Countless studies have looked at how acupuncture really works, however Dr. Linda Kiley of Urogynecology Specialists of the Palm Beaches, an acupuncture specialist in Jupiter, Florida, says that acupuncture is best looked at from both the Eastern and Western perspectives.
From the Eastern perspective, Dr. Kiley says that acupuncture is looked at as a way of re-organizing the flow of energy in the body. The body is made up of energy, of course, and that energy has to flow through the body correctly in order to allow the body to function properly.
The underpinning to Eastern medicine’s view on acupuncture, says the Jupiter acupuncture expert, is that there is some blockage of flow that is causing excess energy either built up in one place or to be inadequately delivered to another part of the body. This is what is causing the dysfunction.
Dr. Kiley says these are examples of how acupuncture is looked at from an Eastern perspective. Meanwhile, the Western perspective is quite different.
From the Western perspective, Dr. Kiley says there have been studies using radioactive dye tracers in certain channels that demonstrated that those channels were influenced by acupuncture. When the channels are stimulated with acupuncture, the dye flows at a different rate; from the blood flow to the lymphatic flow to the nerve function flow—they all course through the body completely differently when a person undergoes acupuncture.
As an acupuncture expert in Jupiter, Dr. Kiley says there have been studies that demonstrated the presence of a different type of tissue at acupuncture points in the body. Pathology studies, dye studies, and radioactive tracer studies have all shown that acupuncture does work. There have also been brain studies that looked at the changes in brain function and endorphin production with the use of acupuncture in Jupiter. The effects have been studied in depth and documented well—and repeatedly—by different researchers. Therefore, we now know that there is a Western basis for acupuncture, explains Dr. Kiley.
How, exactly, acupuncture works—from a Western medicine perspective—is still up for debate. Nobody truly knows how acupuncture works, only that it has had specific effect on the human body. There are channels in the body that correspond with the meridian that the ancient Chinese described. The Chinese call this change in flow “Ch’I,” also spelled as Chi or Qi. In the United States, most people would call it a “life force” or just “energy.”
Nonetheless, this concept Chi changes the way the body works. By undergoing acupuncture treatments, people can relieve pain and change the function of certain organs in a way that can be extremely beneficial to their overall health.