Hot Flash: Acupuncture Beats Drugs For Menopause
8 CommentsBy Ed Silverman // September 22nd, 2008 // 4:09 pm
Acupuncture works as well as Wyeth’s antidepressant to fight hot flashes and other menopausal symptoms caused by breast cancer treatment, and its benefits last longer without causing unwanted side effects, according to new research.
After 12 weeks of treatment, symptoms were reduced for another 15 weeks for women who underwent acupuncture, compared with two weeks for those given Effexor, according to Eleanor Walker of Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, who led the research and presented the findings at an American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology meeting.
There were no bad side effects with acupuncture, and women reported increased energy, overall sense of well-being and sexual desire, according to the researchers. Patients given Effexor reported side effects including nausea, headache, difficulty sleeping, dizziness, increased blood pressure, fatigue and anxiety. There were 47 patients in the study (here is the abstract).
“If you only have to give women treatment three to four times a year as opposed to having to take a pill every day, that’s going to be more cost-effective for insurance companies and the patient,” Walker tells Reuters. We should note, however, that the hospital’s Center for Integrative Medicine features acupuncture.
Breast cancer patients can develop menopausal symptoms such as hot flashes after treatment with chemotherapy and anti-estrogen hormones. Hormone replacement therapy is often used to treat such symptoms in women without breast cancer but, as Reuters explains, breast cancer patients cannot use that therapy because it may raise the risk of the cancer’s return.
Effexor is one of the most commonly used drugs to treat hot flashes in these women, although the researchers say some women opt not to take the drug and other antidepressants known as SSRIs over concerns about side effects.
Walker was unclear exactly how acupuncture is working, althoug some experts say it may help the activity of the body’s natural pain-killing chemicals among other things. The study was funded by the Susan Komen Foundation.
Thanks to Reuters
Jack2
If acupuncture was a “drug” and it was applying for approval it would not get it because there was no blinding in this study.
Nathan
Jack2, to be fair, how would you run a blinding study for acupuncture? There really isn’t a “placebo” you could give, is there?
Claire
@ Nathan, “sham acupuncture” has been used in several trial, e.g. here: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/05/050504101520.htm
laurie
“Jack2, to be fair, how would you run a blinding study for acupuncture? There really isn’t a “placebo” you could give, is there?”
roflmao!!! Yeah, those needles are hard to not notice!! Thanks Nathan, I needed that laugh this morning.
Dutch
I understand that acupuncture needles need to be placed in specific locations relating to energy flows. One could put “control needles” outside of these locations, right?
Marilyn Mann
What they were really doing in this study is comparing Effexor with acupuncture. That the acupuncture group did better doesn’t really tell us whether acupuncture helps with menopausal symptoms as compared to doing nothing. For one thing, I suspect that Effexor is not all that effective for menopausal symptoms, and there are those pesky side effects, including sexual dysfunction. Plus the study was too small to show anything definitive.
I’m not against people trying acupuncture if they want to. I’m just not sure it has any real effect that is not a placebo effect.
Orac
This study is utter crap. It’s not blinded, and it relies solely on self-reporting. It’s utterly worthless. I hate to see the Susan J. Komen Foundation wasting its money on this sort of fluff.
As for the issue of blinding, there are sham acupuncture needles that appear to enter the skin but do not. They are very convincing to patients and one variety can even fool practitioners. There is also “sham” acupuncture in which the needles are placed in the “wrong” locations (i.e., not along the so-called “meridians” where the qi flow needs to be unblocked). In fact, many studies have shown that there is no difference between this latter form of sham acupuncture and “real” acupuncture. Zero. Indeed, one study showed “sham” acupuncture to be better.
No, any acupuncture study without a sham control group is utterly worthless. Any acupuncture study. This one included.
Don
It’s interesting that when acupuncture works for this ailment or that, it’s often attributed to the placebo effect. Maybe that’s part of it; people often feel better the day they visit their MD, or for a day or 2 after visiting their MD. That’s placebo effect, too. Also, acupuncture works well on animals and children. How does the placebo effect explain that?
The human body is very complicated. It is dangerous to assume that one approach to helping the body heal is better than another. Perhaps both acupuncture (i.e., Chinese Medicine) combined with western medicine, will create the optimum outcome.