Acupuncture no more effective than sham treatment for migraine

Reported by Susan Aldridge, PhD, medical journalist

A study reveals that both real and sham acupuncture can reduce migraine headache frequency by 50 per cent.
Migraine is a disabling condition which includes severe headache, often accompanied by nausea and sensitivity to light. There are various treatments and it's long been suggested that acupuncture could be quite effective.

Researchers at the Technical University of Munich, Germany, now report upon a new study, where 302 people with migraine received either real acupuncture, sham acupuncture, or were placed on a waiting list. The patients all completed a headache diary from four weeks before to 12 weeks after their treatment and from week 21 to week 24 after the treatment.

There was, overall, a reduction of 51 per cent in the frequency of headache days among the real acupuncture group. The same was found in the sham acupuncture group. Those on the waiting list had just a 15 per cent reduction in migraine frequency. The researchers say that this show how acupuncture is better than no treatment. But the lack of difference between real and sham acupuncture suggests there may be some non-specific physiological effect at work here.

Source
Journal of the American Medical Association 4th May 2005 Volume 293 pages 2118-2125

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