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A year long study at Berlin’s Institute of Social Medicine has shown the acupuncture effectively helps people suffering from knee osteoarthritis. Patients getting real acupuncture had bigger improvements in knee pain and function than the other two groups (fake acupuncutre and no acupuncture) and reported significantly lower scores on pain and disability. Half of the real acupuncture group had improved their scores by at least 50%.  The same level of improvement was reported by 28% of those getting fake acupuncture and 3% of those on the waitlist (no acupuncture).  As more studies are being done, science continues to prove that acupuncture is an effective alternative medicine therapy for pain relief and arthritis.

Acupuncture May Help Knee Arthritis

By Miranda Hitti – WebMD Health News

July 7, 2005 — Acupuncture may offer some relief from osteoarthritis in the knee – at least in the short run.

Researchers report the finding in The Lancet. They studied nearly 300 people with knee osteoarthritis.

Acupuncture’s long-term effects on knee osteoarthritis now need to be tested, write the researchers. They included Claudia Witt, MD, of Berlin’s Institute of Social Medicine, Epidemiology, and Health Economics.

Osteoarthritis is the most common form of arthritis; it causes degeneration of body joints. It develops when cartilage, the lining of joints that allows smooth movement between opposing bones, starts to break down. Swelling and inflammation in the affected joint are a major cause of pain and disability. Osteoarthritis most often affects the fingers, hips, knees, feet, or spine.

Year-Long Study, 2-Month Treatment

Witt’s study lasted one year. Acupuncture treatments only lasted for eight weeks.

Some patients got 12 sessions of real acupuncture over eight weeks. Others got fake acupuncture treatments.

The fake acupuncture didn’t place or use needles correctly. Patients were told that two different types of acupuncture were being tested. They didn’t know that one procedure was phony.

For comparison, a third group didn’t get either treatment right away. Instead, they went on an eight-week waitlist for real acupuncture.

All patients were also allowed to take pain-relieving drugs during the study. Treatment for osteoarthritis is based on reducing pain and inflammation using anti-inflammatory medications and physical therapy.

Short-Term Results

Patients completed surveys about knee pain and functional disability eight weeks, six months, and one year into the study.

Real acupuncture came out on top in the first survey. Patients getting real acupuncture had bigger improvements in knee pain and function than the other two groups. Those receiving real acupuncture treatment reported significantly lower scores on pain and disability compared with participants in the other groups.

At eight weeks, about half of the real acupuncture group had improved their scores by at least 50%.

The same level of improvement was reported by 28% of those getting fake acupuncture and 3% of those on the waitlist, write the researchers.

Second Opinion

Acupuncture for knee osteoarthritis is also covered in a Lancet editorial.

“Certainly, a major benefit patients report is that acupuncture makes them feel better. Making patients feel better is important,” write biochemist Andrew Moore and colleagues. They work at the Pain Research Unit at Churchill Hospital in Oxford, England.

Possibly, some trials have failed to adequately measure that benefit, they continue.

But “we are still some way short of having conclusive evidence that acupuncture is beneficial in arthritis or in any other condition, other than in a statistical or artificial way,” write Moore and colleagues.

Source: http://www.webmd.com/osteoarthritis/guide/20061101/acupuncture-may-help-knee-arthritis

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