Acupuncture for Depression ::: what research review says

This post regards an article from the website “Frontiers in neuroscience”.  The article is titled:::

“Efficacy of acupuncture for depression: a systematic review and meta-analysis“

For those who aren’t familiar with research, system reviews and meta-analysis look at multiple research studies on a particular subject.  They take the studies and combine all the data.  This allows the researchers to get a larger perspective on whether something is working or not.

In this instance, they looked at 4 different studies comparing care of depression with acupuncture vs conventional pharmaceutical medication.  In these studies, acupuncture performed admirably.

I’ve worked a lot clinically with people experiencing depression, or anxiety.  As the article states, many with depression are also suffering from some other condition.  Often this is related to pain and sleep issues, but depression can be linked with any other issues in the body.  When systems are feeling off balance, the body and spirit will often be affected.

In Chinese Medicine, we search for the link between all the symptoms.  Our goal is to affect the root imbalance, thus bringing improved feeling in body, mind and soul.

The way we practice medicine involves treating the spirit of the patient.  If you are depressed, anxious, healing from trauma, or any other feeling, we want to know about it.  It’s important for your overall health.

Note:: if you are experiencing depression, or any other emotionally based issue, counseling is also a great option.  I’ve worked with patients who feel improvement without counseling or have plateaued with counseling.  However, it is highly valuable to understand mentally what is at the source of your emotional state.

A note about the research::  The studies were all done in China with electro acupuncture.  In our clinic, we rarely use electro acupuncture.  We also don’t use a standard set of points, as was done in some of these studies.  We prefer to treat each patient based on their unique presentation.  This is how we’ve found the best results over time.

Best to you all…..  Kevin