Why acupuncture is a false therapy

There is no doubt that acupuncture is a very popular form of alternative therapy. Its roots go back thousands of years and millions of people living today have had acupuncture treatment and claim to have benefitted from it.

In addition, considerable research has been undertaken into the theory and practice of acupuncture and trials have taken place that appear to prove its efficacy as treatment for a very wide range of disease conditions, including infertility, chronic pain and the common cold. The wealth of evidence for its effectiveness as a safe therapy grows daily, it would appear. In addition, practitioners are regulated and overseen, and their training overseen by professional bodies in many countries of the world. Respected universities offer degree courses in the subject.

It would therefore seem foolhardy to claim that acupuncture is a false therapy. How can it be when all the evidence seems to point the other way?

It is important to consider in detail what the practitioners of acupuncture claim to be doing. If those claims are based on false premises, then any beneficial results that are experienced by acupuncture patients must arise for reasons other than those claimed by the practitioners. And if that is the case then acupuncture must be a false therapy, despite its results.

What is acupuncture?

Acupuncture claims to treat the individual rather than the disease. Disease, so the practitioners say, is a result of imbalance within the body, and, because the nature of that imbalance will be unique to the individual, the acupuncturist seeks to discover how the patient’s balance can be restored, which will in turn prompt the body’s natural healing mechanisms to turn back on.

At the heart of acupuncture is the idea that the body contains “meridians” or energy lines, along which flows a form of energy called “Qi”. When the body is out of balance the flow of Qi has been interrupted and needs to be encouraged to resume its rightful course.

The mechanism for re-establishing the flow of Qi is the insertion of narrow sterile needles into the skin, to various depths and at specific locations that are termed “acupuncture points”. The needles can then be manipulated until such time as the acupuncturist is convinced that Qi is being restored and they are then removed.

Is it safe?

Acupuncturists are trained to avoid harming patients by sticking needles into sensitive parts of the body or blood vessels, etc, but accidents can happen, especially if a needle is inserted too deeply. Different patients have different thicknesses of body fat, and it is impossible, without the use of aids such as X-rays, to be certain at what depth under the skin a particular organ or vessel might be located. Needles are sometimes inserted as deeply as seven or more centimetres, which is quite far enough to pierce a vital organ.

The locations of puncture points are based on ancient teachings that predate clinical anatomy by many centuries. Very few acupuncturists or their trainers have had “official” training in anatomy, so it might seem to be a matter of some courage to trust someone with such a background to stick a series of needles into your body!

So what exactly is Qi?

This is where the house of cards falls down, because nobody has ever been able to prove, in any scientific sense, that it exists at all. It is well known that the human body contains a complex network of nerves, along which impulses flow as a form of electricity, but this has nothing to do with the meridians or Qi.

Instead, the claim is that 14 channels connect the various organs of the body and Qi flows along these in a circular motion, although not at a constant rate. The time of day has much to do with when Qi will flow along a particular meridian. Needless to say, the system is extremely complicated and detailed, such that years of training and experience are needed to master it.

However, this energy is undetectable and unmeasurable. The meridians are invisible and only exist in the sense that meridians exist on a map. They would appear to be the bodily equivalent of ley lines in a geographical context, namely supposed to exist as transmitters of mystical energy but impossible to prove.

So how can acupuncture be a genuine therapy?

In two words, it can’t. As was mentioned above, if the foundation is false, the superstructure must be as well, and the foundation is clearly false. The apologists for acupuncture can make all the claims they like, but they cannot prove that Qi exists, because if it did it would run counter to the laws of physics and everything that is known about human anatomy and biology. No experiments can be devised that show Qi at work, and the acupuncture lobby cannot offer the evidence of clinical trials, conducted along recognised scientific lines, that prove a connection between the actions of an acupuncturist (i.e. the insertion and manipulation of needles) and a clinical benefit to a patient.

So why are there so many apparently satisfied customers?

There is no shortage of stories of patients who have undergone acupuncture and reported remarkable improvements in their condition, with the claims made by the practitioner being borne out in fact. This is, of course, true of any long-lived alternative therapy or medicine, in that it is supported by a huge body of supposed “evidence” in the form of satisfied customers. If this were not the case these practices would have died out long since.

However, there are a number of reasons why this might be so, none of which relate to the efficacy of the actual treatment itself.

One reason is simply false logic, based on “post hoc ergo propter hoc” (after this, therefore because of this). A condition exists, a treatment is applied and the condition disappears. The natural assumption is that the treatment caused the cure, but it could have been something else altogether, or the condition could have cleared up of its own accord. It is to be noted that people resort to acupuncture for treatment for muscular aches and pains, or the common cold, but these conditions can quite easily cure themselves, and it cannot be assumed that it was restoring one’s Qi balance that did the trick.

There is also the possibility that what makes the patient feel better (which is not the same as actually being better) has less to do with the treatment per se than with the circumstances under which the treatment is administered. There is a huge contrast between a rushed five-minute consultation with a GP (general medical practitioner) and an hour-long appointment with an acupuncturist, in relaxing and comfortable surroundings.

The acupuncturist offers a holistic treatment that involves a conversation to establish all the background and health issues of the patient. This is therefore part alternative therapy and part psychotherapy, in which the patient is listened to and made to feel important. There will then be a physical examination in which the practitioner handles the patient in the affected areas (and others), so this is also akin to massage. There are therefore factors other than the insertion of needles that might have a therapeutic effect.

Another vital factor is the placebo effect, which works in many contexts and has to do with the belief of the patient that they are going to get better because of the treatment they are receiving. Having a positive attitude to one’s condition is nearly always beneficial, not least because it will encourage the patient to do sensible things like eating and exercising properly. The effect is increased when the patient is spending good money on a treatment, because they have no wish to see their money wasted. An acupuncturist who charges high fees may get good results not because they are necessarily better than cheaper practitioners but because their clients are more motivated to improve through having spent more money!

In conclusion, claims that acupuncture works can have nothing to do with what the acupuncturist actually does in terms of needlework because this side of things is based on ancient non-scientific theories that cannot be proved or demonstrated. A genuine therapy can show its roots in science and its treatments can be repeated under experimental conditions. A false therapy is one that relies on mysterious unseen forces, the presence of which is only detectable by members of a privileged “magic circle”. On that basis, acupuncture is definitely a false therapy.