Acupuncture works and can extend life with the right frame of mind.
Period.
And I've got thousands of years of Chinese medical history and eight "Hellraiser" movies to prove you wrong.

Drinking one's own urine is only useful when you are buried alive. Everyone knows that.

TimonC346: I've had it before--it was pretty amazing. I know the dude I went to did have a ton of training, and went to school in the same program as Chiropractors.

Ummm, just so you know: Chiropractors are quacks as well.

TimonC346: I've had it before--it was pretty amazing. I know the dude I went to did have a ton of training, and went to school in the same program as Chiropractors.

So your quack studied alongside other quacks. I'm not convinced.

hardinparamedic: Wow, so accupuncture is ACTUALLY useful for something then?

Do you know what they call alternative medicine that works? Medicine.

There's a reason it's not proven to work.

Absolute fact.

ninjakirby: screechingbitermonkey: If it is a placebo, then fine.

It's this type of thinking that convinces people to drink their own urine.

Scratch that.

It's this type of NOT thinking that convinces people to do... every damned retarded thing people do.

Ryker's Peninsula: Acupuncture works and can extend life with the right frame of mind.

So *that's* why the Chinese live longer than us.

Oh, wait, they don't ... they're also not wealthier or happier, despite having their furniture correctly aligned.

They should have diluted it.

The article is disturbing - not because of the subject matter. What's disturbing is that an article with no hard evidence has any clout at all. Does this look like a hit piece to anyone else? It seems like an attempt to frame the argument using scare tactics.

NeedleGuy: Fuller:
Acupuncture is bunk. Pure placebo. It's over, let it go.

My partner used to study acupuncture. Over time, after many discussions with myself and others, and investigations in to what the studies actually say (not what the media reports they say), she came around.


Lol! You really did have me Lol'ing. Yes... UCLA, Duke, Stanford and a host of other medical universities should all shut down their Acupuncture Research Centers because you and others say otherwise.


the same labs that show better results from massage than Acupuncture? Or the ones where people were trained to use a randomized set of "points" and got the same results as those trained to use the traditional "chi" points. Here's a good one though, those same hallowed halls of learning had paranormal research dept in recent eras. Chi, ghosts, self actualization, imaginary sky wizards, Thetans and the power of positive thinking, it's all the same shiat just in different piles.

Although any idiot knows that acupuncture works about as well as homeopathy, reflexology, chiropractic "Medicine" and faith healing, the headline is somewhat misleading. The acupuncture itself doesn't cause any of that - unsterile, unregulated practices do.

Newsflash: So do unqualified tattoo parlours, back-alley plastic surgeons' offices, dropped sewing needles sticking out of the floor...

We can safely go back to "Acupuncture does nothing," I think.

Self_Manifesto: The article is disturbing - not because of the subject matter. What's disturbing is that an article with no hard evidence has any clout at all. Does this look like a hit piece to anyone else? It seems like an attempt to frame the argument using scare tactics.


Teh Penis, you suck it.

http://www.thebody.com/content/world/art26467.html

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2004-03-15-canada-hiv-tests_x.htm

thats just the FIRST three seconds of looking, I should do more right?


http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20174020,00.html


okay, these are just FLUKES... I mean... people die in cars all the time right? Doesn't mean we should ban cars?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/1024753.stm

damn I guess it must be a world wide "hit piece" crafted over decades...

Fano: Barakku: Acupuncture is currently unregulated in the UK, but the government is consulting on the issue.
Of course actual medical treatment is regulated, because come on, we can't just trust these "doctor" guys. But bob here has some needles in the truck, he'll fix ya up right.

I think the gist of it is "any idiot should know these unlicensed guys are full of shiat. If they weren't, they'd have a license."

Any idiot knows the licensed guys are full of shiat, too, albeit they're more convincing about it because they've had a good serving of the kool-aid themselves. If you intentionally put yourself in denial about it you can get a decent placebo effect going, though.

Joce678: Ryker's Peninsula: Acupuncture works and can extend life with the right frame of mind.

So *that's* why the Chinese live longer than us.

