satire
I have tried!
Honestly!
But at present, it is simply not possible to escape the revelations and accusations by Harry Windsor.
So, eventually, I gave in and had a look at the therapy he often refers to. He claims that he is deeply traumatized by what he had to go through and, to help him survive the ordeal, Harry has been reported to use EMDR.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a fringe psychotherapy that was developed to alleviate the distress associated with traumatic memories. It is supposed to facilitate the accessing and processing of traumatic memories and other adverse life experiences with a view of bringing these to an adaptive resolution. The claim is that, after successful treatment with EMDR therapy, affective distress is relieved, negative beliefs are reformulated, and physiological arousal is reduced.
During EMDR therapy the patient must attend to emotionally disturbing material in brief sequential doses while simultaneously focusing on an external stimulus. Therapist-directed lateral eye movements are commonly used as external stimulus but a variety of other stimuli including hand-tapping and audio stimulation can also be employed.
Francine Shapiro, the psychologist who invented EMDR claims to have serendipitously discovered this technique by experiencing spontaneous saccadic eye movements in response to disturbing thoughts during a walk in the woods. Yet, as GM Rosen explains, this explanation is difficult to accept because normal saccadic eye movements appear to be physiologically undetectable and are typically triggered by external stimuli.
Shapiro hypothesizes that EMDR therapy facilitates the access to the traumatic memory network, so that information processing is enhanced, with new associations forged between the traumatic memory and more adaptive memories or information. These new associations are alleged to result in complete information processing, new learning, elimination of emotional distress, and development of cognitive insights.
EMDR therapy uses a three-pronged protocol:
- (1) the past events that have laid the groundwork for dysfunction are processed, forging new associative links with adaptive information;
- (2) the current circumstances that elicit distress are targeted, and internal and external triggers are desensitized;
- (3) imaginal templates of future events are incorporated, to assist the client in acquiring the skills needed for adaptive functioning.
The question I ask myself is, of course: Does EMDR work?
The evidence is mixed and generally flimsy. A systematic review showed that “limitations to the current evidence exist, and much current evidence relies on small sample sizes and provides limited follow-up data”.
What might be particularly interesting in relation to Harry Windsor is that EMDR techniques have been associated with memory-undermining effects and may undermine the accuracy of memory, which can be risky if patients, later on, serve as witnesses in legal proceedings.
Personally, I think that Harry’s outbursts lend support to the hypothesis that EMDR is not effective. In the interest of the royal family, we should perhaps see whether so-called alternative medicine (SCAM) does offer an effective treatment against navel gazing?
You, the readers of this blog, have spoken!
The WORST PAPER OF 2022 competition has concluded with a fairly clear winner.
To fill in those new to all this: over the last year, I selected articles that struck me as being of particularly poor quality. I then published them with my comments on this blog. In this way, we ended up with 10 papers, and you had the chance to nominate the one that, in your view, stood out as the worst. Votes came in via comments to my last post about the competition and via emails directly to me. A simple count identified the winner.
It is PAUL VARNAS, DC, a graduate of the National College of Chiropractic, US. He is the author of several books and has taught nutrition at the National University of Health Sciences. His award-winning paper is entitled “What is the goal of science? ‘Scientific’ has been co-opted, but science is on the side of chiropractic“. In my view, it is a worthy winner of the award (the runner-up was entry No 10). Here are a few memorable quotes directly from Paul’s article:
- Most of what chiropractors do in natural health care is scientific; it just has not been proven in a laboratory at the level we would like.
- In many ways we are more scientific than traditional medicine because we keep an open mind and study our observations.
- Traditional medicine fails to be scientific because it ignores clinical observations out of hand.
- When you think about it, in natural health care we are much better at utilizing the scientific process than traditional medicine.
But I am surely doing Paul an injustice. To appreciate his article, please read his article in full.
I am especially pleased that this award goes to a chiropractor who informs us about the value of science and research. The two research questions that undoubtedly need answering more urgently than any other in the realm of chiropractic relate to the therapeutic effectiveness and risks of chiropractic. I just had a quick look in Medline and found an almost complete absence of research from 2022 into these two issues. This, I believe, makes the award for the WORST PAPER OF 2022 all the more meaningful.
PS
Yesterday, I wrote to Paul informing him about the good news (as yet, no reply). Once he provides me with a postal address, I will send him a copy of my recent book on chiropractic as his well-earned prize. I have also invited him to contribute a guest post to this blog. Watch this space!
Every now and then, I like to look at what our good friend and SCAM entrepreneur Gwyneth Paltrow is offering via her extraordinary ripoff called GOOP. When I recently browsed through her goodies, I find lots of items that made me blush (common decency does not permit me to go into details here). But I also found something that I am sure many of us might need after the over-indulgence of recent weeks:Preview Changes (opens in a new tab)
“The Martini” Emotional Detox Bath Soak
The product is described as follows:
This body-and-spirit-centering bath soak, infused with Himalayan pink salt, helps take the edge off during turbulent times (or after a crazy day). Called “The Martini” after the traditional name for the last take of the day in filmmaking, the soak is made with pharmaceutical-grade Epsom salts, chia-seed oil, passionflower, valerian root, myrrh, Australian sandalwood, and wild-crafted frankincense.
Here at goop we believe in making every choice count, which is why we’ve always been outspoken about the toxic ingredients used in personal-care and beauty products (all are effectively unregulated in this country). We’re also passionate about the idea that beauty comes from the inside out. So we use clinically proven and best-in-class ingredients at active levels to create skin care, skin-boosting ingestibles, and body essentials that are luxurious, deliver high-performance results, and enliven the senses with exquisite textures and beautiful scents. We don’t rest until we think our products are perfect—safe enough and powerful enough for noticeable results. (All our products are formulated without parabens, petroleum, phthalates, SLS, SLES, PEGs, TEA, DEA, silicones, or artificial dyes or fragrances. And our formulas are not tested on animals.) We hope you love them as much as we do.
