Astana used acupuncture

Simon E, quite frankly you
Simon E, quite frankly you either believe in the scientific method, or you don’t. Whilst you can say that science doesn’t have all the answers, there actually have been studies done about most of the alternative medicine nonsense, which have shown they have no effect. On the contrary to your statement above, the fact that no affect has been shown via scientific testing is strong, not weak.

You could just as well hand wave it and say “well my nan once ate a wood louse and it cured her appendicitis so therefore woodlice cure appendicitis”. In fact if you said that you would be more likely to be right since at least there haven’t been any studies disproving such a link (at least I haven’t seen any).

As I stated above, and Al_s did too, the placebo effect is real, and can make a real difference to people’s lives. But treatments relying it can also be dangerous, for example people relying on homeopathy to cure their cancer.

Yes treatments other than drugs can effect change. However, to determine what works and what doesn’t we have scientific double blind testing. Some things have been proven to work. Others, including osteopathy, chiropracty, homeopathy, etc etc, have been proven not to work. It’s as simple as that.

faceplant wrote:Your

faceplant wrote:

Your experience is a perfect illustration of the placebo effect. You received some kind of treatment, which you hoped or expected would relax you.

Actually, I had no hopes or expectations about the acupuncture, if I had have known that it was going to happen I would have dismissed it as utter nonsense. It’s not something I would have signed up for. However, my first thoughts on this bout of acupuncture matched my first words, which were “what the fuck are you doing?” as I looked down at a number of needles in my achilles and leg.

@ronin: 2 points:
1) The
@ronin: 2 points:

1) The plural of anecdote is not data. I once had a nasty cold that persisted for weeks – none of the normal treatments were working, so one night I decided to get smashed on whisky. The next morning, once my hangover cleared, my cold was completely cured! Clearly, this is objective and universal proof that getting smashed on whisky is a completely valid cure for the common cold!

2) We’re not talking about Al_S’ knowledge on the subject of acupuncture, we’re talking about a scientific method that has been in gestation for thousands of years and demands that, for things to be accepted as objective truth, they should be measured against objective measures. That, along with a massive body of published and peer-reviewed studies generated using that method – that represents rather more knowledge than Al_S has to retain in his head for any length of time.

Despite the application of thousands of studies, using these methods, to acupuncture there is no consensus that it is any more effective as a treatment than taking a big red sugar pill or having someone in a white coat say “There, there, you’ll feel better tomorrow”. That’s not to say it isn’t effective (see my post above)…

faceplant wrote:No, because

faceplant wrote:

No, because acupuncture is supposed to be needles (or other stimulation) inserted in specific places they call “acupoints”. In fact, it turns out that you can stick needles in anywhere and have the same effect. Indicating that the effect is caused by the expectation of benefit, and hence, is the placebo effect.

But they weren’t stuck in anywhere, they were stuck in to the skin of the patients. You could say that the test was a test of whether someones Qi or energy flows through their organs is bollocks, but I still remain unconvinced that acupuncture in terms of putting needles in to the skin is the hokum that the study suggests it is.

I couldn’t tell you anything about acupoints to save my life, but the sensations from having needles put in to me felt very, very real. The relaxing properties afterwards were very similar to that of more illegal methods, which was a pleasant bonus.

faceplant wrote:

edit: I should note as adamthekiwi says above, the placebo effect can be beneficial, but it’s no reason to buy in to bad science. Otherwise it’s a slippery slope back to charms to ward off the plague.

Although, don’t you think we shouldn’t just throw the baby out with the bathwater in terms of medical treatments just because they are old or seemingly old fashioned? Isn’t there an increase in the number of doctors using leeches again?

You go to the doctor, you sit
You go to the doctor, you sit waiting because their appointments are over running, you get hurried in, they listen to you and if it sounds like they can, they’ll issue you a prescription and hurry you out. This will be a rather “clinical” situation.

You visit a quack, they’ll have longer appointments, and will sit you down, relax you, maybe have soothing music etc.

(can’t find the reference) the best acupuncture studies that have been done have had the patients split four ways. Half get their treatment in “traditional” acupuncture settings, half in a more clinical environment. Half get the needles stuck in the places that the acupuncturists say they should be, half get them stuck in arbitrary places.

If acupuncture had any effect beyond placebo (which can be beneficial, but there’s ethical issues about giving someone a treatment which you tell them works but you know has- and can’t have- any scientific basis) then the groups getting “real” acupuncture, both in the relaxed and clinical settings, would see a benefit. But what is found is that those in the relaxed setting, be it “real” or “sham” acupuncture, get a benefit. Which is interesting as far as considering how treatment rooms should be designed and run, but that’s another matter.

This idea that “traditional Chinese medicine” and similar has some sort of validity because it uses ideas that have been around for “thousands” of years is utter toss. Modern medicine uses ideas that have been around for thousands of years, just refined, researched and put under proper scrutiny. We’ve ditched lots of ideas that had been around for a long time because they were wrong- the idea of “bile”, the idea that the heart does any sort of thinking, and so on.

Apologies if this is tl;dr –
Apologies if this is tl;dr – if it is, well, tl;dr!

Actually, placebo is a very effective treatment. I can’t recall the paper off the top of my head (it was a published, peer-reviewed study and I will dig it out if anyone is interested) but patients given a pill *and told it was a placebo* showed a measurable improvement in a variety of pathologies. Interestingly, if I remember the contents correctly, the most effective placebo pills were large red or yellow ones.

Doctors can be effective placebos too – again, I’ll dig out the study if anyone is interested, but a doctor saying “You’ll be better in no time” has much better outcomes than a doctor who says “I’m not sure this treatment will work for you”.

My understanding is that acupuncture has inconsistent results in evidence-based testing, partly because of the difficulty in designing experiments with a control group for such an invasive procedure. Chiropracty and osteopathy are theoretically junk, but have some good results for musculo-skeletal pain.

Essentially, it may well be that any team could get the same results as Astana by employing someone that the riders trust as a professional to give them a big red sugar pill and tell them they’re definitely going to win! It will work brilliantly until the other teams uncover it as a method!

If acupuncture was the only
If acupuncture was the only thing I’ll be delighted… It’s doesn’t work beyond placebo as recently demonstrated in this study http://www.badscience.net/2007/09/acupuncture-and-back-pain-some-interesting-background-references/#more-540 where “needles stuck anywhere with a bit of ceremony” was contrasted with “proper acupuncture” both worked… = placebo effect.

We know that placebo does actually help up to a point, but to my mind it isn’t cheating.

Al__S wrote:It’s quackery,

Al__S wrote:

It’s quackery, pure and simple. Even supposedly “scientific” Garmin-Sharp employ a chiropractor. So much quackery and magical thinking going on.

My teacher taught me this:

If you don’t know something, it’s simply more than you know.

My master taught me:

To say “I don’t know” is half of knowledge.

You can’t possible know everything, so perhaps you have no experience of acupuncture. If you do, let’s hear it. If not let me share my experience with you.

I was very fit when I was young, training all the time, like crazy. I can’t remember how, but my index finger started being very cold and I couldn’t bend it properly, whereas the others were OK.
I went to see the doctor, he gave me some cream. It didn’t work after weeks. Someone recommended me to see an acupuncturist. It was back to normal in days.

Not all are good though, and it can’t treat everything.

The human body is quite complex. Now doctors are talking of circadian rhythms and perhaps giving medicine when the body is most able to use it properly to increase the effectiveness of it. This was well known in Chinese medicine a good thousand years ago.

I could tell you things that your mind would reject simply because you cannot perceive them. Does that make them not true?