Oh, wait, they don't ... they're also not wealthier or happier, despite having their furniture correctly aligned.

mamoru: Ryker's Peninsula: Acupuncture works and can extend life with the right frame of mind.

You know what else works with the right frame of mind? The placebo effect. :o

"Explorers in the further regions of experience. Demons to some. Angels to others. We have such sights to show you!"

Limited studies have observed acupuncture as being more effective than placebo in the treatment of some pain conditions.
Link (new window)
Link (new window)
It's also consistent with current theory in psychology.
Alternative medicine is in general bullshiat, but if one or two imaginary treatments in a thousand happened to be effective, it would really suck if no one could ever get funding to study it because of a few quacks that don't know how to sterilize equipment. Of course it doesn't help that in most countries acupuncture and chiropractics are about as well regulated as the lead levels in a Chinese toy factory.

Hmm; who'd have thought that it would be BAD to stick a bunch of dirty needles into yourself?

I'd like to know how many of these adverse reactions were actually caused by practitioners holding a valid degree in traditional Chinese medicine.

hardinparamedic: Homeopathy is less risky. I mean, how often do you hear of an idiot, err, i mean patient dieing of drinking distilled water!

any time they should have been drinking medicine?

Fuller: supernatural ideas (meridians, chi)

PersistentRash: Chi, ghosts, self actualization, imaginary sky wizards, Thetans and the power of positive thinking, it's all the same shiat just in different piles.

I don't have a dog in the acupuncture fight since I have no experience with it and haven't researched it much, but chi is an actual phenomenon that can be proven. The problem is that in order to prove it a person needs guidance, discipline, and time. It is an effect of health and concentration, not magical hooey. When I started learning Chinese martial arts 25 years ago, I was as skeptical as you guys. Heck, I had a theory that what they called chi was some kind of nerve damage from those strange training regimens.

But after a while I started feeling it in my hands when I'd practice, then eventually flowing in other parts of my body. I laugh at my teenage self for how wrong I was, but am also proud that I didn't just blindly trust that it was real.

So I understand people's skepticism about chi but it still annoys me that people lump it in with crazy crap when it's just a natural feeling that anyone can develop if they are in good health.

acurapuncture? thats why i have runflats

Freak of Nurture: So I understand people's skepticism about chi but it still annoys me that people lump it in with crazy crap when it's just a natural feeling that anyone can develop if they are in good health.

Chi is supposed to be a form of energy capable of leaving the body, not a feeling of good health. I've seen Monks hold their bodies at 99 degree temperatures in ice lockers through sheer force of will but that doesn't mean astral projection has any value.

I've had acupuncture for my knee, elbow, and lower back. Truth be told it didn't do a damn thing for any of them. I enjoyed it though - I think we just like getting attention... sort of like getting a massage or something. But I'd be lying if I said it helped any of my various ailments.

JustinCase: from a cursory glance at the results, seems like they want to know HOW it works. Isn't that the same with a lot of current treatments anyway? they know it works they just can't say how? sounds familiar

Person with chronic back pain: Ow! My back hurts!
Acupuncturist: Here, let me jab these needles all over your body!
Person w/ back pain: Umm, that's ok, my pain magically disappeared. Can you put those needles away now?

ninjakirby: Freak of Nurture: So I understand people's skepticism about chi but it still annoys me that people lump it in with crazy crap when it's just a natural feeling that anyone can develop if they are in good health.

Chi is supposed to be a form of energy capable of leaving the body, not a feeling of good health. I've seen Monks hold their bodies at 99 degree temperatures in ice lockers through sheer force of will but that doesn't mean astral projection has any value.

The above posters didn't say anything about wild chi powers, just chi. That's what I addressed.

farklenny: Alternative medicine is in general bullshiat, but if one or two imaginary treatments in a thousand happened to be effective, it would really suck if no one could ever get funding to study it because of a few quacks that don't know how to sterilize equipment.

Generally speaking, an alternative treatment with a lot of practitioners + very little evidence = tonnes and tonnes of studies. This is because whenever a study demonstrates no effect, the response of the practitioners is the same: 'we need more study!'

