Actually it's interesting - In nursing school we were looking at alternative forms of aesthetic, and acupuncture was one of them. Actually saw a woman walk into an operating room in china - climb onto an OR table - have a total hysterectomy - while awake - and with no anesthetic - post op she got up off the table and walked out of the room. The only thing they used was acupuncture. Also many many physiotherapists use it as a treatment, as well. So beleive what you will - Ive found it works... I went in with no preconceived notions and thought I would try it a few times see what came of it. And for me it did the trick. As a matter of fact here in Canada our insurance actually covers it along with physio.

Yep, it's a matter of faith and belief, not fact. No argument there. In the USA, neither Medicare nor Medicaid will cover acupuncture since there is zero medical evidence it works.

Not surprised that the "evidence" would be a film made in China. I won't bother to link to all the articles pointing out that skeptical western observers noticed and subsequently guilty Chinese doctors confessed that real pain killers were administered to these Chinese patients before the showy needles were used. '
Heck, I'm old enough to remember the big "news" in 1971 when the New York Times columnist James Reston had an appendectomy in China and the Chinese doctors supposedly used acupuncture for his anesthesia. Even today Google searches turn up hundreds of fake news stories some even from NIH NCAM woo woo believers citing this. Of course the truth was, as reported by Mr. Reston himself in his newspaper article on it and in his medical records: [quote]removed my appendix on July 17 after a normal injection of Xylocain and Benzocain, which anesthetized the middle of my body and then pumped the area anesthetic by needle into my back. [/quote]
Just so none of the woo woo brigade links to that old bugaboo
But I suppose it works as well as Reiki
Charm

Shucks, Charm, you're messing up my whole day. Good thing I've still got my crystals and incense.

So, the MDAnderson study, and the Sloan-Kettering study (which included MRIs) are bogus? I haven't seen the results of the Mayo Clinic study but Mayo thought there is reason enough to pursue it. There's a Brazilian study and others conducted by MDs, as well. I've talked to a couple of people who were successful in getting saliva after the acupuncture treatment (one who used to post on the OCF forums) and to acupuncturists who say that they've treated many people for it and that more than half were done successfully. No one that I've spoken to who was successful said that it didn't last.

Given that all the medical evaluations say that there are no adverse affects from acupuncture, it seems to me that it's worth a try. I did try one acupuncture protocol that was developed by an MD in the Navy at a military hospital and I was unsuccessful but I'm about to try another protocol soon.

I'll report the results.

Also, there is a Clinical test of Acupuncture as a relief for dry mouth that used a double blind. One group got acupuncture needles at true acupuncture sites, the other in false sites, The group that had real acupuncture did significantly better than the second group, thus dispelling the idea that it is only a placebo effect that works for acupuncture. The biggest problem, that I can see, is the small numbers included in most of the scientific tests, but I understand that attempts are being made for more wide scale testing (by MDAnderson [?]).

It's hard to explain on the board the technicalities of why these studies are indeed bogus. too long and boring.
Here is a technical walk thru on this vaunted SLoan Kettering so called clinical study that reveals why accupuncture is just a placebo (hint it's a meta analysis not a clinical study)
Study commentary
Some exercpts
[quote]Well, it�s not exactly a study, it�s a meta-analysis that aggregates a whole lot of acupuncture studies in which this most popular of woos is administered to patients with chronic pain from a variety of causes. It�s also being promoted all over the place with painfully credulous headlines
....mixing studies that compare acupuncture to no treatment, to sham treatment, or to sham treatment and no treatment are comparing apples and oranges in a way. Pooling such studies is inherently problematic...Here�s a hint: -5 (the difference between sham acupuncture and �real� acupuncture) is not clinically significant. The only way you can even approach clinical significance is to compare no-acupuncture controls versus acupuncture, in which case you�re adding placebo effects into any other effect observed, even if that effect is real (which I highly doubt it to be). Indeed, Vickers et al labor mightily to try to convince readers that this tiny effect, if it exists, is not just statistically significant, but clinically significant. They doth protest too much, methinks. In fact, I very much like how the grand master of the scientific analysis of �complementary and alternative medicine� (CAM), Edzard Ernst, put it:

Edzard Ernst, emeritus professor of complementary medicine at the University of Exeter, said the study �impressively and clearly� showed that the effects of acupuncture were mostly due to placebo. �The differences between the results obtained with real and sham acupuncture are small and not clinically relevant. Crucially, they are probably due to residual bias in these studies. Several investigations have shown that the verbal or non-verbal communication between the patient and the therapist is more important than the actual needling. If such factors would be accounted for, the effect of acupuncture on chronic pain might disappear completely.� [/quote]

The earlier blog referred to above can be found here Vickers debunk
[quote]The Vickers acupuncture meta-analysis, despite the authors� claims, does not reveal anything new about the acupuncture literature, and does not provide support for use of acupuncture as a legitimate medical intervention. The data show that there is a large difference in outcome when an unblinded comparison is made between treatment and no treatment � an unsurprising result that is of no clinical relevance and says nothing about acupuncture itself.

