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Acupuncture and Dementia: How this treatment reduces the risks

New studies shed light on acupuncture’s potential to protect against dementia, particularly among those battling insomnia and migraines. Additionally, in those who develop the condition, electro-acupuncture almost halfs the risk of disability.

Acupuncture reduces risk of dementia in patients with insomnia

Chronic sleep problems can muddy the waters of cognitive health, increasing the risk of dementia over time. But acupuncture might just be the lighthouse for patients with insomnia, offering them protection. A very large new study, conducted by a team from China Medical University Hospital in Taiwan and published in the Journal of Traditional and Complementary Medicine, sheds light on acupuncture’s potential to protect against dementia, particularly among those battling insomnia.

The study aimed to investigate whether this TCM treatment is associated with a reduced risk of developing dementia in patients who suffer from insomnia.

The researchers collected real-world data from over 30,000 patients diagnosed with insomnia to conduct a propensity-score-matched cohort study. This approach carefully aligned two groups—one receiving acupuncture and the other not—ensuring that both were balanced in demographic and health characteristics, isolating the effects of this natural therapy on dementia risk. The meticulous work uncovered a striking 46% decrease in dementia risk for the acupuncture group. This means that the relative risk in those who did not receive acupuncture is 85% higher compared to the patients who received this treatment.

Acupuncture has long been recognised for its ability to promote relaxation and improve sleep, both crucial for cognitive health. The study suggests that regular sessions could help individuals with insomnia establish healthier sleep patterns, potentially fortifying their cognitive function and reducing risk of dementia.

Acupuncture has long been recognised for its ability to promote relaxation and improve sleep, both crucial for cognitive health. The studies suggest that regular sessions could help individuals with insomnia establish healthier sleep patterns, potentially fortifying their cognitive function and reducing dementia risk. The study was published in Journal of Traditional and Complementary Medicine in May 2023.

Acupuncture reduces the risk of disability

This recent study investigated whether acupuncture therapy could reduce the risk of developing significant disability among patients diagnosed with dementia. Disability, defined in this research by the requirement for devices such as a urinary catheter, nasogastric tube, or tracheostomy tube, is a serious complication for which preventive measures are currently lacking.
The researchers performed a large, long-term analysis using a nationwide health database in Taiwan, looking at 9,760 newly diagnosed dementia patients. Patients were divided equally into groups that either received acupuncture treatment or did not. The findings demonstrated a significant association between acupuncture and better outcomes: dementia patients who received acupuncture treatment had a lower risk of disability development compared to those who did not.

This protective effect was substantial, the risk of disability development is approximately 53.85% higher for patients who do not receive acupuncture. Interestingly, electro-acupuncture, the kind we use at our rooms, was significantly more effective. The risk of disability development is approximately 1.96 times higher in patients who did not receive electroacupuncture compared to those who did. Importantly, this result was consistent across various subgroups, including patients of different ages, sexes, income levels, and those with underlying health conditions like diabetes, hypertension, or stroke. These results suggest that incorporating acupuncture could be a valuable part of care programs for dementia management.

Acupuncture for patients with migraines and dementia risk

Another significant study by the same author Cheng-Hao Huang and colleagues from Taiwan, used a similar approach to explore the effects of acupuncture in a different patient group. This study utilised Taiwan’s National Health Insurance Research Database to investigate the incidence of dementia in patients with migraine, who either received or did not receive acupuncture treatment. The results from this large-scale study revealed that patients with migraine who received acupuncture had a substantially lower risk of developing dementia, with an adjusted hazard ratio of 0.51. This suggests a 49% reduction in dementia risk among the acupuncture group compared to those who did not undergo this treatment. This robust evidence underlines the potential of acupuncture as a preventive treatment against dementia in individuals with migraine, further highlighting neuroprotective role of this natural approach.

“Why do you need to see my tongue?”

Understanding TCM Acupuncture tongue diagnosis

Have you ever heard of tongue and pulse diagnosis in acupuncture? This traditional Chinese medicine technique has been used for thousands of years to diagnose and treat health issues. It may seem unusual, but Chinese medicine practitioners believe that the tongue and pulse can provide important insights into the state of your health.

