Guest guest Posted November 13, 2009 Report Share Posted November 13, 2009 Hi The major placebo line comes from the fairly extensive German studies which looked at migraines, knee and back pain. Thousands of patients were enrolled, and seperated into a sham acupuncture group (placebo), treatment group, and no acupuncture. I believe they has 8 treatments early, and were followed at 1 year. At that time, in all 3 studies, acupuncture and placebo patients reported less pain and were more likely to be functional. Only problem is that the acupuncture and placebo groups were about the same. A problem with this study was that most treatments were fairly standardized.. There was some flexibility in treatment, but most treatments were pretty similar. Also the level of training in TCM among practioners was not as extensive as in the US. Other studies that were better designed HAVE shown differences between placebo and treatment groups. A very good study from Italy in the journal Brain showed both placebo and treatment were better than control for headaches, but here acupiuncture outperformed placebo. Some Boston studies looking at functional MRI showed that treatment and placebo acted on different parts of the brain! And all of this ignores the fact that there really is no placebo, that all needling moves Qi. We all know from experience that it works. I also know, as has been commented on, that many Western modalities, such as trigger point injections, do not necessarily have solid evidence of working better than placebo (and Medicare pays for those), not to mention medications. All of which is to say.....if this is a placebo, its ONE HECK OF A GOOD ONE.. R Livingston MD, DOM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted November 13, 2009 Report Share Posted November 13, 2009 What people should take home from this " TCM is placebo " nonsense is this: it is an implicit admission that TCM WORKS. They cannot deny that it works, so they're just bashing HOW it works. To the average joe, it doesn't matter is something's mechanism of action fits with the " mainstream " or not, what the average joe wants is something that makes them feel better. On Fri, Nov 13, 2009 at 12:45 PM, Chico Livingston <chicolivwrote: > > > All of which is to say.....if this is a placebo, its ONE HECK OF A GOOD > ONE.. > > R Livingston MD, DOM > -- Philip Nino Tan-Gatue, MD Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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