Reuters photo by Shannon Stapleton
Barbara Leivent, a patient of Ping Zhang, a licensed acupuncturist, rests with acupuncture needles on her face during a face lift treatment at Zhang’s office in Port Washington, New York October 28, 2004.

Acupuncture and other Chinese therapies are gaining popularity in the U.S.

by WAH-HUI ONG

As the country’s 77 million baby boomers begin turning 60, many are turning to alternative treatments to ease the stiff backs and debilitating joint aches that are hampering their gait.

According to AARP and the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, nearly two-thirds of American adults age 50 and older have used one or more and alternative medical therapies, including herbal supplements, meditation and acupuncture.

Of these alternatives, acupuncture is enjoying the biggest boost, says Dr. William R. Morris, president emeritus of the American Association of Oriental Medicine.

Baby-boomers are getting older at a time when there is growing scientific evidence of the ancient therapy’s efficacy for chronic maladies such as osteoarthritis, Morris says. Western medicine, with its roots in surgery and drugs, has not always been successful for such chronic conditions.

In October, a German study of over 3,500 people in their sixties with hip or knee osteoarthritis found that those who were treated with acupuncture in addition to their standard Western care showed significant improvements in symptoms and quality of life compared with patients who received standard care alone. The study also showed that the benefits continued after treatments ended.

Morris, who has practiced acupuncture and oriental medicine for 25 years, says the media has also helped bring awareness of the practice to a new level, making reference to an episode last week on The Oprah Show, where a guest doctor endorsed the practice.

Acupuncture is based on traditional Chinese medicine’s tenets of balancing the body’s yin and yang - defined as opposing energies, such as cold and hot. This is acheived by restoring the body’s natural flow of energy, known as qi (pronounced “chee”). The purpose of acupuncture, which involves inserting thin needles into specific body points, is to regulate the flow of qi, which many believe is essential to optimal health.

In the United States, Chinese medicine was largely unknown to Americans before 1971, although it had been commonplace among Chinese immigrants since the mid-19th century. That year, former New York Times reporter James Reston, who was in Beijing covering former President Richard M. Nixon’s trip, needed an emergency appendix operation and received acupuncture for post-surgical pain.

Reston’s stories about his positive experiences with Chinese medicine and acupuncture, which made front page news in the Times, fascinated the public, and he is widely credited with bringing awareness of Chinese medicine to the United States.

Dr. Lixing Lao, director of the Traditional Chinese Medicine Research Program at the University of Maryland School of Medicine’s Center for Integrative Medicine, recalls the time when acupuncture was just starting to creep into the mainstream.

“Acupuncture got listed as an investigational device in 1974. That meant you could use it only in studies, not for medical treatment,” said Lao, a graduate of the Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, who also has a doctorate in physiology and is a licensed Maryland acupuncturist.

However, in the last decade acupuncture has gained wide acceptance as a medical option, Lao says. And because acupuncture does not come cheap –sessions run from $40-$125– Lao hopes Medicaid and Medicare, which do not cover alternative treatments, will take a cue from private insurers like Maryland’s Blue Cross Blue Shield, which this year extended its coverage of acupuncture treatments from 10 to 25 a year.

“It will benefit elderly patients who need a lot of help with arthritic treatments,” he says.

But not all health insurance plans cover alternative therapies, and when they do, the coverage varies by state. Growing interest in alternative coverage is prompting more insurance companies to offer it. In September 2004, a survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that employer coverage for acupuncture increased 14 percent from 2002 to 2004, making it one of the fastest-growing alternative therapies to be covered for American workers with health benefits.

The survey, which included 3,017 public and private firms, also found that 47 percent of all employers surveyed offered acupuncture as a covered health benefit, up 33 percent from 2002.

While Morris says there is no question in his mind that acupuncture is an effective, low-cost addition to public health care, he concedes that for the treatment to become a standard option across private and federal insurance plans, more studies are needed.

“If there is more evidence showing that acupuncture can lower the cost of medical care by reducing the number of days you spend in the hospital, then hopefully we will see federal funding to the procedure,” Morris said.

At the University of Maryland’s Center for Integrative Medicine, Lao has been involved in studies to document the effectiveness of acupuncture in elder care. In addition to acupuncture, he is keen to advance other aspects of Chinese medicine, and has initiated a five-year study of the use of Chinese herbal medicine on osteoarthritis. The program is funded by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.

Lao says that even though his patients know he is a certified herbalist, he faces resistance from some patients who worry that taking herbal medicines might be unsafe. He says their predicament is understandable.

“Herbal medicine has been used for thousands of years in Asia and China,” Lao says. “But the challenge for us today, and for the future of herbal medicine, is to evaluate scientifically and ensure that is it safe before applying for FDA approvals.”

Although the use of Chinese herbs does not require FDA approval, Lao hopes a more explicit nod from the FDA for the use of Chinese herbs in the treatment of osteoarthritis will give patients more assurance that the medicine is safe.

Lao’s optimist attitude about the future of Chinese medicine has left an impression on his students. Ling Chen, a second-year medical student at the University of Maryland, remembers Lao’s passion in instilling greater interest in Chinese medicine during a small group discussion he led.

Ling says that she and her classmates are interested in alternative medicine, “but until more proof turns up, it’s not the best thing to rely on totally.”

In most American medical schools, students attend one lecture and a small group discussion on alternative medicine practices. This is less than 0.1 percent of the curriculum–about the same amount of time allotted to peripheral medical care such as general anesthetics.

Those who want to go on to practice acupuncture need to complete specific courses on Chinese medicine and acupuncture and take a state exam before becoming licensed practitioners. Non-medical students need to take additional courses on basic medical sciences before taking state licensing exams.

In addition to the use of acupuncture to treat osteoarthritis among the elderly, another area of growing research is the use of acupuncture as a complementary therapy for women undergoing fertility treatments. Studies have shown that acupuncture has a positive impact in the rate of pregnancy in women undergoing in vitro fertilization.

A landmark German study done in 2002 involving 160 women showed that of the 80 women who underwent IVF and received acupuncture, 34 women got pregnant, a success rate of 42.5 percent. Of the 80 women involved in the study who received IVF without any acupuncture treatments, only 21 women, or 26.3 percent, became pregnant.

In the United States, ta 2004 study involving 114 women showed that 51 percent of the women who had acupuncture and IVF treatments became pregnant as compared to only 36 percent of the women who had IVF alone. It also found there were lower rates of miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies among those who got acupuncture treatment over those who did not.

Eugene Zhang, a Virginia-licensed acupuncturist, says he has treated many IVF patients.

“Stress and hormonal deficiencies are the most common reasons for infertility,” Zhang says. “Acupuncture can help by restoring the hormonal balance and other bodily functions, which in turn can help ovulation in women and increase sperm production in men.”

Morris, who also advocates the use of acupuncture for women’s reproductive health, says he thinks it will be a while before the practice becomes standard cure for any ailment in the United States. He says there is still a cultural mindset to overcome in terms of combining Western and Chinese practices.

“Once we can get over that mindset and look at combining the best of East and West, the public will be better for it,” he says.