Acupuncture is a jab well done in treatment, health protection

IN 1971, celebrated American journalist James Reston (1909-1995) wrote an article for The New York Times recounting his experience undergoing emergency surgery for appendicitis while he was traveling in China as part of the advance team ahead of US President Richard Nixon’s historic visit the following year.

After the operation, he reported, he was treated for pain with acupuncture administered by Chinese doctors.

His article was later deemed a “door opener” for acupuncture to be introduced into the United States.

In 2003, the World Health Organization published an official report listing several dozen symptoms, conditions and diseases that were shown in controlled trials to be effectively treated with acupuncture.

They include low back pain, neck pain, tennis elbow, knee pain, sprains, dental pain, acute and chronic gastritis, nausea and vomiting, post-operative pain, stroke, essential and primary hypertension, depression and menstrual cramps.

Seven years later, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization inscribed “acupuncture and moxibustion of traditional Chinese medicine” on its “heritage of humanity” list.

It’s nothing new to the Chinese. Acupuncture has been the remedy for all types of ailments in China for thousands of years, long before modern medicine even came into existence.

Acupuncture was first officially documented in the “Yellow Emperor’s Inner Canon,” the earliest text on the theories and practices of traditional Chinese medicine.

Its second of two parts, called “Ling Shu,” or “Spiritual Pivot,” focuses on acupuncture therapy, acupoints, acupuncture needle methods and needling instruments, as well as acupuncture treatment principles.

According to traditional Chinese medicine, there are altogether 720 acupuncture points along the meridians and distributed around the meridian system in a human body. Acupuncture is the practice of inserting needles into the superficial skin, subcutaneous tissue and muscles at different points to stimulate the flow of qi (vital life energy) and restore the balance between yin and yang, thus restoring physical and mental health.

In most cases, acupuncture is seen as a key traditional therapy for treating diseases. But it can also be used as an effective technique for the preservation of good health.

For instance, the “Canon” says in Chapter 55 of “Ling Shu” that the best practitioner applies acupuncture on a person as long as diseases have not yet emerged.

This seems to mean that the best use of acupuncture is to help protect health, instead of treating diseases.

Traditional Chinese medicine believes that acupuncture can help protect one’s health in many ways.

For instance, advocates of acupuncture for weight loss claim that acupuncture can reverse obesity by stimulating the flow of qi in the body, increasing metabolism, reducing appetite, lowering stress and affecting the part of the brain that feels hunger.

Traditional Chinese medicine also believes that acupuncture can help delay aging by regulating the immune function, strengthening the antioxidant effect, directing the function of the nervous and endocrine systems, readjusting lipid metabolism, improving hemorheology and regulating the gene related to the organic process of growing older.

To undergo acupuncture as a form of health insurance, one must first consult a traditional Chinese medicine doctor or acupuncturist. It is advised that one should not try to apply acupuncture on oneself.

However, people can always try to protect their health or treat minor symptoms by massage the relevant acupuncture points by themselves.