October 11th, 2012 | Posted in 3 Various Specific Problems, Emotions+Stress
Acupuncture is effective in helping with cancer treatment
There have been many advances in the early detection and treatment of cancer and while the standard medical care for cancer is effective, the treatments are aggressive and cause numerous unwanted side effects as well as a lowered immune system. Acupuncture has received much attention as an adjunctive therapy in cancer treatments for its use in pain relief, reducing side effects, accelerating recovery and improving quality of life.
What Acupuncture is used for during Cancer Treatment
Acupuncture provides a total approach to health care for people with cancer. It can be used to address many of the concerns that come up during and after chemotherapy, radiation, biological therapy and surgery.
According to the National Cancer Institute, acupuncture may cause physical responses in nerve cells, the pituitary gland, and parts of the brain. These responses can cause the body to release proteins, hormones, and brain chemicals that control a number of body functions. It is proposed that, by these actions, acupuncture affects blood pressure and body temperature, boosts immune system activity, and causes the body’s natural painkillers, such as endorphins, to be released.
Back in early 2000, a report entitled ‘Acupuncture: Review and Analysis of Controlled Clinical Trials’ was published by the World Health Organisation. Clinical trials can always be criticised whether it’s from a Western perspective or a Chinese perspective. Either way, there is some evidence which was obtained over a period of fourteen to fifteen years that shows the value of acupuncture not just for cancerous conditions but for other conditions too. Specifically within this report for cancers it states;
‘No controlled study has been reported on the efficacy of acupuncture in the treatment of cancer itself. However, acupuncture still has uses in cancer treatments. One is to relieve cancer pain, and the other is to control the adverse reactions to radiotherapy and chemotherapy.
For cancer pain, it has been reported that acupuncture provided an immediate analgesic effect similar to that of codeine and pethidine, with a more marked effect after use for two months (230). The effect was comparable with that achieved using the analgesic steps recommended by WHO (231). For radiotherapy and chemotherapy, acupuncture can greatly lessen the adverse reactions in the digestive and nervous systems, as well as providing protection against damage to haematopoiesis (232–237)’
Diseases, symptoms or conditions for which acupuncture has been proved—through controlled trials—to be effective in the treatment of cancer :
1. Adverse reactions to radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy e.g.
Studies have shown that, for many patients, treatment with acupuncture either relieves symptoms or keeps them from getting worse.
2. Stress, Anxiety and Fatigue, Depression
3. Immune system response improvement, including increasing the number of white blood cells.
4. Pain Management In clinical studies, acupuncture reduced the amount of pain in some cancer patients. In one study, most of the patients treated with acupuncture were able to stop taking drugs for pain relief or to take smaller doses.
There are many new differing theories, but the most interesting is quite simply to ensure that the body is stronger than the cancer, the tumour, the sarcoma. We already live with these cells in our bodies. It’s when they become too strong that the body becomes weakened. That is why acupuncture works alongside western treatments.
http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/cam/acupuncture/healthprofessional/page5
