Acupuncture may help to treat addictions
Scientists from the Yale School
of Medicine in the United States
believe that they have evidence
that addictions may be controlled using acupuncture.
The study, published in the
Archives of Internal Medicine
(2000;160:2305-12), showed that
auricular acupuncture may have
a part to play in treating cocaine
addiction. Out of 82 cocaine
dependent patients, 57% of
whom were men and 43%
women, 54.8% of those receiving acupuncture had no trace of
cocaine in their urine compared
with 24% and 9% in the two
control groups.
(AP PHOTO/LAURA RAUCH)
Acupuncture is a traditional
Chinese procedure, which uses
thin needles inserted into selected points beneath the skin. All
the patients who took part in the
study were randomly assigned to
three groups. The first group
underwent auricular acupuncture, which consisted of pins
being inserted into parts of the
ear thought to be important in
addictions. The second group
received a needle-insertion control treatment to areas of the
body that are not considered to
have any therapeutic effect,
while the third group were subjected to a relaxation treatment
of visual imagery and music.
The treatment regimen was
carried out for five days a week
over an eight week period.
Urine was collected three times
a week while the patients continued to undergo treatment.
The samples were analysed,
using an immunoassay technique, for the presence of a
cocaine metabolite.
The researchers say the findings suggest that acupuncture
shows potential for treating
cocaine dependence. They
acknowledge, however, that
there are several limitations,
which included the difficulty in
evaluating the acupuncture procedure within a controlled study.
The research follows a survey
of several GPs in which just
under half said that they were
recommending acupuncture to
their patients. This suggests that
the complementary technique is
more widely used than may have
been previously acknowledged.
Richard Tingay, London
studentBMJ 2000;08:395-434 November ISSN 0966-6494
