How does acupuncture work? The Western perspective

I was a long-time skeptic of acupuncture. I didn’t have any training in the system during medical school, and it just didn’t make sense to me how needles inserted in seemingly random parts of the body could produce meaningful changes. When i first saw it used in practice, though, I was completely blown away. I saw patients with a huge array of conditions, many of which are difficult to treat from a Western perspective, who were clearly getting a huge benefit from the therapy. I immediately became a believer.

From an Eastern medicine standpoint, there isn’t a mystery as to why acupuncture works—one “believes” in acupuncture the same way one would “believe” in Western medicine—but the Eastern standpoint is a story for another post. What I found is that it can be difficult to articulate how and why it works in a Western context.

A number of theories have been proposed. Most of them I find to be unsatisfactory, though they have become increasingly sophisticated in recent years. The most comprehensive theory I have encountered is the growth control model of acupuncture.