• Ephera
    link
    fedilink
    27
    edit-2
    6 months ago

    Difficult to prove whether acupuncture is placebo or not, because you can’t really make a control group believe that they’ve been poked with needles without actually poking them with needles.

    But at the very least, you are poking people with needles, so unlike homeopathy, it will have some non-placebo effect. The question is rather whether that’s the medicinal effect you’re trying to achieve.

    Having said that, I’ve had acupuncture, because my mum dragged me there. I was not convinced that it’d help, yet it did reduce pain. That still does not fully exclude the possibility of a placebo effect, but it seems rather unlikely to me either way.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      196 months ago

      You could let the control group be poked at random places instead of whatever the acupuncture manual says.

      • @lunarul
        link
        22
        edit-2
        6 months ago

        In a 2018 review, data from 12 studies (8,003 participants) showed acupuncture was more effective than no treatment for back or neck pain, and data from 10 studies (1,963 participants) showed acupuncture was more effective than sham acupuncture. The pain-relieving effect of acupuncture was comparable to that of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs).

        https://www.nccih.nih.gov/health/acupuncture-what-you-need-to-know

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          16 months ago

          So you can spend 10 minutes to an hour getting poked with needles or you can just pop an ibuprofen.

      • @AnUnusualRelic
        link
        26 months ago

        I think that it’s been tried and did yield similar effects. Unsurprisingly.

        • @zik
          link
          76 months ago

          I remember many years ago New Scientist magazine did a review study of many different alternative medicine techniques and found that the only benefits they provided were placebo effect.

          Except acupuncture. That was the only one with an effect greater than placebo.

    • @MisterFrog
      link
      26 months ago

      Physiotherapists use a form of acupuncture called dry needling, which can be used to trigger muscle twitching/relaxation (I’m not really super knowledgeable on it, I’ve just been to the physio, who use this in combination with massage, specific exercises etc)

      It’s certainly not placebo

      As for all the other claims made, I dunno.