There is a lot of money in these industries, and no shortage of funding. As far as acupuncture is concerned, despite all those studies there is still no conclusive evidence of efficacy. This is very telling.

Freak of Nurture: but chi is an actual phenomenon that can be proven.

No it can't?

The problem is that in order to prove it a person needs guidance, discipline, and time.

What?

It is an effect of health and concentration, not magical hooey. When I started learning Chinese martial arts 25 years ago, I was as skeptical as you guys. Heck, I had a theory that what they called chi was some kind of nerve damage from those strange training regimens.

But after a while I started feeling it in my hands when I'd practice, then eventually flowing in other parts of my body.

Man, if someone learned to harness this flowing energy you described you could defeat a polygraph test.

If only there was some way to consciously impact your parasympathetic nervous system. Probably has nothing to do with endorphin-release or relaxation technique, that's just a bunch of west medicine bullcrap!

/Oh, I think I found your problem
//"I was as skeptical as you guys"

I'm saying that anyone can feel chi if they learn how and put in the work. No idea what this has to do with a polygraph. The nervous system/endorphin/relaxation thing is certainly a viable explanation. You seem to assume I'm some kind of new-age kook or something. I'd go to a western doc over an eastern one any time. Luckily the only health problems I've had is the flu every decade or so. Does chi development help keep me healthy? No idea.

/Why should I be skeptical of something I can feel anytime?
//Once again, I'm not saying it is magic. Just something that feels like energy.

Freak of Nurture: /Why should I be skeptical of something I can feel anytime?

Because anecdotes are not evidence of anything, even if they are your own. In fact, you should be even more skeptical of your own subjective experience, because you are unable to look at the situation objectively.

Freak of Nurture: //Once again, I'm not saying it is magic. Just something that feels like energy.

If you accept that it is not magic, what you are doing is making a scientific claim. Scientific claims need to be backed up with evidence. If you can not do that, then you have nothing.

Fuller: Because anecdotes are not evidence of anything, even if they are your own. In fact, you should be even more skeptical of your own subjective experience, because you are unable to look at the situation objectively.

I'm not interested in providing evidence. I couldn't feel it and didn't believe it, I learned how, now I can and do. You can think everybody who feels it is deluded or conduct your own experiment and feel it yourself.

If you accept that it is not magic, what you are doing is making a scientific claim. Scientific claims need to be backed up with evidence. If you can not do that, then you have nothing.

I have nothing to prove, so no evidence needed. I'm not going to become a doctor/engineer/biologist/who knows what else to invent a machine to detect chi. I did my experiment and confirmed that it exists. I'm not trying to convince anybody, just sharing something cool that not many people know about.

Freak of Nurture: I have nothing to prove, so no evidence needed.

Yes you do, you have to prove chi. Or your claim that it is real holds precisely zero legitimacy. If you're ok with that, then we have nothing more to say.

Freak of Nurture: I did my experiment and confirmed that it exists.

No you did not. Your testing needs to be repeatable, observalbe, independtly verfied etc. All you have is an anecdote.

Freak of Nurture: You can think everybody who feels it is deluded or conduct your own experiment and feel it yourself.

The burden of proof is not on me. It is on those who claim it is real. Until such time as evidence is provided, I will take the default position that it is not a real phenomena.

Freak of Nurture: ] I did my experiment and confirmed that it exists. I'm not trying to convince anybody, just sharing something cool that not many people know about.

Nobodies trying to wage a war on chi.
You stated that the existence of chi can be proven. This is incorrect. Wiki Biofeedback. You can learn to control so many different unconscious functions like temperature and pain with training and practice. This is not chi, its just a form of applied meditation/concentration.

What you've achieved is fine and dandy, but you should never state you have proven something exists just because your own personal experience. Saying you can prove something that was is unsafe.

There are kooks out there using anecdotal evidence of chi and its phenomenon to practice dangerous treatments like acupuncture and others.

