A study in Human Reproduction has today looked at the efficacy of real vs placebo acupuncture on IVF in a randomized, double blind trial. Placebo acupuncture was more effective, but only by a narrow margin and failed to reach significance.

To me, acupuncture is one of those things that I do try to believe in (although, one shouldn’t have to ‘believe’ when it comes to science!). I know the mechanisms by which it is supposed to work border on the metaphysical, but it seems to have somewhat more credence among sane(ish) individuals than other, completely ridiculous, complementary medicines (homeopathy).

Now, in a blow to acupuncture’s credibility, the European Society for Human Reproduction and Embryology looked at real and placebo acupuncture given on the day of embryo transfer in 370 patients.

The researchers found that the overall pregnancy rate (defined by a positive urinary pregnancy test) for placebo acupuncture was 55.1%, versus 43.8% for the real acupuncture.

You might wonder what ‘placebo acupuncture’ is, as you’d expect that one could tell if they were having a needle inserted into them or not. In fact, they used dummy needles that work in a similar way to those retracting-blade knives that are used in school plays, and they would either insert the real needle or create the appearance of inserting a needle at the same acupuncture points.

The problem that springs to mind is that the pressure exerted by the fake needle might have been such that it created a similar effect to the real needle – after all, proponents of these techniques often claim that pressure alone (acupressure) is sufficient.

In fact, it was noted that:

measurements for the receptivity of the uterus and the levels of patient stress changed significantly for both the real and control groups after the women had received the real or placebo acupuncture.

It’s all very strange indeed, and it would have been good to have controls who received neither real nor placebo acupuncture. However, this would eliminate the possibility of discriminating a placebo effect from the real thing.

So, there may be hope yet for this unusual and reasonably interesting branch of alternative medicine.

Adapted from materials provided by Eurekalert.