Pinpoint: The Acupuncture Tip Sheet

Acupuncture has long been known to lessen chronic pain, but the mechanics have not been well understood. So it's big news that University of Michigan researchers have used brain imaging to prove that, post-pricking, the binding ability of opioid receptors was enhanced. It's likely that pain medication works more efficiently when used in tandem with acupuncture, a finding which has promising implications for the treatment of conditions such as fibromyalgia; the study's subjects were women suffering from the disorder.

In Other News:

Wake Up Happy
A physician at the Duke University Medical Center uses acupuncture to reduce debilitating side effects of general anesthesia. Patients treated before and during surgery feel better afterwards and recover more quickly. Another benefit--and a cost-effective one--is that these patients often need fewer pain-killing drugs both during the procedures and post-op.

A Better Birth Experience
Childbirth can be more manageable with acupuncture. A recent European study compared the use of acupuncture via transcutaneous electric nerve stimulation (TENS) with traditional analgesics during delivery. Pain levels and duration of labor were comparable in both groups, and the women in the TENS group used significantly fewer pharmacological and invasive methods. Their newborns performed better on the health-assessing Apgar test, too.