Currency

Research Archive

Welcome to our Chinese medicine and acupuncture research news pages. We add to the content of these pages continuously as more research news comes in. Browse through the complete archive below or use the category links on the right.

Please note that the most twenty recent research archive items are free to view but access to the thousands of items in the archive require a journal subscription.

ACUPUNCTURE INCREASES MICROCIRCULATION

Categories: Acupuncture research

In Japan, researchers have compared blood volume and oxygenation in regions of the trapezius muscle local to and distant from a site of acupuncture stimulation. By using ear-infrared spectrometer probes, they observed that muscle oxygenation and blood volume (indicating elevated blood flow in small vessels) increased in the stimulated region of the trapezius during and after two minutes of acupunc ...

Importance of collagen at acupuncture points

Categories: Acupuncture research

Chinese scientists have investigated how mechanical acupuncture signals received at acupoints are transformed into biological signals. In a study carried out on rats, the role of collagen fibers at acupoints during acupuncture analgesia was investigated. When the investigators destroyed the structure of the collagen fibres at Zusanli ST-36 by injection of collagenase, the needle force exerted by a ...

FMRI & acupuncture

Categories: Acupuncture research

German investigators have studied the effects of stimulation at the ear-specific acupuncture point Xiaxi GB-43 on the brain's primary auditory cortex, using fMRI. Twenty healthy volunteers participated in a crossover study, which compared needling at this point with sham needling (at a non-acupoint). Multi-subject analysis showed no significant activation during stimulation of Xiaxi GB-43 point or ...

FMRI & ACUPUNCTURE

Categories: Acupuncture research

A Chinese team has used fMRI to investigate the functional connectivity of brain networks involved in acupuncture. fMRI scans were performed before, during and after acupuncture manipulation at Zusanli ST-36 (previously implicated in a neural pathway for pain modulation) on healthy volunteers and were compared with similar scans for sham needling (full depth needling at a non-acupuncture poi ...

Verum versus sham needling

Categories: Acupuncture research

American researchers have examined the pain reducing effect of verum manual acupuncture (ACU), compared with that of placebo needling, using a combination of fMRI and PET imaging. Twelve acupuncture-naïve healthy subjects were randomised into a real acupuncture group and a placebo acupuncture group (Streitberger retractable needle). Over four sessions, the researchers induced pain in the subjects ...

Multiple disease fighting activities of scutellaria

Categories: Herb research

Huang Qin (Radix Scutellariae) is a popular multi-purpose Chinese medicinal herb traditionally used to treat inflammation, hypertension, cardiovascular diseases, and bacterial and viral infections. Accumulating evidence is now demonstrating that Scutellaria also possesses potent anticancer activities. The flavone baicalin, which can be extracted from Scutellaria, has been found by German scientist ...

PATIENTS' DIVERSE EXPERIENCES OF ACUPUNCTURE

Categories: Acupuncture research

Charlotte Patterson and colleague have attempted to characterise the diverse nature of patient's experiences of acupuncture treatment for chronic health problems. They performed a secondary analysis of five longitudinal interview studies using a constant comparative method. Patients had experienced different types of acupuncture - traditional and Western in a variety of settings in the UK and Aust ...

Ginseng is an anti-inflammatory

Categories: Herb research

Cell culture experiments carried out by Chinese researchers have revealed an anti-inflammatory action of ginseng (Ren Shen). They identified nine separate compounds called ginsenosides in ginseng extract. By testing the effects of individual ginsenosides on cell cultures, they showed that seven of them could inhibit the expression of inflammatory markers and suppress cellular pathways associated w ...

Astragalus enhances wound healing

Categories: Herb research

Extracts of the root of Astragalus membranaceus (Huang Qi) have been observed to significantly accelerate cutaneous wound healing. According to a Korean team who observed the process of wound healing at a microscopic level, topically applied Astragalus extract achieves this by suppressing inflammation and stimulating cell growth and angiogenesis (formation of blood vessels) in the wound area. Use ...