Is Acupuncture Effective in Treating Low Back Pain?

Hello, I'm Joseph Alpert, Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Medicine, and I'm here today to call your attention to what I think is one of the most interesting articles in this month's issue. It's from China. The first author is Qin, but that's Q-I-N, not C-H-I-N, and it has to do with a randomized, blinded study of acupuncture for low back pain. I think everybody who lives on this planet has had an experience with low back pain. It is universal. It's because we walk upright instead of like our cats and dogs on all four. In any case, a lot of times, low back pain is incapacitating, puts people out of work and causes a lot of misery. Some people get addicted to narcotics because of persistent back pain. It's a really big health problem. Well, the Chinese randomized real acupuncture against a sham, fake acupuncture, and in fact, it was helpful that the acupuncture group, when they broke the code, were really being benefited by acupuncture. And when I have patients who've tried a whole bunch of things, pain pills and so forth, for whatever form of pain, and it hasn't worked, I often recommend, go try acupuncture. It can't hurt, it's inexpensive, and the side effects are absolutely minimal. Sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn't. Okay, if it didn't help, you've got to move on to something else. But it's certainly worth trying, and this study is one of many that has supported the use of acupuncture for the relief of pain.