Home | News | TCM | Reflexology | Acupuncture | Taiji | Qigong | Herbal Tea | Sino-western Joint | Products | Cases | Academic Exchange | Prevention | Activities | Forum | Community | Blog | About Us | Site Map
According to Chinese medicine theory, acupuncture helps restore balance and a healthy energy flow within the body. Although scientists don't fully understand how or why acupuncture works, some studies indicate that it may provide a number of medical benefits including the reduction of chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting.
Chemotherapy is a treatment for cancers that involves administering chemicals into the body that are found toxic to malignant cells. Chemotherapy, often successful in treating malignant cancer cells, often produces intense side effects in the body. According to a review published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, certain types of acupuncture-point stimulation may relieve chemotherapy-induced nausea or vomiting. Despite significant progress over the past decade in controlling chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting, more than half of all patients receiving chemotherapy still suffer from these side effects. Furthermore, nausea may persist when vomiting is controlled. These symptoms can be severely debilitating and often lead patients to refuse further courses of chemotherapy. Refusing chemotherapy can minimize the chance for optimal health outcome.
The acupuncture point thought to be associated with relief of nausea is P6, which is located on the wrist. This point can be stimulated through a variety of methods, including manual acupuncture (insertion of needles), electro-acupuncture (passing electric current through the inserted needle), noninvasive electro-stimulation (application of electric current without a needle), or acupressure (pressure applied by the fingers or an elastic wristband). Patients receiving high-dose chemotherapy found that electro-acupuncture treatments combined with anti-nausea medication were more effective than medication alone in controlling their chemo-related vomiting, according to a study reported in the Dec. 6 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association. According to cancer experts, the study adds to the evidence that non-traditional therapies can be helpful to patients suffering from side effects of chemotherapy. An increasing number of well-designed studies are focusing on complementary and alternative therapies.
