Creating this thread based on some comments made in the Chandler Parsons back spasms thread in the GARM: http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=247652 Probably my fault, but I started a small discussion/debate the effectiveness of acupuncture. I didn't want to keep that stuff in the GARM (this has little to do with Parsons or the Rockets specifically, and I don't want to detract from the wonderful discussions about James Haren and Coach McFail). To restate what I said in that thread, acupuncture does not work, and I'm a little disappointed that training staffs like the Rockets endorse usage of pseudoscience. I'm not exactly surprised though since pseudoscience and sports tend to go hand in hand (Power Balance anyone?). Here's some research about it: http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/acupuncture-doesnt-work/ Excerpt from that article: More analysis of research: http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/acupuncture-revisited/ http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org...re-is-nothing-more-than-an-elaborate-placebo/ Following up on a post in the other thread: If it works, it would be pretty easy to demonstrate with (strong) studies. I don't know how ACL surgery works, or how exactly shots of morphine reduce pain, but research seems to pretty strongly indicate those treatments work ("sham" ACL surgery/morphine likely won't have nearly the same effect). The same can't be said for acupuncture. This is a pretty common response to lots of pseudoscience. Ignore the evidence and just proclaim "you don't know how it works." Though honestly, knowing how acupuncture is SUPPOSED to work probably doesn't really help it out either IMO (kind of like knowing how homeopathy is supposed to work...that probably does more damage than the research). If it is easy to debunk the alternative treatment, perhaps the problem is with the alternative treatment. As they say, "You know what they call alternative medicine that works? Medicine." And it is hardly cherry picking IMO. They're analyzing the results of hundreds/thousands of studies done on the topic. Even being generous, the benefit appears to be pretty small (compared to say sham acupuncture). The articles bring up great points about the research on acupuncture, and I'm not sure it is really easy to disregard their claims. As I alluded to earlier, if acupuncture was an effective treatment, it wouldn't be so difficult to show in research. So is chiropractic, along with other silly pseudoscience for other treatments. Doesn't mean the treatment isn't pseudoscience. (I'd somewhat challenge the safety claim, though as long as proper procedures are followed, I suppose risk of infection and other complications could be avoided/minimized...but why you would bother to take that risk is beyond me). Unless everyone participated in double-blind trials, receiving both "sham" and readl acupuncture treatments (is there a difference ), it is kind of difficult to claim acupuncture is actually helping here. Few will actually admit to this being a placebo effect, especially after putting in the resources to undergo the treatment. Few actually tend to understand what a placebo is. They might think placebo means nothing happened, and so any tangible benefit must mean it wasn't a placebo. But placebos can be the most powerful drug known to man when you look at their benefits. With acupuncture, you WANT it to work, and in effect, doing so will likely benefit you. But the benefit likely comes from something other than the acupuncture itself, so it is IMO silly to promote acupuncture when you can (and should IMO) receive these benefits from the treatments that actually provide them. So feel free to discuss and debate the merits of acupuncture here. Should be a fun weekend guys! Don't go too crazy!
Back in early 2009, I went to get acupuncture to see if it would help treat my insomnia. While I was there, we talked about other issues and tried "working on" allergies and some knee pain as well. I didn't believe in it at all and thought the whole thing was ridiculous, but had tried all sorts of other things with no luck and it was recommended to me. After about 8 sessions, there was zero impact on my knees and on my insomnia - complete failure as expected. But after the 2nd session, all my allergies completely disappeared. I've had allergies ranging from my mild to severe my whole life - they were severe at the time I went. I didn't have as much as a sniffle for the next year. I don't know why, but i seems that it works for about a year, and then I can tell they are starting to come back, and I go do one more session and they are gone again for another year. About 2 years ago, my acupuncturist moved away - I tried some others and it had no effect at all and started regularly having allergy issues. I saw the original one again later on and it worked again. Other friends of mine have tried this person and had mixed results - some seeing improvement and others seeing nothing. It's been a completely quality-of-life changing thing for me. I have no idea why it worked, but it was noticable and extreme and repeatable - and completely unexpected. It certainly wasn't placebo because I thought the whole thing was a joke and the idea that a bunch of needles in me could cause me to stop sneezing or sleep better or fix knee pain was ridiculous ot me. It's possible that different people react to things differently, so that would help explain why studies don't show conclusive results. But I've certainly benefited from it.
So long as its not getting in the way if other treatment, I suppose its harmless. You'd think a ball-club which values a scientific approach to basketball would also take a scientific approach to health.
I am very skeptical but Mrs. B-Bob, herself a scientist, had an experience a lot like Major's for chronic neck pain. I myself would probably not try it unless totally desperate and trying to avoid some of the more grim methods of modern medicine.
Absence of evidence =/= Evidence of absence, yadda yadda. I actually generally agree w/ you on this and most holistic medicine, and generally think chiropracty is more or less quackery, but I've heard so many positive testimonials (and frankly don't feel fervently enough about the subject) that I don't feel it's necessary to completely dismiss their possible benefits beyond a placebo effect.