Would you believe me if I told you jesus lived in my butt because I can feel his energy through years of my personal applied colon cleansing dogma enema treatments?

Remember the difference between concrete evidence and perceptions. Modern medicine is the fruit of thousands of years of unbiased progress, trial, and error.

Fuller: The burden of proof is not on me. It is on those who claim it is real. Until such time as evidence is provided, I will take the default position that it is not a real phenomena.

I'd think the default position would be the more open-minded one that you have no idea one way or the other since you haven't tested the hypothesis that the methods work. If you are really interested in finding out if it's real you have to check into it yourself instead of waiting for science to create a chi detector.

JamisonJamieJames:Would you believe me if I told you jesus lived in my butt because I can feel his energy through years of my personal applied colon cleansing dogma enema treatments?

Nope. Sounds like something a crazy perv made up in his mom's basement, as opposed to methods that have produced concrete evidence for the millions who have practiced them for thousands of years.

Remember the difference between concrete evidence and perceptions. Modern medicine is the fruit of thousands of years of unbiased progress, trial, and error.

If you are too skeptical or lazy to prove or disprove it yourself, it's not my responsibility to prove it to you. Meditative practices are also the fruits of thousands of years of progress(medicine was never biased?), trial, and error.

Anyway, I'm done with this thread. I can't prove chi to you and you don't want to find out for yourselves.

JamisonJamieJames: Freak of Nurture: ] I did my experiment and confirmed that it exists. I'm not trying to convince anybody, just sharing something cool that not many people know about.

Nobodies trying to wage a war on chi.
You stated that the existence of chi can be proven. This is incorrect. Wiki Biofeedback. You can learn to control so many different unconscious functions like temperature and pain with training and practice. This is not chi, its just a form of applied meditation/concentration.

If Chi is just the conscious control of the unconscious, then didn't you just provide evidence for its existence?

Having experienced Eastern philosophy (with many grains of salt), I'm quite certain that it's impossible to even define Chi, therefore its existence is unprovable. It's a nebulous concept that means many things to many people. If what Freak experiences is biofeedback, and he calls it Chi, then he experiences something provable. For those who experience their Chi lashing out at others, well, that's the realm of high fantasy sagas and movies in my book.

Freak of Nurture: \foxyshadis:

We are talking about medicine.

Bottom line is that people practicing alternative medicine preach about Chi and abuse its long history to place it up above or equal to real Medicine.

Medicine, ie "western medicine" to pretentious hippies, has a longer history than any Chi or Homeopathic treatment you can muster up. The difference in REAL medicine, only things that _worked_ went on to be practiced.

Medicine is a funny thing because it does not require an extraordinary belief that can't be defined/measured. It the most basic light, it has proven to work better than nothing!

Chi has been tested. There is no evidence that its anything more than what we HAVE proven and explained through the rational use of biofeedback, meditation, relaxation, mental imagery, and placebo effect.

That makes a lot more sense than saying to yourself that despite the best efforts of many MANY brilliant people, Chi is still one of those vague ancient mysteries that science just hasn't caught up with. A hidden life-force that somehow can't be measured except through the collective and encouraged participation in ancient hookey traditions involving acupuncture/martial arts.

Freak
Do you understand what pretentious means? Have you seen people in those holy roller churches cry/faint/speak in tongues? I tell you right now that what they experience is every bit as real to their own sensations as the "chi" you feel in your fingers, as real as anything I've experienced too.

You can psych yourself into orgasms like nirvana or into pain like fibromyalgia. This all makes sense without the provision of some hidden force like Chi or God. You might have found a great way to achieve that state of mind and that's wonderful, but don't wrap it up as something its not.

Proving something more or less means it can be measured and replicated in a controlled setting. If chi met those requirements, it would be real Medicine or Science. Bottom line, its damaging to the credibility of thousands of years of empirical study invested into science when people rattle off claims as fact. The average joe doesn't comprehend this too well, and it ends up giving power to nutjobs practicing treatments that CAN be dangerous like acupuncture ect.

/done done done

Good points, especially about the power of subconscious mind over conscious perception.