Acupuncture is a 2000 year old healing art that is empirically effective--meaning that time and again over hundreds of years and millions of patients, it has proven itself to be a method of healing that works. Our current allopathic medical care system (only about 100 years old) requires that for any therapy to be accepted into mainstream use (and insured), it must be scientifically proven, meaning that in controlled laboratory studies, its effectiveness is shown to be significant and consistent.

Once western medical institutions realized how many patients were using acupuncture, and how relatively inexpensive the therapy was compared to western treatments, many acupuncture studies began to be designed and were undertaken by patients just like you. Governnment financed research on acupuncture dates from the 1970's, about the time the treatment first started gaining popularity in the United States. Of the many different kinds of therapies, acupuncture was the first to be studied, and funds continue to be there to support the research. For example in 2004, the federal agency that studies health care issues (National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine) was granted $117 million to continue its study of complementary therapies such as acupuncture. The practitioners of this ancient healing art already know what will be discovered: that acupuncture is the most cost-effective, least side-effect creating, powerful, effective and useful therapy for chronic ailments (see the list above for more info), an area in which western medicine has no great answers, and usually suggests drastic measures such as drugs or surgery--with no certain outcome and often with dangerous side-effects.

While there is no substitute for western medicine in such acute care situations as: infection requiring antibiotics, broken limbs, heart attack, cuts requiring stitches, etc., acupuncture neatly fills the gap that is left by western medicine...those ailments that typically require medication to be managed: pain, asthma, high blood pressure, heart burn, depression, etc. But don't just take my word for it! Over time, the studies will show the effectiveness of acpuncture for many conditions....it's already been "proven" in the scientific studies that have been done to treat nausea following surgery and chemotherapy, and toothache. The integration of acupuncture into western medicine is inevitable!

Below are the results of studies done to show the effectiveness of acupuncture:

A study published in Fetal Diagnosis and Therapy (Nov.-Dec. 2003) concluded that women with breach babies treated with acupuncture were far more likely (76.4%) to have the fetus move to the proper delivery position than those not given acupuncture.

A researcher at Duke University, Dr. Tong G. Gan concluded in the journal Anesthesia & Analgesia (Sept. 2003) that acupuncture was far more effective for postoperative sickness and vomiting than Zofran, a widely used anti-nausea drug.

In an article published in the Journal of Traditional Chinese Medicine(March 2003), 50 patients with sciatica received acupuncture twice per week for 5 weeks. Only two patients out of 50 reported no improvement. 40% were completely cured and the remaining 56% had significant improvement.

In the Journal of Clinical Oncology (November 2003), a study reported that pain intensity levels of cancer-related pain decreased an average of 36% in those patients receiving ear acupuncture.

In the Winter 2004 issue of Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Neuroscience, a preliminary report stated that acupuncture promotes sleep in insomnia patients, noting that anxiety levels were lower and sleep efficiency and nighttime melatonin levels increased in 18 adult patients suffering from anxiety and insomnia.

Many more studies can be found on the internet by typing in any search engine "acupuncture research"