Tension headaches eased by therapy without drugs

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Several types of nonpharmacologic treatment, including physical exercise, relaxation training, and acupuncture can provide long-lasting improvements for patients with chronic tension-type headaches, physical therapists in Sweden report.

Because the frequent use of pain medications can lead to chronic headaches, it is important that analgesics are discontinued as a first step in treating tension headaches, Dr. Elisabeth Soderberg and her associates report in the current issue of the journal Cephalalgia.

The research team, at Sahlgrenska Academy, Goteborg University, designed a study in which 90 patients, who had chronic tension-type headaches for an average of 7 years, were randomly assigned to physical training, relaxation training, or acupuncture. Chronic tension-type headache was defined as headache occurring at least 15 days per month for at least 6 months.

The trial began with a 4-week pretreatment period, during which time the subjects used diaries to document headache characteristics. They also kept diaries in the 4 weeks immediately after the training sessions and again 3 and 6 months after treatment.

Acupuncture was administered at recommended sites using 10 to 12 needles during 30-minute weekly sessions for 10 to 12 weeks.

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FOOD INTOLERANCE-TESTING TIMES

The largest ever study into food intolerance has been carried out across the UK.
The organisation- Allergy UK- carried out a survey on more than 5000 people reporting a wide range of chronic medical conditions. Many of them, said the organisation can be helped following a simple blood test and then the subsequent correct diet plan.

It's estimated forty five percent of the UK population suffers from some kind of food intolerance. For many it has little or negligible effect that people simply don't notice, but according to experts chronic sufferers have a tough time.

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Osteoarthritis Patients Treated with Acupuncture Show Significant Improvement

Magazine editorial encourages wider use for chronic pain conditions

October 30, 2006 – A large study of over 3500 osteoarthritis patients has found that those with chronic pain of the knee or the hip, who were treated with acupuncture in addition to routine care, showed significant improvements in symptoms and quality of life compared with patients who received routine care alone. And, the benefits continued after treatment. The report in Arthritis & Rheumatism also has an editorial that says this evidence proves acupuncture should get extensive use in various chronic pain conditions.

Osteoarthritis (OA) has a major impact on patients' mobility and quality of life but the anti-inflammatory drugs used to treat it are associated with a number of side effects, according to the artivle.

In recent years, patients have turned increasingly to acupuncture to relieve the chronic pain associated with OA. This new study examined the use of acupuncture as an extension of routine medical care and whether the effects of treatment last after therapy is discontinued.

Led by Claudia M. Witt of the University Medical Center in Berlin, Germany, researchers conducted a randomized, controlled trial of a large number of patients with chronic pain due to OA of the knee or hip. Between July 2001 and July 2004, a total of 3,553 patients were divided into three groups: 322 immediately received up to 15 sessions of acupuncture in the initial three month period; 310 controls received no acupuncture for the first three months; and 2,921 (those who did not consent to randomization) received the same treatment as the acupuncture group.

Each patient was followed for a total of six months and the control group received acupuncture during the last three months of their study period. The Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC) and a health-related quality of life survey (Short Form 36) were used to measure outcomes when the study began and at three and six months.

"Patients with chronic pain due to OA of the knee or the hip who were treated with acupuncture in addition to routine care showed significant improvements in symptoms and quality of life compared with patients who received routine care alone," the authors state.

This was true for both the randomized and the non-randomized groups. Furthermore, patients in the control group who received acupuncture only after three months showed similar improvements at six months. In addition, WOMAC and SF-36 scores at six months were only slightly lower than at three months for those receiving acupuncture right away.

Although the study was not a blind trial, its design was chosen to reflect general medical practice. It was one of the largest randomized trials of acupuncture to date and based in part on the results, the German Federal Committee of Physicians and Health Insurers is considering a proposal that acupuncture will be reimbursed by state health insurance funds. If approved, it will probably be provided as a routine medical option in treating OA.

The authors conclude that "the present results show that, in patients with chronic pain due to OA of the knee or hip who were receiving routine primary care, addition of acupuncture to the treatment regimen resulted in a clinically relevant and persistent benefit."

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Acupuncture relieves symptoms of fibromyalgia

A Mayo Clinic study found that acupuncture reduces the symptoms of fibromyalgia.Fibromyalgia is a disorder considered disabling by many, and is characterized by chronic, widespread musculoskeletal pain and symptoms such as fatigue, joint stiffness and sleep disturbance. No cure is known and available treatments are only partially effective.The study involved 50 fibromyalgia patients enrolled in a randomized, controlled trial to determine if acupuncture improved their symptoms. Symptoms of patients who received acupuncture significantly improved compared with the control group.The study is published in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings." The results of the study convince me there is something more than the placebo effect to acupuncture, " says David Martin, lead author of the acupuncture article and a Mayo Clinic anesthesiologist. " It affirms a lot of clinical impressions that this complementary medical technique is helpful for patients."

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Acupuncture 'cuts arthritis pain'

By Nigel Hawkes

ACUPUNCTURE can ease the pain and disability caused by arthritis, a study in Germany has indicated.

