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Do the acupuncture channels really exist? |
| Posted on Apr 13 2008 at 8:26 AM |
| News / Blog >> Acupuncture |
Over the last couple of decades a lot of research has gone into understanding what effect acupuncture has on the nervous system and a lot is now known about this. It is probably true to say that many of the effects of acupuncture are indeed mediated by the nervous system, and the ways in which this works are many and complex. As a traditional acupuncturist however I do like to think that there is truth to the original descriptions of the acupuncture pathways or meridians. For readers unfamiliar with this, the traditional Chinese texts, some of which date back over a thousand years, describe 14 main pathways or lines of energy flow. 12 of these meridians, or channels, connect internally with internal organs and are named after these connections, so we describe one as the liver channel, another as the stomach channel, and so on. The other two meridians traverse the midline of the back and front of the body. Most of the acupuncture points lie along the pathways of these meridians.
Several studies support the existence of these pathways. For example, biophysicists in Germany claim to have produced evidence for the meridians: after moxibustion, whereby herbs are burnt over an acupuncture point, the classical meridian lines were observed by biophoton emission in the infrared range. Put more simply, the meridians lit up! They speculate thath this may lead to new understanding of the energy transfer dynamics of the body. Interestingly, anthropological evidence suggests that the practice of warming acupuncture points is much older that acupuncture itself. Researchers believe that sensitive subjects could feel heat travelling away from the heated acupuncture point along the line of the meridian and that this is how the meridians were discovered in the first place.
In another study, Korean researchers took 20 subjects and gave them mechanical vibrations from a stimulator device and measured the resulting wave movement through the body's tissues, both on the pericardium meridian and alongside the meridian. The wave transfer speed was significantly lower in the meridian than in the control area. There were also significant differences in the pattern of the waves. The implication is that the substance of meridians differs from that of adjacent tissues.
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