Can someone please explain to me the logistics of "placebo acupuncture"?
Do they stick you with fake needles? Hypnotize you and make your subconscious believe it happened?
(OK, OK, I do get it now, because I read enough of the article to get the explanation. Now I just want to know, who sits around and thinks "I wonder if you'd be more likely to get pregnant if we just convince you that you've had acupuncture instead of actually sticking you with needles"???) (Answer: someone who gets paid a lot more than I do, I'm sure.)
Next thing you know, you'll be able to get placebo massage therapy where they just pretend to touch you. But I'm sure someone's already trying to market that, anyway (or is that reiki?).
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Actually, the real kicker would be placebo reiki. That boggles even my mind -- which is saying something because I totally believe in reiki. :)
Can I get placebo labor and delivery! :-)
Hmmm... having not read the article, and having received tons of acupuncture, energy, and bodywork, the concept of a placebo anything makes perfect sense in terms of Chinese medicine, and an understanding of the body not being separate from the mind (i,e., when one views there is no distinction between body, spirit, and mind/ego/a separate self). If the Qi is convinced to flow, it will flow.
Western medicine (as its wont) seems to have documented the more pathological cases of mind over matter-- fake illnesses, even pregnancies with all the "symptoms", spontaneous and unexplained remissions of cancer, etc... etc...
For elaboration, please refer to the Tao of Physics, by Fritjof Capra.
OK... I just read the article... WTF kind of "scientific" study is this?
This "placebo" acupuncture is still stimulating the acupuncture points, even if it's in a different way, which makes it not a placebo. All this study seems to really conclude is that you can still stimulate an acupuncture point by pressing *on* it with a blunt needle rather than by inserting a needle. This isn't really news in the acupuncture community-- many people are encouraged to press on / stimulate points all the time by other means, either through pressure, pinching, suction, or moxa (special herb that focuses intense heat onto a point when burned). At least the researcher admits that "it's really hard to do a blind test for acupuncture"...
The placebo in this case really isn't. it's might be Chinese medical equivalent of substituting ibuprofin for acetometaphin. You're still treating the symptom, but in a different way.
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