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Whether acupuncture can really help treat sure health conditions is controversial , and now two new studies on the ancient practice have give mixed decision .

One study find that women with stressurinary incontinence — who involuntarily urinate when they cough , sneeze , laugh or practice — could benefit from stylostixis .

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An acupuncturist pierced her patient’s lung through a pressure point in her shoulders.

But the other field of study , which looked at acupuncture among women with a certain type of sterility , suggest thatacupuncturedid not increase these women ’s prospect of have got a baby .

Both studies were conducted inChina , and were write today ( June 27 ) in the daybook JAMA .

" These studies shed new twinkle on when and when not to think using stylostixis , " Dr. Josephine Briggs and David Shurtleff , of the U.S. National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health , wrote in an newspaper column accompany the study .

Acupuncture

An acupuncturist pierced her patient’s lung through a pressure point in her shoulders.

The research done to date on stylostixis has show that , broadly , its benefits are limited to outcomes that are immanent , such as pain , Briggs and Shurtleff wrote . People ’s positive first moment and the reassurance they experience from the procedure in all likelihood contribute to the benefit . " Clearly these ancient practices are helping reveal the complexness of the links between themind and the torso , " the newspaper column said .

In both of the new studies , researcher applied rigorous scientific methods to examine the personal effects of acupuncture .

In the first subject area , the researchers indiscriminately assigned 504 women with stress urinary incontinence to receive either " electroacupuncture , " which is acupuncture combined with electrical stimulation , or " sham electroacupuncture , " which is a variant of the routine that is not expected to have benefits .

a close-up of a gloved hand holding an IUD

In the women receive the electroacupuncture , the researchers , from the China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences in Beijing , applied a weak galvanic electric current ( not warm enough to do pain ) to the acupuncture needle . With sham electroacupuncture , the researchers grade needles on points in the body that are not traditional stylostixis points , and they did n’t use an galvanic flow . The women undergo the function three times a week for six week . [ desirous Thinking : 6 ' Magic Bullet ' Cures That Do n’t be ]

At the destruction of the report , the player in the electroacupuncture mathematical group had much less urine escape during a one - minute stress test ( about 10 gm less of piss ) compare with their leakage at the start of the subject area , while those in the sham group render a simplification in water leakage of only 2.6 grams , compared with the start of the written report .

The determination suggest that , for cleaning woman with stress urinary incontinence , acupuncture " may be a sensible choice to search " along with other behavior treatments before consider a more invasive discourse such as surgery , the editorial said . However , more research is needed to examine whether the discussion ’s core last over the long term , and precisely how the treatment may be working to reduce urinary incontinence , the researchers say .

a rendering of an estrogen molecule

Theplacebo effect —   or an effect that results from masses ’s feeling that a treatment works , rather than from any physiological impression of the treatment — probably contribute to the benefit of acupuncture seen in this and other studies , the editorial said . But there may also be physiological effects of undergoing stylostixis . For instance , electroacupuncture might cause muscularity contractions and simulate the pelvic level muscles , which help strengthen muscular tissue of the womb , bladder and intestine , the researchers said .

In the second study , researchers at Heilongjiang University of Chinese Medicine in Harbin , China , looked at whether acupuncture could aid charwoman withpolycystic ovary syndrome ( PCOS ) , a common cause of sterility , to have a baby . In women with PCOS , the ovary do not release an egg during the menstrual cycle .

The researchers randomly assign 1,000 woman with PCOS to one of four groups : One radical received stylostixis along with the fertility drug clomiphene citrate ; one mathematical group receive sham acupuncture along with clomiphene citrate ; the third received stylostixis plus a placebo drug , and the last mathematical group receive pretended acupuncture plus a placebo drug .

a point-of-view image of an anaesthetist placing a mask on a patient

During the work , which conduct place from 2012 to 2015 , about 200 of the cleaning woman gave birth . As expected , women who received thefertility drughad a higher birth rate than those who received the placebo drug . ( About 29 percent of those who received clomiphene citrate impart birth versus 15 percent of those who received the placebo ) . But stylostixis was not tie in with an step-up in the parturition pace compared with sham stylostixis , regardless of whether it was hand with or without clomiphene citrate . About 22 per centum of women in both the stylostixis and sham stylostixis groups give nativity during the study .

" This finding does not support acupuncture as an sterility intervention , " for women with PCOS , the researcher say . Thus , stylostixis should not be deliberate a stand-in for clomiphene treatment in cleaning woman with this condition , consort to the editorial .

Original clause onLive Science .

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