The comparison between true acupuncture and sham acupuncture shows only a small difference, which is likely not clinically significant or perceptible. More importantly, this small difference is well within the degree of bias and noise that are inherent to clinical trials. Researcher bias, publication bias, outlying effects, and researcher degrees of freedom are more than enough to explain such a small difference. In other words � this data is insufficient to reject the null hypothesis, even if we don�t consider the high implausibility of acupuncture.

Further, meta-analysis itself is an imperfect tool that often does not predict the results of large, rigorous, definitive clinical trials. The best acupuncture trials, those that are well-blinded and include placebo acupuncture, show no specific effects.
[/quote]

I'd welcome the input of Maria and Klo (Karen) who actually understands studies in this discussion. While I can disagree with their conclusions, they really do know the statistical signficance calculations and miscalculations, as well as the importance of double blind studies etc etc that none of the newspapers or magazines do
I've never doubted accupunture is a placebo, and this meta analysis does not refute that. IMO The reason accupunture works on less than 50% of oral cancer patients for saliva is that half of us do not meet the basic criteria for a placebo to work: the belief unsupported by fact that it will. Half of us just are very suggestible to the extent that a placebo needs. But hey, I'm glad for the half that is.
Charm

So, what about Sloan-Kettering wherein the MRI's showed brain activity in the appropriate area for salivary production (as I, a layman understand it).

Charm...at the risk of jumping into the frey...here's my question, whether it's the actual acupuncture or the placebo affect..does it really matter how or why as long as it works? I mean, saliva is saliva, and any way you get it, it's a relief. Ana

[quote=Charm2017]WOO WOO alert. Acupuncture is as far from a sound medical concept as possible. The "premise" of accupuncture is explained by the Mayo clinic
[quote]Traditional Chinese medicine explains acupuncture as a technique for balancing the flow of energy or life force � known as qi or chi (CHEE) � believed to flow through pathways (meridians) in your body. By inserting needles into specific points along these meridians, acupuncture practitioners believe that your energy flow will re-balance. [/quote] Not one valid Scientific study or any competent not faked research has not found any histological or physiological correlates for qi, meridians and acupuncture points.
[/quote]

I wasn't going to get involved in a pointless discussion where minds appear to be already made up but I am curious why you used only half the quote from the Mayo Clinic website. The rest of the explanation from Mayo Clinic is as follows:

[quote]In contrast, many Western practitioners view the acupuncture points as places to stimulate nerves, muscles and connective tissue. This stimulation appears to boost the activity of your body's natural painkillers and increase blood flow.[/quote]

As a mathematician and a researcher, I absolutely abhor misinformation and bogus research but I also believe incomplete information can be equally damaging. If a statement has logical merit, a contrasting statement will do nothing to detract from it. Scientific hypotheses arise not only to determine if something is valid but also why something is valid. In fact, as soon as we automatically discount all things unproven or anything for which we do not understand the reason, science comes to a screeching halt. Everything we now hold dear as scientific fact was at some point in history absurd to mainstream society, much as future humanity will laugh at the naivety of many of our currently held "incontrovertible" beliefs.

I personally don't care where anyone stands on the issue of acupuncture. I was a complete disbeliever who agreed to try it because a doctor I respected at NIH asked me to participate in their research. I'm happy to facilitate legitimate scientific research whenever I can. I expected to be among those for whom the treatments wouldn't work. As it turned out, I was not included in the study but did have a single treatment that apparently increased my saliva flow. I believed it must be coincidental but my oncologist at Johns Hopkins said the swiftness and timing of the improvement indicated the treatment was a probable cause. I still don't know and, selfishly, care only that I'm better whatever the reason.

I can respect anyone's argument on any side of any subject as long as it's logically constructed and accurately presented. Doesn't mean I'll concur, of course. Please, if you're going to stand on logical premise, play by the rules of logic when it comes to correlation, cause and effect, and proof or disproof.

Karen

I wonder if some other factors might be responsible here for the body�s ability to effect changes in the body? I�m thinking in particular about Biofeedback used to train the body to effect changes in heart rate, respiration, or skin temperature. Seems that the autonomic nervous system once thought to be an automatic response to certain conditions in the body, can be controlled with training in Biofeedback. Have there been any research or studies done to determine whether Biofeedback could be used to increase saliva production?