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COMMENTS & OPINIONS
Sham Acupuncture Is Not a Placebo—Reply
Heinz G. Endres, MD;
Albrecht Molsberger, PhD, MD;
Michael Haake, PhD, MD
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In reply
Li et al correctly note that sham acupuncture is not a placebo. Nevertheless, the 2 forms of acupuncture differ in the location of acupuncture points, depth of needling, and intensity of nerve stimulation. The manual needle stimulation to elicit de qi sensation in verum acupuncture (but not sham) is considered a sign of sufficient stimulation of afferent nerve fibers.
Despite these differences, treatment success of sham and verum acupuncture did not differ significantly 6 months after baseline, and both forms were superior to conventional therapy. Consequently, there must be commonalities between the 2 forms of acupuncture, as discussed in our article,1 since the success of the conventional therapy cannot be attributed solely to a placebo effect and the success of acupuncture cannot be attributed solely to the conditions of a randomized trial (comparable success rates were . . . [Full Text of this Article]
AUTHOR INFORMATION
RELATED ARTICLE
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Michael Haake, Hans-Helge Müller, Carmen Schade-Brittinger, Heinz D. Basler, Helmut Schäfer, Christoph Maier, Heinz G. Endres, Hans J. Trampisch, and Albrecht Molsberger
Arch Intern Med. 2007;167(17):1892-1898.
ABSTRACT
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RELATED LETTER
Sham Acupuncture Is Not a Placebo
Shih Min Li, Jéssica Maria Costi, and João Eduardo Marten Teixeira
Arch Intern Med. 2008;168(9):1011.
EXTRACT
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