Articles
Acupuncture lowers antidepressant requirement - Journal of Chinese Medicine, Oct 2009 |
| Posted by Paula Hutchinson (paulahutchinson) on Mon Jan 11, 2010 at 12:35 PM |
Adding acupuncture to medical treatment for depression can reduce the amount of drugs needed to treat the condition and therefore reduce the side-effects of medication. In a Chinese randomised, double-blind, sham-controlled study 80 patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) were randomised to two groups: one received standardised verum acupuncture, 10 mg/day fluoxetine and placebo (VA) and the other received sham acupuncture and 20-30 mg/day fluoxetine (SA). Acupuncture was applied five times a week over a period of six weeks. At the end of the treatment period, therapeutic response rates were not significantly different between groups (80.0% for VA and 77.5% for SA). Patients in the VA group also showed better improvement than the SA group in symptoms of anxiety and suffered fewer antidepressant side-effects. (Combination of acupuncture and fluoxetine for depression: a randomized, double-blind, sham-controlled trial. J Altern Complement Med. 2009 Aug;15(8):837-44).
