional information.
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