Electroacupuncture reduces inflammation

Applying a small electric current to the needles inserted at the points determined by traditional Chinese medicine serves to reduce indicators of systemic inflammation, according to a team of American and Chinese scientists, led by Dr. Ma Qiufu of Harvard University.

The research, published in the journal Neuronhelps to understand the neuroanatomical foundations of acupuncture and to discover New effective pain treatments.

“Western medicine has focused on blocking neural pain pathways to relieve symptoms, but there are other pain pathways and other ways to address them,” Ma says. One of them is attack inflammation, which is the cause of the processes that lead to pain and the development of many diseases.

Acupuncture is able to modulate inflammation

Dr. Ma set out to investigate with a team of leading scientists whether electrical stimulation by acupuncture could modulate inflammation in laboratory mice.

The researchers applied 3 milliamps for 15 minutes at a specific point in the abdomen, the acupoint called ST25, associated with the spleen and the immune response.

Then they provoked inflammation in the animals with an injection of lipopolysaccharides and verified that blood levels of inflammatory molecules were lower than in the control group. The mice’s survival rates also more than doubled.

Scientists believe that electroacupuncture stimulates the production of norepinephrine in the nerves that connect the spine and the spleen. The norepinephrine then activated a type of receptor in the spleen that suppressed the pro-inflammatory molecules.

However, when the electroacupuncture treatment is done after the inflammatory process has been triggered, the effect is negative, since the inflammation is further accentuated.

The effect depends on the intensity and the points chosen

“We were very surprised to find that the same action has completely opposite results at different stages of the disease,” says Ma.

This finding could lead one to think that electroacupuncture could be counterproductive as a treatment, something that does not correspond to the clinical experience of acupuncturists. So the researchers then applied electroacupuncture at a weaker intensity and at a different point, this time on the mice’s hind legs. They found that stimulation at a low intensity of 0.5 mA for 15 minutes could significantly reduce the levels of pro-inflammatory molecules both before and after LPS injection.

In this case, low-level electroacupuncture on the hind legs it acts through another neural pathway and the adrenal glands.

“Our study illustrated that electroacupuncture has a neuroanatomical basis, but its efficacy and safety in humans need to be validated in clinical trials,” Ma concludes. “There are still many unanswered questions about this medical practice and therefore much room for further research.”

The research work was supported by grants from the US Health Administration, by the Harvard/MIT Joint Research Program in Basic Neuroscience, and by the Wellcome Trust.

How does acupuncture work?

The study proves that little is still known about how acupuncture actually works.

Traditional Chinese medicine explains that acts on the flow of chi, vital energy, through channels (meridians) existing in the body. But Western scientific medicine has not been able to describe these channels or visualize or measure vital energy.

That is why the investigations try to determine how the needles act on the production of neurotransmitters and hormones or on the activity of the immune system.

Many Western acupuncturists view acupuncture points as places to stimulate nerves, muscles, and connective tissues. Some believe that this method stimulates the body’s natural pain relievers, as indicated by several scientific studies.

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