Healthy Living
Acupuncture
By David Perlmutter, MD, FACN
After years of skepticism on the part of mainstream medicine, acupuncture now seems to be receiving the endorsement it has long deserved. A recent report by the National Institutes of Health endorsed acupuncture as an effective treatment for a wide variety of medical maladies including chronic pain, nausea, addiction, stroke rehabilitation, menstrual cramps, tennis elbow, headache, carpal tunnel syndrome, low back pain, asthma, and other medical problems. While mainstream medicine has been reluctant to embrace acupuncture's effectiveness, it has certainly demonstrated its appeal to more than one million Americans who spend more than $500 million dollars each year for acupuncture treatments.
Acupuncture is one of the oldest medical therapies still in use today. Historical accounts describe acupuncture being practiced in China as long ago as 1200 BC. Over the ensuing centuries, important modifications and refinements of the basic acupuncture technique were made, enhancing its effectiveness. Today, acupuncture continues to evolve utilizing modern innovations in technique including electrical stimulation of the acupuncture needles, laser acupuncture, and actual injection of various therapeutic medications into the acupuncture points.
In response to the growing demand for acupuncture in the United States, there are now about 4,000 American physicians using acupuncture as well as about 12,000 non-physician acupuncturists practicing in this country. Typically, acupuncture is considered a non-conventional form of medical therapy and therefore is not covered by many insurance plans. Hopefully, with the new endorsement from the National Institutes of Health, insurance coverage for this very useful and safe medical therapy will broaden. To obtain the full NIH consensus statement on acupuncture, contact the National Institutes of Health at (888) NIH-CONSENSUS, or visit the NIH Consensus Development Program.