electroacupuncture
oracknows | August 26, 2015It's always disappointing to see a good journal fall for bad medicine, particularly when it's in your field. For example, the Journal of Clinical Oncology (affectionately referred to by its abbreviation JCO) is the official journal of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and probably the most read clinical journal by those involved in the clinical care of cancer patients. Just as most oncologists, surgeons, and radiation oncologists who specialize in the care of cancer patients belong to ASCO, most of them also at least peruse JCO on a regular basis because major results of large…
oracknows | August 20, 2015Acupuncture is a theatrical placebo, but it's hard not to grudgingly admire just how—shall we say?—malleable or adaptable a placebo it is. What I mean by this is that, if you believe its practitioners and adherents, acupuncture can treat almost literally any disease or health problem. Any! Pain? Acupuncture. Allergies? Acupuncture. Biliary colic? Acupuncture. Infertility? Acupuncture. Menstrual problems? Acupuncture. Prostate problems? Acupuncture. Asthma? Acupuncture.
Well, maybe not asthma, but that doesn't stop acupuncturists from claiming that acupuncture can treat it.
Oh, and if you're a…
oracknows | July 23, 2015Back when I started this blog, I hadn't yet become aware of the phenomenon known as quackademic medicine. This phenomenon, as you recall, is the infiltration of academic medical institutions that should be bastions of science- and evidence-based medicine by outright quackery. In quackademic medicine, we see Very Respectable Academic Physicians and Scientists wasting their time studying faith healing like healing touch and reiki, prescientific medicine based on primitive vitalism such as traditional Chinese medicine and (of course) acupuncture, and even sympathetic magic like homeopathy. It's…
dr. dolittle | August 20, 2014 Image of electroacupuncture to the back from www.sandiegohealingarts.com
A new study published in AJP-Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology suggests that electroacupuncture to the abdominal region may prevent increases in blood sugar concentrations after a meal by affecting insulin sensitivity and circulating free fatty acid concentrations. Granted this is not comparative physiology research, I find it interesting that electrical stimulation can have such a large impact on metabolism, in mice at least.
Drs. Nicola Abate and Jiande Chen, lead investigators on this study, fed…