Chinese medicine says that anything that happens inside of your body may have some representation on the outside. You may have noticed that when you’re feeling under the weather, your complexion, voice, and behavior can all change. If you haven’t slept enough last night, likely your observant colleagues will pick it up. Having a cold? This one can be even more obvious.

Even mild conditions may represent in the facial complexion, in your voice, your smell, the way we behave. In the same way, your tongue and pulse can provide clues about what’s going on inside your body. Chinese medicine practitioners utilised these observations extensively for millennia. And they discovered that tongue and pulse can change a great deal. Therefore, when you come in for a treatment other than an injury, it is likely I will inspect your tongue and feel your pulse.

Now, don’t worry, this isn’t the only thing we will do to diagnose your condition! We will also ask about your symptoms and medical history, and perform other assessments. However, the tongue and pulse diagnosis can help your practitioner get a more complete picture of your condition and choose the best acupuncture treatment for you.

Pulse and tongue diagnoses are often mystified and the powers of them are exaggerated. Some practitioners claiming they can detect the sex of the baby in pregnancy or detect cancer. However, the leading minds in Chinese medicine are very clear on this. These diagnostic techniques are only a small integral part of TCM diagnosis.

So, the next time you go in for a TCM acupuncture session, don’t be surprised if your practitioner asks to see your tongue and feel your pulse. It’s just one of the many tools they have in their toolbox to help you recover your balance!

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Acupuncture for immunity

How do you boost your immune system while awaiting COVID-19 vaccine? Can you prevent getting this virus? Does acupuncture help?

Acupuncture has a powerful effect on immunity. It can save lives*!

In 2014, a study on sepsis and acupuncture appeared in the most prestigious medical journal – Nature.

Sepsis is highly deadly. But in the acupuncture study, 50% of recipients stayed alive. Great, no? One little detail. *The subjects of the study were mice! :)

Sepsis depresses the immune system to the degree that it can lead to systemic inflammation, multiple organ failure, and, unfortunately, death. No current drugs are approved to counteract failing immunity for these patients.

So two clever scientists from America explored the effect of acupuncture. Of 40 mice with sepsis, 20 got treated with real acupuncture. Another 20 rodents also had needles, but not on acupuncture points.

Half of the acupuncture mice group survived, whereas ALL the fake acupuncture-treated mice perished.
To sum it up, the mice who had correct electro-acupuncture had an infinity times higher chance to stay alive.

Now. No other therapy studied on this planet achieved this.

In 2017 another group of scientists studied a similar treatment on the elderly (human) patients and the results were good.

Take-away message? Unless you’re a mouse, don’t use acupuncture for sepsis alone. We don’t have sufficient evidence acupuncture can cure sepsis or COVID-19 in human. But these experiments show that acupuncture is hugely successful at modulating the immune system. And is pretty darn good at it even in such extreme conditions, as sepsis.

Can acupuncture boost immunity to prevent COVID-19?

Before we dive into how acupuncture supports immunity, let’s have a quick 101 on how your immune system works.

How your immunity works

The immune system is precisely that — a system, not one single thing. To function well, it needs balance and harmony. A well-working immunity is like a sports team. To have a good defence, it takes a joint effort. Various organs and cells play a part in your immune response.

Physical barriers:

These are skin and membranes that cover your digestive, respiratory and reproductive tracts. All combined, those areas are as big as about two tennis courts. This a sizeable area to protect. Washing hands and covering the coughs reduces the risk of viruses slipping through your physical barriers.

Innate immunity

It’s a team of immune cells you gain before you are born. With COVID-19, we are in a bit of terrible luck. None of us has any protection from this virus. Once it enters the body your immune cells’ usual protection tricks don’t work.

Learnt or adapted immunity

It’s a so-called “adaptive team” of immunity cells that your body teaches new tricks in response to diseases you had in the past.
Vaccines help you develop adapted immunity. They trick your body into recognising the viruses as an enemy and fighting them.
We hope that soon there will be a vaccine to teach your immunity on how to deal with COVID-19.

Bone marrow produces most immunity cells. The blood transports them everywhere we need them. They will move in and out of tissues and organs defending your body against hostile invaders, such as bacteria and viruses. They also like to exterminate cancerous cells.

Your nervous system modulates immunity. But the immune system also modulates your nervous system, including brain activity, like body temperature, sleep, and eating patterns.

Your immunity is like an octopus that has one leg in each body system. If it senses something is wrong, it sends a cloud of immune cells.

