By Sayer Ji
An astonishing new study has found that acupuncture, the age-old practice of using needles to stimulate physical self-healing, is more effective than intravenous morphine for pain.
A truly groundbreaking study published in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine titled: “Acupuncture versus intravenous morphine in the treatment of acute pain in the emergency department,” reveals that acupuncture – one of the oldest techniques for treating pain – is more effective, relieves pain faster and has fewer adverse effects than intravenous morphine.
The study was conducted over a year at Fattouma Bourguiba University Hospital in Tunisia, a tertiary care facility with more than 100,000 emergency department (ED) visits per year.
300 ED patients with acute pain were included in the study: 150 in the morphine group (administered up to 15 mg per day) and 150 in the acupuncture group. The two groups were comparable in terms of age, gender and comorbidities, with the only significant difference being that there were more patients with abdominal pain in the morphine group and more cases of lower back pain in the acupuncture group.
The striking results were reported as follows:
“The success rate was significantly different between the two groups (92% in the acupuncture group versus 78% in the morphine group Pb 0.01). Recovery time was 16 ± 8 minutes in the acupuncture group versus 28 ± 14 minutes in the morphine group. The difference was statistically significant (Pb = 0.01). The mean absolute difference in pain score between the two groups was 7.7. This difference is not clinically significant because the minimum clinically significant absolute difference reported by Todd et al. is 13. In the morphine group, the mean total dose of morphine administered was 0.17 ± 0.08 mg/kg (Table 2).
The change in pain scale from baseline at each time point in the two groups is shown in the figure. From the 5-minute time point onwards, the acupuncture group reported a significantly greater reduction in pain compared to the morphine group. This difference persisted throughout the study period. Change in blood pressure, heart rate, RR and oxygen saturation was not significant in either group.
A total of 89 patients (29.3%) experienced minor side effects: 85 (56.6%) in the morphine group and 4 (2.6%) in the acupuncture group.; the difference was significant between the two groups (Table 3). The most common side effect was dizziness in the morphine group (42%) and needle breakage in the acupuncture group (2%). No major adverse effect was recorded during the study protocol. (See Table 4.)”
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In short, the acupuncture group saw a great pain-relieving effect, which occurred faster, with significantly fewer side effects.
A graph from the study showing the pain-reducing differences between morphine and acupuncture
Discussion
Since 1996, the World Health Organization has recognized acupuncture as a safe and effective therapy for the treatment of a wide range of conditions, including pain and discomfort.1 Despite this, the use of acupuncture within the conventional standard of care is still extremely rare. There is deep skepticism toward therapeutic modalities that nevertheless have a clearly characterized mechanism of action as defined by conventional biomedical understanding and terminology. Instead, its therapeutic effects are often dismissed as mere ‘placebo’.
However, placebo is not as diminutive as it may seem at first glance. The placebo effect actually reflects the deep power and regenerative ability of the body and mind to heal itself. And since its power translates directly into real, measurable improvements in terms of clinical outcomes, it doesn’t matter whether we fully understand ‘how’ it works. Also consider that evidence-based (EB) medicine is not only completely dependent on clinical outcomes as definitive proof of an intervention’s efficacy, but the entire EB drug model is also dependent on ‘controlling’ for the placebo effect, as is already the case. There is a tacit recognition of its enormous power in influencing the outcomes of most interventions. And so the question of whether or not a fully known or plausible ‘mechanism of action’ has been identified is secondary to whether or not it works in clinical practice.
Acupuncture is one of the most extensively supported alternative modalities, with clinical trial data supporting its value in more than 100 different conditions. If you search pubmed.gov you will find more 6,700 published studies related to the keywords ‘pain’ and ‘acupuncture’. You can view the primary literature we have collected on this topic on the GreenMedInfo.com Acupuncture Portal:
Click to access the Acupuncture Database at GreenMedInfo.com
The new research clearly shows that acupuncture can play a powerful role in pain management. With millions of people around the world addicted to pain-relieving medications, acupuncture is perfectly positioned to offer patients a proven, drug-free alternative. As you can see from the study’s graph, the comparison of side effects is staggeringly in favor of acupuncture as the safer modality.
Finally, here are the strong conclusions of the study:
Our study showed that in patients with acute pain syndromes presenting to the emergency department, acupuncture is at least as effective and has a better safety profile than intravenous morphine. The results of this study suggest that acupuncture may have a potential role in the management of acute pain conditions in emergency departments and appears to be safe and effective. Future studies should be conducted in international populations. “
For additional research on natural pain relief options, visit our database on this topic:
Click to access the Pain database at GreenMedInfo.com
References
1 World Health Organization. Acupuncture: review and analysis of controlled clinical trial reports; 2002.
Sayer Ji is the founder of Greenmedinfo.comauthor of international bestseller REGENERATE: Unlock your body’s radical resilience through new biologyco-founder of Stand for health freedom (501c4), and UNITE.live, a global multimedia platform for conscious creators and their communities.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. The opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of GreenMedInfo or its employees.
Source: GreenMedInfo
This article is copyrighted by GreenMedInfo LLC, 2023
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