abstract: acupuncture is increasingly used in children; however, the safety of pediatric acupuncture has yet to be reported from systematic review. acupuncture has become a dominant complementary and alternative modality in clinical practice today but its associated risk has been questioned. the national institutes of health consensus statement states “one of the advantages of acupuncture is th...

There are only few scientific publications dealing with the basic investigation of the effects of only one or two acupoints or comparing one single point with another single point, using different stimulation methods in the same persons. The aim of this needle-controlled, randomized crossover study was to investigate the neurovegetative parameters heart rate (HR) and heart rate variability (HRV...

It is well known that acupuncture treatment has an effect on patients with an overactive bladder, but the mechanism of its action remains to be clarified. This study was aimed to investigate the effects of acupuncture on bladder overactivity, and the excitability of interstitial cells of Cajal of the bladder in a rat model of partial bladder outlet obstruction. Electroacupuncture (continuous wa...

OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to test whether acupuncture could modify the threshold of tolerance to thermal and electrical stimuli. METHODS A randomised placebo-controlled single-blind trial was conducted in 36 healthy volunteers randomly distributed to control (no treatment), conventional acupuncture and sham acupuncture groups. The subjects were blind to the group allocation. The aut...

In November 2007, the Society for Acupuncture Research (SAR) held an international symposium to mark the 10th anniversary of the 1997 NIH Consensus Development Conference on Acupuncture. The symposium presentations revealed the considerable maturation of the field of acupuncture research, yet two provocative paradoxes emerged. First, a number of well-designed clinical trials have reported that ...

OBJECTIVE To investigate the feasibility and sample size required for a full-scale randomised controlled trial of the effectiveness of acupuncture with non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) for chronic neck pain compared with acupuncture or NSAID treatment alone. METHODS A total of 45 patients with chronic neck pain participated in the study. For 3 weeks the acupuncture with NSAIDs t...

This paper reports a rare iatrogenic complication of acupuncture-induced haemothorax and comments on the importance and need for special education of physicians and physiotherapists in order to apply safe and effective acupuncture treatment. A 37-year-old healthy woman had a session of acupuncture treatments for neck and right upper thoracic non-specific musculoskeletal pain, after which she gr...

Ménière's syndrome is a long-term, progressive disease that damages the balance and hearing parts of the inner ear. To address the paucity of information on which evidence-based treatment decisions should be made, a systematic review of acupuncture for Ménière's syndrome was undertaken. The method used was a systematic review of English and Chinese literature, from six databases for randomized,...

OBJECTIVE This Study observed the relevant brain areas activated by acupuncture at the Taichong acupoint (LR3) and analyzed the functional connectivity among brain areas using resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to explore the acupoint specificity of the Taichong acupoint. METHODS A total of 45 healthy subjects were randomly divided into the Taichong (LR3) group, sham a...