research

Acupuncture sits in an interesting position in modern healthcare — neither fully inside nor outside mainstream medicine, with an evidence base that is substantial, but complicated. How you evaluate it depends on the question being asked and who is asking it.

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Building a conventional evidence base for acupuncture is difficult. The gold standard of medical research — the randomised controlled trial — was designed for testing drugs against placebos, and maps awkwardly onto a practice where the therapeutic relationship, the quality of attention, and the individualised nature of treatment are themselves part of how it works.

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Despite this, the evidence base is substantial and growing. The World Health Organisation recognises acupuncture as effective for a wide range of conditions — including chronic pain, headache, nausea, digestive disorders, depression, and a number of gynaecological and reproductive health conditions. In the UK, NICE recommends acupuncture for chronic primary pain and for the prevention of migraine and tension-type headache. An increasing body of research is building around anxiety, fertility, menopause, and chronic fatigue.

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I have a personal interest in where acupuncture, Chinese medicine and naturopathy sit in relation to mainstream medicine, and in the experience of patients navigating the two. Moving towards a more pluralistic healthcare system is the bigger project — one I'm actively working to contribute to. The more conventional and alternative medicine learn to speak each other's languages, the less translation is left to the patients.