Very little. I have a somewhat severe phobia of needles and only felt two or three of the hundred or so needles the guy used. I had a positive experience after straining my lower back. I was planning to attend a conference where I would be in a less than ergonomically ideal chair for 12 hours a day, three days in a row. I got the acupuncture treatment and had between little and no back pain the whole weekend.
If you find a solution to a particular problem and the player feels better, does it really matter why? If the Rockets could acupuncture Dwight Howard into being an 80% free throw shooter, they should do it even if it's just placebo and/or they don't know why it works. Remember also, there's a lot about the human body we don't understand. Just because we don't know why something might have an effect doesn't mean it doesn't have an effect.
Might reply to specific posts later, but a couple of points. - Anecdotal evidence, while appreciated, is pretty much pointless when it comes to analyzing the efficacy of acupuncture (or any treatment), especially given how much research has been done. It is the worst kind of evidence (and for good reason). It is nice to have if there is nothing else, but we have TONS of evidence on acupuncture, all of which are much, much stronger (and less influenced by bias) than anecdotal evidence. - I alluded to this earlier, but just because you received acupuncture and experienced some sort of benefit, that does not mean the placebo effect was not into play (even if you were skeptical of the treatment). As the links I posted showed, people received "sham" acupuncture treatments, and experienced the same benefits often associated with "real" acupuncture. Poking people with toothpicks is apparently a treatment that results in people feeling better (and thus, as "legit" as acupuncture). If you want to demonstrate that acupuncture has a strong and significant beneficial effect, you would do some sort of randomized, blind trial, comparing acupuncture to other/no treatments. People have already done this, of course, and as the links summarized, the benefits appear minor (if existent at all). Note this does not really require any knowledge of the mechanisms in play or the "mysteries of the human body," assuming the studies/trials are well produced. - "What's the harm?" That depends. In this case, probably not a whole lot, though the Rockets are promoting pseudoscience in general. You start with acupuncture, then maybe chiropractic, then maybe homeopathy, then maybe you stop vaccinating yourself and your kids. Then there is a lot of harm. Promoting usage of acupuncture means promoting usage of something that science does not support. I'd prefer we not go down that road. There would be some concerns with infection (and possibly things like panic attacks I guess?) with acupuncture, though as long as the acupuncturist is following "proper" procedures, I would assume these risks are pretty small. Though why risk anything when the benefit appears to be negligible at best? You could also have a case where people start using acupuncture to cure their cancer, help them lose weight, etc., which obviously would be bad. If Dwight shot 80% after receiving acupuncture, I would attempt some sort of treatment that mimicked the treatment of acupuncture, but perhaps was a bit safer (use toothpicks or whatever). You can preserve the benefits of this "placebo," while not promoting some pseudoscience (particularly one that isn't 100% risk free...or cheap). Of course, if this did happen, you would run several different permutations of the treatment until you figured out what actually helped Dwight shoot 80%. With enough tries, perhaps you just realize that having Dwight relax in a room for 60+ minutes is enough to get his mind clear, and allow him to shoot well from the FT line (no quackery needed there). Then get him some of MJ's special juice from Space Jam so he can channel some of Dream's moves on the court.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Parsons after acupuncture: "It’s more sore than it’s ever been. I'm just trying to do what I can to play. I'm definitely not 100 percent."</p>— Jonathan Feigen (@Jonathan_Feigen) <a href="https://twitter.com/Jonathan_Feigen/statuses/409423973382778880">December 7, 2013</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> ****ing lol
There are a lot of things in science that we don't understand, but we believe it to be true because experiment indicates it is. Understanding why acupuncture works is one thing, showing that it works is another. Is there an organized study out there that shows it works, and if not, why?
RC I think maybe you ought to do a scholar google search and you'd find more info on the double blind research being done, don't just rely on one website I.e. science based medicine for your references. SBM is competing with another group called evidence based medicine for attention on this matter. A lot of people have misconceptions about acupuncture and it's not something easily understood but one of the biggest misconception is about whether it "cures" anything - it doesn't. What acupuncture offers is a means to trigger your body responses to conditions afflicting your body. The ability to heal up is still very much dependent on the constitution of the person under treatment. There are a lot of treatments in the Chinese medicinal approach which we are only trying to understand at the moment. As far as I am aware of its not hard science yet (since we have yet to fully understand it) but there is enough efficacy to warrant continued study and should not be dismissed outright as quackery as your stance seem to be. One of the unexplored area is the use of moxibustion - the Chinese practiced this together with acupuncture, currently only one half of a complicated treatment regime is being explored. Some experiments use electrical pulses in place of moxibustion (heat). Back pain can be caused by many different conditions (a muscular tear, a disc misalignment, a nerve problem, postural habit, body weight imbalance etc) I think it is more important to know what rockets are using acupuncture for (most likely to support pain management) rather than view it as them seeing this as a cure for parsons back problems.
