Body of Research

This original research, a clinical trial investigating the effects of laser acupuncture for Bell’s palsy, suggests that using laser acupuncture treatment may have clinical effects on long-term complications of Bell’s palsy.  Read the full abstract, and link to full article access, at the Journal of Lasers in Medical Sciences.   Reference: Ton, G., Lee, L.-W., Ho, W.-C., Tu, C.-H., Chen, Y.-H., & Lee, Y.-C. (2021). Effects of Laser Acupuncture Therapy for Patients With Inadequate Recovery ...

The American Veterans Health Administration (VHA) launched a national initiative to train providers in Battlefield Acupuncture (BFA) treatment as a non-pharmacological approach to pain management, and performed a research project over a 2 year period (2016-2018) to evaluate its effectiveness on immediate pain relief. This project took place at 57 VHA medical centers in the United States. A total of 11,406 veterans were treated with BFA at least once, in some cases 3 times.  More than 75% expe...

Acupoint therapy following the clinical approaches of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), including manual acupuncture, electroacupuncture, moxibustion, external applications, and acupoint injection, have proved to have specific curative effect and notable advantages in the treatment of diabetes, and its common chronic complications —  neuropathy, nephropathy, and hepatopathy. As a stand-alone treatment, or combined with biomedical interventions, it has shown superior efficacy and less side e...

Dr. Im Quah-Smith, MD, PhD, conjoint lecturer for Women’s and Children’s Health the University of New South Wales Medicine Program, points to evidence, clinical applications, and several use cases, to argue for broader use of Vascular Autonomic Signal (VAS) palpation in Auricular interventions (Auricular Medicine, ear acupuncture, transcutaneous Vagus Nerve Stimulation, and low-level laser therapy): “Today Auricular Medicine has strong biological and clinical evidence for its application with...

Often, study results of acupuncture for relief of postoperative pain do not offer compelling results owing to high risk of bias associated with improper randomization, inadequate control, and lack of blinding and allocation concealment. Systematic reviews do conclude that the evidence for Auricular Acupuncture on reducing postoperative pain is promising [18]. Study protocols such as this, provide an example for integrative medicine practice in a hospital setting for the management of postoper...

The National Acupuncture Detoxification Association (NADA) protocol, developed during an era of surging opiate use and addiction, is known as a cost-effective means to quickly reach and help treat populations that are often considered the most difficult to treat.  This 2016 review by Stuyt & Voyles is drawn from a range of small positive studies that offer testimony, “perhaps more appropriate to the reality of NADA practice today” of effectiveness for supportive intervention. NADA protoco...

There are two types of strokes: (1) a severe type with loss of consciousness (involvement of the internal organs) and (2) a milder type with no loss of consciousness (involvement of the channels only). In both types, aphasia can be present. The effectiveness of acupuncture for addressing apoplectic aphasia has been shown in studies.[1,2] For auricular acupuncture, select from Brain, Adrenal Gland E, Adrenal Gland C, Point Zero, ShenMen, Master Cerebral, Sympathetic Autonomic Point, Endocrine ...

Obesity is a chronic condition related to serious morbidity and mortality of increasing incidence and prevalence. Several studies show a significantly higher weight loss with acupuncture treatment. This is the first prospective, randomized, double-blinded study, testing the effects of auricular electroacupuncture on weight loss in obese female patients. Read more about the promising results showing the possibility of electrical auricular acupuncture to be a safe, adjunctive, non-pharmacologic...

Auricular stimulation has been applied for medical treatment for thousands of years, and became popularized on the developments of Dr. Paul Nogier, the “father” of auriculotherapy and auriculomedicine. In the present study, the relationship between the auricular acupuncture and the vagal regulation has been reviewed. It is shown that auricular acupuncture plays a role in vagal activity of autonomic functions of cardiovascular, respiratory, and gastrointestinal systems. Mechanism studies sugge...

The randomized controlled trial from this study show that ear acupuncture can be a useful treatment approach to control migraine pain. It has been shown that active points on the ear — those as described as being tender by the patient when probed, a technique also known as Needle Contact Test (NCT) — identify the most efficacious ear acu- or stimulation-points to support the condition (e.g. migraine). From the randomized controlled trial completed by Allais, Romoli, Rolando et. al. you can le...

Summary: Blood-sugar levels were assessed before and after 200 applications of low-level laser therapy (LLLT) in 32 patients. The results were as follows: An average decrease of 1.54 mmol/lt in 70.5%; an average increase of 0.82 mmol/lt in 28%; and unchanged results in 1.5%. Longterm sugar HbA1c was reduced by an average of 1.23%. The most efficient application of LLLT was with the red intravascular laser using a frequency setting of 3323 Hz, the insulin frequency. Further studies are necessa...