Do something. Improve quality of life.

A medical journal published the results of a research study which examined the effects of acupuncture on head and neck cancer patients.  The acupuncture did not increase saliva production significantly but it did improve “dry mouth.”

Really?

Here’s the problem:  they did not have a control arm to the study.  They gave everyone acupuncture and then found an effect on the subjective measures.

Ever heard of the placebo effect?  Studies have shown that just participating in a study results in an effect.  Doing anything can (and often does) result in an improvement.  That’s why the gold standard in evaluating a treatment or a drug is the double-blind randomized placebo controlled trial.  The treatment being evaluated is compared to no treatment but the study is designed so that the subjects don’t know which they are receiving.  The double-blind is that the evaluators also don’t know which treatment a subject is receiving.  In this way, “do something” (the placebo) is compared to “do something + give therapy” (the treatment).

This is possible with acupuncture.  The treatment group receives needles at the appropriate acupuncture points and the placebo group receives needles at other points which shouldn’t do anything.  If both groups benefit the same amount, the treatment had no effect.

The study highlighted above proves nothing more than poking needles into someone will make them believe that they are improving.  And that’s certainly not worth writing about.

]