An article intended for practitioners of Chinese medicine:

It's been a long time since I wrote about research here, and I want to update you on a new and interesting study that was published in the medical journal: Frontiers In Medicine 4 months ago.

The study tested the effectiveness of acupuncture on 170 people with persistent irritable bowel syndrome.

What does stubborn sensitive gut mean?

According to the researchers, this is a condition in which people have had irritable bowel syndrome for at least 12 months with symptoms of diarrhea/constipation or loose stools. The people who entered the study did not respond to dietary therapy that lasted at least 6 weeks nor to medication that they took for at least 6 weeks.

They were divided into two groups: real acupuncture and placebo acupuncture.

The acupuncture points that were pricked in the real acupuncture group were ST25, ST37, ST36, PC6. The treatments lasted 30 minutes and the patients received 12 treatments over 4 weeks (yes, three treatments per week. I will write down what I have to say about that later).

The placebo group also received 12 "real" acupuncture treatments (the needles were inserted into the skin) lasting 30 minutes, but at points that were not real acupuncture points.

Follow-up is then performed for another 4 weeks to see if the results of the treatment are maintained.

The results are quite amazing:

The score on the IBS-SSS questionnaire - a questionnaire that tests the severity of irritable bowel symptoms - decreased after 4 weeks by 140 points in the real acupuncture group, compared to a decrease of 64.4 in the placebo group (in the attached table you can also see the response according to each symptom separately: intensity of pain and discomfort in the abdomen, frequency of pain, satisfaction with bowel movements, and more).

After four weeks of treatment, the percentage of patients who improved by 50% was 63.5 percent in the real acupuncture group compared to 16.5 percent in the placebo group.

The improvement continued in the real acupuncture group even after another 4 weeks in which no treatments were performed.

The quality of life questionnaire also showed differences. In the real acupuncture group, the score on the questionnaire after 4 weeks of treatment decreased by 13 points. In the placebo group, the score after 4 weeks decreased by 4.5 points (which shows a significantly improved quality of life in the real acupuncture group).

So a few words of conclusion...

1. We know that acupuncture works, but specifically in sensitive intestines, it has not always been proven in studies, which is why I am happy to see that there is research on a large group of people that can be presented.

2. The acupuncture points are not the ones I would choose in the clinic, but apparently the fact that the acupuncture was done 3 times a week had a positive effect and caused a positive result. In the clinic I use stronger points (in my opinion) and one treatment per week is enough in most cases.

3. It is usually customary in studies to end the study at once and check after a few weeks whether the improvement is maintained or not. In my experience, it is very important to gradually increase the treatments in order to maintain the improvement achieved.

I am attaching a link to the research abstract. To join a WhatsApp group for Chinese medicine practitioners with information on treating digestive problems, click here