Acupuncture has been used in China for millennia, but the study of sticking fine needles in the body to alleviate pain has only recently entered the realm of western medicine, although it is still often met with a fair share of skepticism by the scientific establishment.

At the 13th meeting of the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP), Ji-Sheng Han, a neurophysiologist at Peking University in Beijing, China, contended that the pain relief felt by people who undergo the procedure is real and reproducible.

“On top of placebo, you have a real acupuncture effect,” Han told delegates today at the meeting in Montreal.

Speaking in the first plenary lecture ever dedicated to acupuncture, Han explained how early randomized, double-blind studies that found no therapeutic effect of acupuncture failed to conduct the treatment properly because the researchers tended to insert the needles, but not twist them around. Manipulating the needles, Han said, is necessary to trigger nerve fibers to release neurotransmitters.

Han, who did not present new data, noted that there is currently no hard evidence for the meridians that are meant to channel the body’s energy or Qi, but he insists that neurotransmitters are involved. In a study now more than 25-years-old, Han gave rats an electronically enhanced form of acupuncture and found that different frequencies of electronic pulses induced different forms of neuropeptides (Pain 19(supplement 2), 543, 1984).

A study in last month’s issue of Nature Neuroscience found that adenosine — a neuro-modulator involved in ATP biosynthesis but not itself a neurotransmitter — mediates the effects of acupuncture in mice. Han acknowledged that adenosine is likely involved in people’s responses as well, but he said that the authors only studied one type of acupuncture, known in Chinese as ‘ah shi’. Loosely translated as ‘oh yes’, this form of the therapy is done when people have sharp pain at particular body points. The more widely-used form of acupuncture, which is used to treat general aches and pains, stimulates the brain’s neurotransmitters, Han maintained.

Mind you, acupuncture is not for everyone. Although a fervent defender of the technique, Han outed himself as one of the 10-15% of people who do not respond to acupuncture.