An article intended for practitioners of Chinese medicine:

We already know the power of acupuncture for digestive problems and in general, but this is not always reflected in studies.

The reasons for this are also budget: pharmaceutical companies have no interest in funding research into acupuncture, and also an attempt to take Western laws and apply them to Chinese acupuncture (i.e., pricking people with the same Western diagnosis at the same acupuncture points - of course this will not work because the acupuncture points must be determined through a Chinese differential diagnosis).

To all this we will add the Chinese studies, which are known to be insufficiently reliable and therefore are not published in reputable newspapers in the West.

The good news is that in recent years there have been studies that have succeeded in adhering to the Chinese diagnosis, thereby demonstrating effectiveness in the research and also maintaining the reliability of the research so that it can be published in the West in quality journals.

This week I came across a meta-analysis (review of studies) published in a quality journal of gastroenterologists: World Journal of Gastroenterology

The purpose of the review was to examine the effectiveness of non-pharmacological treatment methods for treating irritable bowel syndrome.

The treatment methods were compared with each other (for example, acupuncture versus probiotics) and also with drug treatment and placebo treatment.

I am happy to report that acupuncture was found to be the most effective method of all the treatment methods tested (medication, CBT, biofeedback, probiotics, and placebo).

The review also discussed the safety of Chinese acupuncture, which is a very important topic in the world of medicine.

Acupuncture was found to be the safest of the methods for which side effects have been reported (drug therapy, biofeedback, probiotics, moxibustion, and even placebo).

I am attaching the link to the article for those interested in delving into it.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7656202/

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