The needles in certain spots are along the meridians that correspond to
major organs (as defined by the Chinese). Acupressure (massaging the
pressure points) is a less intensive treatment of the same spots, so it is
the same principle that's involved in acupuncture. There's also a type of
foot massage that works on the same spots. I use acupressure on myself to
treat sinus problems--it's one of the most effective sinus treatments I've
ever used (and I have tried a lot). Acupuncture, by the way, can be done
with needles or heat, or a combination, and pressure is also applied (or
specifically not applied) to some points before the insertion of a needle,
depending on the condition.
There have been some double blind tests in which patients were treated by
qualified acupuncturists, with some of the patients getting treatment in
the normal points as dictated by their symptoms and the other group of
patients getting treatment in places that had been preselected by the study
design as being non-acupuncture points, places where needles would not have
a beneficial effect and would have no effect at all. The study results
showed that the placebo effect was not the manner in which the acupuncture
was effective. Patients treated in the real acupuncture points had
improvement in their condition, and patients in the non-acupuncture group
did not show the same improvement. I also saw a medical program on
pregnancy that said a study on acupuncture showed that pregnant women who
had acupuncture during the pregnancy had an easier delivery.
Acupuncture may release endorphins when used as a treatment for pain, but
acupuncture is also used successfully to treat high blood pressure, asthma,
arthritis, addiction, and lots of other chronic problems where it effects
improvement in the actual condition and is not just used for pain control.
So an explanation of acupuncture that only looks at it as a method of pain
control is incomplete.
Aurore