Keeping your immune system running smoothly is not a matter of drinking turmeric tea, it’s a matter of all your body systems working well.

What weakens your immunity?

Poor Sleep

Lack of sleep can weaken your immunity. For instance, the less sleep you get, the more likely you will catch a cold.

Just one night? It makes a difference. One-night of four hours of sleep can dramatically reduce Natural Killer cells. NK cells kill virus-infected and cancerous cells.

Chronic insomnia? Sleep deprivation compromises your immunity. For instance, a flu vaccine becomes less effective if you suffer from this.

Chronic pain and medications for it

Chronic pain may wear you out to the point it reprograms how your immunity genes work. And ongoing pain triggers stress. Chronic stress is also taxing on immunity.

Anti-inflammatory drugs like Ibuprofen can reduce your immune system response to vaccines.

Stress

Think of the stress response as a combination of neurologic, hormonal, and immune systems that come together to help the body ward off perceived danger or threat.

Long-term chronic stress keeps your cortisol levels high, and that eventually compromises your immune system.

How acupuncture can support your immune system

The sepsis experiment shows how acupuncture has a powerful effect on immunity. It also reduces stress and improves the quality of your sleep.

Will you get acupunctures immunity-boosting effect if we treat your neck pain or fertility?

The comprehensive/holistic approach is the very fibre of our acupuncture philosophy.

We don’t just fix one condition. We seek a systemic effect on your entire body so it can heal itself faster. No matter if we treat headaches or help with fertility.

We have seen IBS symptoms vanish as a side effect of treating PCOS. Or sleep improve even though the key focus was fertility. We have seen chronic headaches stop when treating neck pain.

When used correctly, acupuncture doesn’t heal just one ailment. It treats the entire body. Holistically.

How does a pill know to only do the one thing you take it for?

If you pop Ibuprofen for a headache, how does it know to treat just that?

Even the most common over-the-counter drugs affect all of your body. They have side effects and can have deadly interactions. As mentioned, Ibuprofen reduces your immunity by compromising the effects of vaccines.

How acupuncture’s “side effects” support immunity

Acupuncture is different. It is a biological stimulation. Think exercise and sunlight. Use them correctly, and all body systems benefit simultaneously. Let’s say you go for a brisk walk. Even the focus of this exercise is your leg muscles, there are thousands of chemical reactions happening in your body. As a result, your blood pressure changes, your heart rate goes up, your body responds by modulating the hormones.

Acupuncture is similar. Stimulating the acupoints is like a feel-good floodgate release. The result is less stress, anxiety, and better sleep. These are the common “side effects” of our treatments.

Acupuncture supports your immunity by helping you sleep better, improving your energy, optimising your digestion, reducing stress and inflammation. Acupuncture helps to cope with any illness. Both physically and emotionally. Or, hopefully, acupuncture will help to prevent you from getting sick altogether.

How does acupuncture work for immunity?

By stimulating the correct acupoints, we can reach the parts of the nervous system that modulate immunity.

ZuSanLi, an acupoint just below your knee, is one of these special locations. On acupuncture, ZuSanLi relays a signal to the spinal cord and then the brain. Once processed there, the signal goes to the vagus nerve, and finally reaches the adrenal glands. Adrenals produce the dopamine, the key agent in reducing inflammation.

The above example shows how simple stimulation causes a response and interaction between your nervous and immune systems.

Besides the anti-inflammatory effect, acupuncture causes a rise of interferon, one of the immune system’s messenger hormones, modulates natural killer cell activity.

How to prevent COVID-19?

Despite accumulating knowledge, we know extraordinarily little about COVID-19 and how to treat it. Coronavirus patients in China routinely receive experimentally. But from a scientific perspective, it’s unknown what part acupuncture plays in recovery or prevention.

As for COVID-19 prevention, the best strategy, for now, is to avoid getting the virus in the first place: wash your hands, practice social distancing, follow the recommendations of the NZ Ministry of Health.

Boost your immune system

Keep your health and immune system in top-notch condition. If you are in better health, should you get COVID-19, you’re bound to have the best chance to recover smoothly.

Sleep enough
Exercise
Enjoy safe sunshine
Have regular acupuncture
Eat a diet high in fruits and vegetables, maintain a healthy weight
Minimise stress