Acupuncture

Science has made tremendous progress to facilitate human health through inventions in medical field. Although in this race some inventions have not reached to scientific level. It means that their postulates can’t be proved through scientific experiments over and over again under same conditions by different people. Methods which are unable to reach scientific levels are called pseudoscience.

Acupuncture is also a pseudoscience in the field of health and medicine. It was introduced in China almost 3000 years before as an alternate medicine to treat muscular pain, back ache, digestion, sleeplessness and tension etc. In modern times this technique is used in conjunction with contemporary medicine.

It is believed that acupuncture stimulates healing process of body by triggering some specific points at human skin. These points are called acupoints. After locating these points at individual’s body small stainless steel needles are inserted into the skin to a certain depth. The needles are kept inserted in the skin for a small period of time which varies from patient to patient depending upon the decision of acupuncturist.  

A major hypothesis says that acupuncture works through neurohormonal paths of the human body. By putting needle in the body at a specific point the particular nerves are stimulated. The signals by those nerves are released to the brain and in response brain releases the required neural hormones. As a result the patient under treatment feels relaxed and relief in pain.

To stimulate brain for releasing specific neural hormones various acupuncture points were identified and defined at various parts of human body by Chinese acupuncturists. The treatment has commonly been used in combination of various treatments for fertility. It was seen that acupuncture increased the effects of common medicine used for increase in fertility. Studies showed that it could lower testosterone levels and could regulate ovulation.

Sean Grand, et al., 2017 studied that it could treat posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It is disclosed in the study that depression could also be treated by this technique. German and Swiss scholars have studied the positive effects of this technique over allergic asthma.

Based on recent researches the leading health related organization of the world like World Health Organization, Cancer Research UK have ranked acupuncture as a field of study which has a further scope to be explored and researched. They have identified many diseases which could be treated by acupuncture generally as a complementary to contemporary treatment.