Fake Acupuncture Just As Good


	Fake Acupuncture Just As Good

Matthew Herper

10-2-2007 9:16 AM

228 views

tags:

medicine, alternative medicine, national institutes of health

Matthew Herper says:

Genomicist Steve Salzberg takes a jaded look at a study comparing real acupuncture, a "sham" procedure, and nothing as treatments for lower back pain. Basically, people feel better if you do *something*, but it's not clear it matters what.

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<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/1fc999bf-a2f4-4f2a-8731-c5a0f3099e99/C116859D-717D-4F65-A942-7418A9AAD7B2/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://genefinding.blogspot.com/2007/09/fake-acupuncture-works-as-well-as-real.html" href="http://genefinding.blogspot.com/2007/09/fake-acupuncture-works-as-well-as-real.html" style="font-size: 11px;">genefinding.blogspot.com</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://genefinding.blogspot.com/2007/09/fake-acupuncture-works-as-well-as-real.html"><H2 class="date-header">Tuesday, September 25, 2007</H2></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://genefinding.blogspot.com/2007/09/fake-acupuncture-works-as-well-as-real.html">As with many studies of pseudoscience, the condition (here, lower back pain) is subjective and very difficult to measure.  The placebo effect is obviously at work: the patients know they had a treatment, which was a painful one, and they want to believe it was worth it.  A better study would have included controls who received another treatment - massage for example - rather than nothing.</blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/C116859D-717D-4F65-A942-7418A9AAD7B2/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content7.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

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