Acupuncture does work as it stimulates a natural pain killer, scientists find
Dr Maiken Nedergaard, a neuroscientist at the University of Rochester, New York, said: “Acupuncture has been a mainstay of medical treatment in certain parts of the world for 4,000 years, but because it has not been understood completely, many people have remained sceptical.
“In this work, we provide information about one physical mechanism through which acupuncture reduces pain in the body.
“What we found is that adenosine, a natural pain killer, is released during acupuncture and that adenosine may be the primary way acupuncture reduces pain.
“The most important observation is that acupuncture worked almost three times as long if we gave a drug that slow down the removal of adenosine.”
