Acupuncture, Pain Reduction, & Lupus

How does acupuncture work? Many researchers believe that acupuncture works through the placebo effect. Even though a therapy might not chemically or physically change anything in the body, it can cause a change in symptoms – even a major improvement – because the person believes that it will work. The placebo effect is very powerful, and new medications and therapies are often compared to control groups given a “sham” therapy, such as sugar pills or non-medicated IV fluid. Support for the theory that the placebo effect causes the benefits of acupuncture comes from a number of studies where acupuncture was compared to “sham” acupuncture interventions. In many of these studies, the “sham” interventions were just as effective as traditional acupuncture. But not all researchers believe that the placebo effect is the mechanism for this benefit. A 2012 meta-analysis explored the effectiveness of acupuncture in 29 randomly controlled trials. These studies found that acupuncture reduced pain by 50% while sham acupuncture only caused a 43% pain reduction. The researchers concluded that the entire benefit could not be ascribed to placebo effect alone.

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