Previous trials have shown that acupuncture can relieve pain, but many have been small and it is difficult to decide whether the benefits identified are simply the result of the placebo effect.

The German study, published in Arthritis & Rheumatism, compared the experience of 357 patients given immediate acupuncture with a further 355 whose treatment started three months later.

Benefits were measured on the WOMAC scale, a widely used scale of disease severity which measures pain, stiffness, and how well the joint works. At the start of treatment the patients’ scores on the scale were about 50.

After 15 sessions in the first three months, the patients treated with acupuncture had WOMAC scores of about 30, while the control group still waiting for treatment remained about 50.

After adjusting for other factors, the improvement in the score was 36 per cent. After six months the control group, which began its treatment three months later, showed the same level of improvement. In all cases normal care continued alongside the acupuncture treatments.

The researchers, led by Claudia Witte, of the Charité University of Medicine in Berlin, concluded that adding acupuncture to the normal treatment regimes — which generally consists of anti-inflammatory drugs — produced “a clinically relevant and persistent benefit”.

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Hypnosis and Acupuncture Show Promise for Labor Pain

By Taunya English, Science Writer
Health Behavior News Service

A review of non-drug pain relief therapies suggests that hypnosis and acupuncture may ease labor pain.

“There is too little research to assess how effective many complementary therapies will be with pain management in labor,” said lead study author Caroline Smith. Further research is needed, she said, but “the results concerning acupuncture and hypnosis are encouraging.”

In addition to hypnosis and acupuncture, the review examined the effects of massage, relaxation, aromatherapy, acupressure and white noise on pain relief. But the review did not turn up enough evidence to determine if any of the other therapies bring women significant comfort.

The meta-analysis compiles data from 14 studies that included more than 1,400 women. Five studies examined hypnosis, while three studies gauged acupuncture’s effect on pain relief.

“More robust research and more research trials have been undertaken for these two therapies versus the other treatments,” said Smith, a research fellow at the University of Adelaide in Australia.

The review appears in the current issue of The Cochrane Library, a publication of The Cochrane Collaboration, an international organization that evaluates research in all aspects of health care. Systematic reviews draw evidence-based conclusions about medical practice after considering both the content and quality of existing trials on a topic.

Hypnosis reduces the need for drug pain relief in labor, lessens the need for medications that augment labor and increases the number of spontaneous vaginal births, according to the available data. The women treated with acupuncture reported more satisfaction with their labour pain management versus the mothers who did not receive that treatment, the review found.

Before these findings can be confidently put into practice, Smith said, she’d like to see better-designed trials on hypnosis and acupuncture.

Other gauges of the effectiveness of the labor pain-relief therapies included clinical outcomes like the length of labor, the need to use instruments to assist labor and trauma to the perineum.

Seattle-area doula and childbirth educator Penny Simkin — who was not involved in the Cochrane review — said “many of my students choose to use acupuncture, but mostly it’s the ones who give birth outside the hospital.”

Women who give birth at home or in a community birth center are more likely to use acupuncture, Simkin said, because acupuncture practitioners rarely have treating privileges at hospitals. That limited access is a barrier to treatment that has worked well for pain management, Simkin said.

“This Cochrane review might lower that barrier a little bit,” said Simkin, a faculty member at the Seattle Midwifery School.

A doula provides informational, emotional and physical comfort to women during labor and birth, while a healthcare professional attends to the medical needs of the laboring mother and child. Simkin said a large part of her job is helping women with pain management so they don’t become overwhelmed or panicked.

“When we talk about pain relief, acupuncture can induce a very impressive sense of relaxation,” she said. “So I think that it does have a place and I think that it is gaining in respect in leaps and bounds in this country,”

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Chinese acupuncture can cure 461 diseases, expert reports

Tianjin, Oct. 14 (Xinhua): Chinese acupuncture can cure 461 diseases, said an expert with Chinese Acupuncture Clinic Research Center in north China's Tianjin city.
Du Yuanhao, 43-year-old doctor, gave the conclusion after four-year's study on the acupuncture functions together with his team.
According to Du's findings, most of the diseases to which acupuncture is effective are in the nervous system, the digestive system, the genitourinary system, muscles, bones and skins, such as stroke, diarrhea, enteritis, dementia and skin rashes.
The points for acupuncture are in flesh, and that is why the treatment can be effective to diseases in muscles and skins, Du said. "Besides, points are rich in nerves. Thus it can also cure diseases in the nervous system and other systems whose functions are directly controlled by nerves."
Although acupuncture is convenient and with less side effects compared with other forms of medical treatment, it couldn't cure every disease. As for these 461 diseases, Du noted, its effects are different.
The professor is now working at classification for the 461 diseases. "I am going to categorize them into three levels -- those could be cured solely by acupuncture, those to which acupuncture is the major treatment and those with acupuncture as assisting treatment. Acupuncture is part of traditional Chinese medicine with a history of over 2,000 years. It involves insertion of fine metallic needles on the body to relieve pain and cure diseases.