I feel I've done enough research. I put out those links, but that wasn't my first/only exposure to this. I've been seeing things like this for years at this point (I generally follow Steve Novella and his "skeptics" via the SGU podcast, where topics like this come up quite frequently). When I've looked into this, it has usually mirrored what Steve, David, Harriet, etc., all stated in those articles. But by all means, if you have links to some blinded (preferably double-blinded), well produced clinical trials of acupuncture (preferably comparing acupuncture, sham acupuncture, etc.), and they don't have the same problems as described in these links, I'd love to read it. If true (though why would it be something entirely unique to acupuncture, while other treatments work regardless?), it should be something we could see while studying it. Doesn't seem like we do though. Why continue to study it? As linked to, there have been 3000+ trials and decades of research on the efficacy of acupuncture. All that research appears to show that there is little to no benefit to the treatment (for anything). As durvasa pointed out, I don't care HOW it works, I only care IF it works. The trials won't explain how it works, but if it did work, they would show that. But they don't seem to show that. We can continue studying it (maybe we're just all missing something...somehow), but why? Do we need 5000+ trials? 10,000? Another century of research?
This is silly. The harm isn't from acupuncture - it's from the stopping of the vaccinations, something you've arbitrarily decided might result several steps down the line from it. It's like saying we shouldn't allow the internet because it creates easier access to child p*rn which might lead someone to become a pedophile. We do all sorts of things in life that science doesn't support. Why? You have a treatment that ACTUALLY WORKS, but because you don't like it or know why it works in this one instance or think it might be a placebo, you want to find a solution that only might work instead? That's just silly. It doesn't matter why it works - if it helps without any harm, then you've solved the problem you were trying to solve.
Bingo. Great point. This whole argument is based on some misconceptions. Acupuncture will not "cure" a torn muscle or a herniated disc. What it will do, however, is to make it less painful and help alleviate inflammation. RC, do you think the Rockets are stupid? You claim they are promoting pseudoscience? Do you think with all that's at stake they do not explore every avenue of treatment at their disposal? To think they are masking his symptoms with a placebo is absurd. They view acupuncture as do most informed individuals — that is it a tool to use in conjunction with other therapies. Nothing more. To criticize their use of it as a companion treatment is just silly.
What if you had a trial of 1000 people and it helped 50 people, did nothing for 900, and had a negative impact on 50. The evidence would be that it doesn't help, right? Those 50 people that it helped would simply be anecdotal evidence. But at the end of the day, the reality is that those 100 people are still better off having had it, even if the science suggests that's its not effective.
My point is that when you start promoting the idea to reject science with small things, why stop there? Science says acupuncture serves no real benefit, and science also says you should vaccinate your kids. Why listen to science on one but not the other? I don't think this is anything like your analogy. Access to the Internet does not inherently involve/promote pedophilia, but promoting acupuncture does involve/promote rejecting science. That's where I have a problem with it all. And that's ignoring the potential harm in having acupuncture done itself (especially with people who aren't properly trained...whatever that means). And it would be great to identify those things and fix them. I'm not sure exactly what you meant by this, but in general, I would like to stick with things that science supports. To minimize the risks/costs of the treatment, and nail down exactly what is working. With acupuncture in particular, it has been shown that you can receive benefits similar to those reportedly associated with the treatment itself by "faking" it, so ideally I'd like to avoid risking some sort of infection, nerve damage, convulsions, etc. If just poking Dwight with some toothpicks will work, I'd definitely prefer doing that, instead of paying some guy to fly over from California who probably charges a substantial amount of money for every treatment. You perform an experiment involving several variables (i.e., treating Dwight with acupuncture), and you got the result you wanted. Now try controlling for the variables and see which ones actually had an impact on the result, and which ones were actually not important at all. Acupuncture might correlate with Dwight hitting his FTs, but are they the actual cause? That's something we could answer with more experiments. Science in action. Since they are using acupuncture, then yes, I think they are stupid. I assume they're pretty desperate, and probably would prefer not to do it, but they probably realize that his back is in bad shape and are willing to try anything (even things with potential risks). Though to be honest, I'm not sure the team's history in treating the injuries of their players is all that representative of a "smart" team/staff. To put it another way, the toothpick treatment is equally as effective. Would you think they were stupid if they went that route? Would it be fair to criticize them for that? BTW, you guys realize that most of these studies are researching acupuncture's effects on pain management? They aren't studying whether acupuncture is curing back problems or anything like that. In this case, you would have evidence that 50 people felt better after receiving the treatment, but you would not know why. What would be great is it to compare this to similar treatments, and see how the numbers turn out. Let's suppose you take another 1000 people, and you give them "sham" acupuncture. It does nothing for 900 people, 50 people say it helped, and 50 people say it had a negative impact. In this case, you have kept all variables the same (or tried to...in practice, that might be difficult), only changing from "real" acupuncture to "sham" acupuncture. This indicates that the benefits (or harm) has nothing to do with acupuncture itself, but something else involved in the treatment. Now, we can go around promoting both real acupuncture and sticking people with toothpicks (you will definitely find people who benefit from such procedures), but I'd rather try to figure out what variables are actually causing people to feel better and go from there. From what I can tell from the research done on acupuncture, this example seems to be what is going on with acupuncture. People end up feeling better after the treatment, but it doesn't seem to be directly tied to the acupuncture itself (especially since there are various ways of applying acupuncture, and those are all the "real" kind).
