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Updated: Nov 24, 2025

Monitoring Acupuncture Effects on Human Brain by fMRI

Monitoring Acupuncture Effects on Human Brain by fMRI

Published on: April 8, 2010

Placebo Effects in Acupuncture.

Ted J Kaptchuk¹

¹Beth Israel Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.

Medical Acupuncture

|December 28, 2020

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Acupuncture

Keywords:

acupuncture genetics placebo effect randomized clinical trials

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Area of Science:

Integrative Medicine
Complementary Health Approaches
Clinical Trial Design

Background:

The historical use of placebos in Western biomedicine contrasts with their absence in Traditional East Asian Medicine.
Evaluating acupuncture's efficacy presents challenges due to placebo controls.
Acupuncture's superiority over placebo controls in randomized controlled trials (RCTs) has yielded inconsistent results.

Purpose of the Study:

To summarize the evaluation of acupuncture's effectiveness and efficacy, particularly in relation to placebo controls.
To examine the role of sham acupuncture and device placebos in augmenting placebo responses.
To discuss implications for designing and interpreting acupuncture RCTs.

Main Methods:

Review of historical context of placebos in medicine.
Analysis of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and meta-analyses on acupuncture efficacy.
Examination of studies investigating sham acupuncture and device placebos.

Main Results:

Acupuncture often shows equivalence or superiority to other medical interventions but not consistently to placebo controls.
Sham acupuncture and other device placebos appear to augment placebo responses.
German health insurance funds' evaluation of acupuncture effectiveness is highlighted.

Conclusions:

Acupuncture and devices may enhance placebo responses, impacting RCT design and interpretation.
Findings are relevant for conditions where intervention-placebo differences are hard to detect.
Further research is needed to refine the evaluation of acupuncture and similar interventions.