Finding out about research being done to ‘prove’ your cause can be exciting even if actually doing research is long-going, methodical and not exactly exciting on the day to day.
A study exploring the effects of acupuncture on the brain at the University of York and the Hull York Medical School published in Brain Research in 2010 demonstrated that acupuncture had significant effect on specific neural structures. When a patient receives acupuncture treatment, a sensation called ‘da qi ‘ is obtained. Their science analysis indicated that this ‘da qi’ deactivates areas within the brain that are associated with the processing of pain.
Following the research conducted in York, acupuncture was recommended for the first time by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) as a treatment option for patients with lower back pain. The guidelines now state that medical practitioners should ‘consider offering a course of acupuncture comprising a maximum of 10 sessions over a period of up to 12 weeks’ for patients with this very common condition.
More clinical trials are being done at the University of York, investigating the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of acupuncture for Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) and for depression. Recent U.S. studies have also shown that acupuncture can be an effective treatment for migraines and osteoarthritis of the knee.
New -and more – research can help pave the way for acupuncture to be recognized as a treatment option for a broadening scope of medical conditions.