Academically, we agree with the recent Education and Practice paper by Zhou et al, which states that, for the treatment of musculoskeletal disorders, dry needling and acupuncture overlap greatly in their origin, techniques and theories, and dry needling is one subcategory of Western medical acupuncture, and is thus acupuncture. As current training and clinical practice of acupuncturists involve...

Basic research on high-tech acupuncture and integrative laser medicine has been successfully performed all over the world during the last decades, using a broad spectrum of innovative biomedical engineering methods. One of the main goals is to combine basic research on high-tech acupuncture with necessary further experimental and clinical pilot studies for the first time. Acupuncture has been u...

UNLABELLED Acupuncture is a form of Eastern medicine that has been practiced for centuries. Despite its long history and worldwide application, the biological mechanisms of acupuncture in relieving pain have been poorly defined. Recent studies in mice, however, demonstrate that acupuncture triggers increases in interstitial adenosine, which reduces the severity of chronic pain through adenosine...

Acupuncture and related techniques have increasingly been offered in conventional medical settings in Western societies. In Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein, Brazil, acupuncture has been integrated into the care pathways since October 2005. Since then, medical acupuncture has been offered for both inpatients and outpatients. Acupuncture has become an integrated therapeutic modality both for o...

BACKGROUND There is evidence that acupuncture activates different spinal and supraspinal antinociceptive systems, but the specific modulatory effects on the sensory system have not been systematically investigated. In this study, we evaluated the immediate effects of different types of acupuncture on thermal, mechanical, and vibratory sensory thresholds. METHODS Twenty-four healthy volunteers...

Objective. To evaluate the evidence for the effectiveness of acupuncture in peripheral joint osteoarthritis (OA). Methods. Systematic searches were conducted on Medline, Embase, AMED, Cochrane Library, CINAHL, British Nursing Index, PsychINFO and CAMPAIN until July 2005. Hand-searches included conference proceedings and our own files. There were no restrictions regarding the language of publica...

The aim of this paper was to provide reliable evidence by performing a systematic review and meta-analysis for evaluating the role of acupuncture in assisted reproductive technology. All randomized controlled trials that evaluated the effects of acupuncture, including manual, electrical, and laser acupuncture (LA) techniques, on the clinical pregnancy rate (CPR) and live birth rate (LBR) of in ...

The research on acupuncture has increased steadily over the years and regular review and revision of the direction of future acupuncture research are necessary. This paper aims to review and explore the significance of acupuncture depth in modern acupuncture research. Searches conducted in Science Direct and China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) databases reflected a lack of focus on d...

We investigated manual needle and laser needle acupuncture as a complementary therapy for patients with burnout syndrome. Twenty patients with a mean age ± SD of 38.7 ± 8.4 years were assigned to two groups, each consisting of ten patients. One group was treated with manual needle acupuncture and the other with laser needle acupuncture. Heart rate, heart rate variability (HRV), and a new score ...

BACKGROUND Although acupuncture is effective for treating several conditions, its site specificity is questionable. OBJECTIVE To investigate whether acupuncture influences the brainstem auditory evoked potentials (BAEP). METHODS 10 healthy volunteers were enrolled according to inclusion criteria. One of four acupuncture points-TE3, GB43 (both auditory system-specific, according to tradition...