The story offers an estimate of the cost of an acupuncture session at $125. The study participants received nine separate sessions, which would, by this estimate, total $1,125. The story also mentions that some insurance carriers will pay for acupuncture treatments. The story reports an improvement in perceived pain relief by the participants receiving actual acupuncture (41 percent) versus those in the control group getting sham treatments (27 percent). It also reports that the reduction in pain persists for up to a year, although not to the same degree. It’s helpful that the story lists the relative reduction in pain seen in both groups for comparison purposes. However, the story would have been stronger had it indicated how the pain score used in the study works (e.g. What’s the range of the scale?) and what the absolute reduction in pain scores was in both groups (e.g. If pain scores were already low to begin with, a 41 percent reduction might not be very meaningful). We would need that type of information to be able to judge the story Satisfactory on this criterion. This story made no mention of potential harms from the use of acupuncture although the research paper clearly identified some “mild adverse events” affecting participants. These included headaches, pain and bruising at the acupuncture sites, and an aggravation of some fibromyalgia symptoms. While these are far from serious harms, readers deserve to know that they are possible outcomes. The story reports on the findings of a double-blinded, multi-center study comparing real acupuncture to a sham treatment. The description of the study design is solid and includes discussion of limitations and confounding factors. Quoting two different experts, the story suggests that the pain reductions in the acupuncture group might have been due to their increasing use of antidepressants during the study, which “may have artificially boosted the positive results.” This is an interesting observation, although a look at supplemental table 5 in the paper shows that the sham treatment group’s use of antidepressants also increased during the study, and to a greater extent than the acupuncture group. To us, this suggests that the persistent benefit in terms of pain in the acupuncture group is unlikely to be due mainly to the use of these other medications. This story does not appear to commit disease mongering. The story quotes experts other than those conducting the research, as well as providing additional information from other sources. One of the quoted experts appears not to be an acupuncturist, which is good. The story does not mention any potential conflicts of interest but the research paper itself states there were no conflicts. Readers might have benefited, however, from knowing the funding source for this research, which was The Spanish Ministry of Health and Consumer Affairs and the Andalusian Public Health System, two public agencies. Acupuncture is considered to be an alternative, or complement, to traditional western medicine. The story mentions that most fibromyalgia patients take medications for pain, depression, and other symptoms, and that they may also receive other alternative therapies, such as massage. Acupuncture is now considered a fairly common alternative therapy for a number of conditions and is usually available in most locales. The story hints as much when it says that 9 out of 10 patients with fibromyalgia report using some form of alternative therapy, including acupuncture. Previous studies of acupuncture among fibromyalgia patients showed conflicting results. In this case, the story identifies that the acupuncture was individualized to the particular patients, as opposed to some general acupuncture approach, and compares an experimental group of participants with a control group, something missing in some earlier studies. There is enough original reporting here that we can be confident the story is not based on a news release.
Acupuncture May Help Ease Fibromyalgia Pain, Study Finds