How does acupuncture work?

Last week when I was treating a patient, she asked this question, “So how does acupuncture work?”  It’s a question that I had asked as a student at the New England School of Acupuncture.
 
The truth is that we don’t actually know how acupuncture works from a Western medical perspective. East Asian medicine has a model that is vastly different from science, which focuses on separating the different parts of the body and has an emphasis on cause and effect.
 
Acupuncture looks at the body as a whole and focuses more on the relationship of a part to it’s whole.
 
Western Medicine is more absolute, Eastern Asian medicine more relative.  Because these models are so different, it’s difficult to explain one in terms of the other. 
 
That said, we do have some clues about how acupuncture works from a Western medical perspective.

• Acupuncture stimulates secretion of endorphins
• Acupuncture interrupts pain pathways in the brain
• Acupuncture may change the levels of neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine that are released by the nervous system.  This may explain why acupuncture helps people who are struggling with addiction and anxiety and depression.
• Studies on mice have shown that acupuncture has an impact on the immune system.  Neuroscientists at Harvard Medical School recently found that acupuncture quieted cytokine storms in mice with systemic inflammation – yes, the type that has been found in some Covid-19 cases.
• It’s been found that the connective tissue planes, form a network in humans that resembles the meridians described in Traditional Chinese Medicine.

 
All of this is exciting news because it offers confirmation of what I find when treating patients.  Pain decreases, the body goes into relaxed states, colds & flus last for shorter amounts of time.
 
Interested, intrigued by how this works and how it might help you?
 
I’m offering free 30 minute consultations.  Sign-up here.
 
With you in health,
Bonnie

Sources:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S200529011300174X
 
https://oshercenter.org/2020/08/26/harvard-study-finds-acupuncture-can-tame-cytokine-storms-in-mice/

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