Yes, there is a whole world out there of which a retired chap like myself knows as good as nothing. And it has its very own terminology: 
- emotional detox
- body-and-spirit-centering
- pharmaceutical-grade Epsom salts
- wild-crafted
- clinically proven and best-in-class ingredients
- skin-boosting ingestibles
- body essentials
- high-performance results
By now, I am sure, you are dying to learn what the Emotional Detox Bath Soak contains:
Sodium Chloride, Magnesium Sulfate, Passiflora Incarnata Extract, Valeriana Officinalis Root Extract, Salvia Hispanica Seed Oil, Helianthus Annuus (Sunflower) Seed Oil, Rosmarinus Officinalis (Rosemary), Leaf Extract, Maltodextrin, Boswellia Carterii Oil, Commiphora Myrrha Oil, Fusanus Spicatus Wood Oil, Cyperus Scariosus (Nagarmotha) Oil, Vetiveria Zizanoides Root Oil, Simmondsia Chinensis (Jojoba) Seed Oil, Tocopherol.
Clinically proven, you ask?
Well, perhaps not in the sense that sad, retired academics tend to understand the term, but you have to realize, this is a different world where words have different meanings, the meaning entretreneurs want them to have. What is proven though is this: at $40 a tiny jar, the detox bath will eliminate some cash from your pocket – after all, that’s what detox is all about, isn’t it?
The year 2022 has drawn to a close, and it is time to vote on the ‘WORST PAPER OF 2022 COMPETITION’. As a prize, I am offering the winner (that is the lead author of the winning paper) one of my books that best fits his/her subject. I am sure this will overjoy him or her. Here are to 10 candidates that we discussed in 2022:
- WORST PAPER OF 2022 COMPETITION, entry No 10: “Conventional Homeopathic Medicine and Its Relevance to Modern Medicine”
- WORST PAPER OF 2022 COMPETITION, entry No 9: How to improve traditional Chinese medicine learning internationally
- The ‘WORST PAPER OF 2022 COMPETITION’ entry No 8: Acupuncture for the Treatment of Female Sexual Dysfunction
- The ‘WORST PAPER OF 2022 COMPETITION’ entry No 7: Effects of a Persian herbal medicine for COVID-19
- The ‘WORST PAPER OF 2022 COMPETITION’ entry No 6: “The efficacy and safety of dry cupping in cervical spondylosis with optimization of cup application time – A randomized clinical trial”
- ‘WORST PAPER OF 2022 COMPETITION’ Entry No 5: “Chinese Herbal Medicine … Improves the Survival Rate of Patients with Ischemic Heart Disease”
- ‘WORST PAPER OF 2022 COMPETITION’ Entry No 4: A meta-analysis of the safety of acupuncture
- The ‘WORST PAPER OF 2022’ COMPETITION. Entry No 3: Effects of an Islamic-Based Intervention on Depression and Anxiety
- The ‘WORST PAPER OF 2022’ COMPETITION. Entry No 2: the safety differences between Chinese medicine and Western medicine
- The ‘WORST PAPER OF 2022’ competition. 1st entry: A chiropractor’s view of science
I am pleased to see that the 10 entries cover a wide range of so-called alternative medicines (SCAMs). This has not been achieved by design but by coincidence; it suggests that I do not have a particular grudge against any specific SCAM but was led by the quality of the paper. Similarly, the papers were published in a wide range of different journals, and this implies that I am not out to defame a particular journal (such as ‘Homeopathy’, for instance, that fired me from its ed board). And lastly, the list also shows that I am not abusing this little exercise to defame a particular researcher; in fact, I think I do not know any of the individuals in person.
The 10 entries are clearly numbered. If you want to (re-)read them, please click on the links and the original post should appear. There you find the links to the original articles. Once you have decided which is in your view the worst paper, please cast your vote either by posting a comment here or by sending me an email via the contact option on top of this post.
I will wait for three days and then announce the lucky winner. Subsequently, I will contact the winner and ask for his/her postal address; if he/she gives it to me, I will post a book to him/her with my congratulations.
I hope I can count on you to vote.
In 2020, a Swedish team published a study investigating what resolutions people make when they are free to formulate them, whether different resolutions reach differing success rates, and whether it is possible to increase the likelihood of a resolution’s success by administering information and exercises on effective goal setting. Participants (N = 1066) from the general public were randomized into three groups:
- active control,
- some support,
- and extended support.
The most popular resolutions regarded physical health, weight loss, and eating habits. At a one-year follow-up, 55% of responders considered themselves successful in sustaining their resolutions. Participants with approach-oriented goals were significantly more successful than those with avoidance-oriented goals (58.9% vs. 47.1%). The group that received some support was exclusively and significantly more successful compared to the other two.
The authors concluded that New Year’s resolutions can have lasting effects, even at a one-year follow-up.
This is a truly interesting study generating a lot of truly boring resolutions.
Boring is, however, something that we must avoid on this blog. In an attempt of doing just this, I decided to lodge my tongue in my cheek and formulate my very own resolutions for 2023 in relation to so-called alternative medicine (SCAM) and this blog. I shall:
- Never again call a comment or a commentator idiotic.
- Never state that chiropractors, homeopaths, osteopaths, naturopaths, or other SCAM practitioners are unethical charlatans.
- Never claim that subluxations, meridians, vital forces, etc. are pure fantasy.
- Never suggest that the assumptions of homeopathy fly in the face of science.
- Never imply that holism, integrative medicine, etc. are just sales gimmicks for crooks to boost their businesses.
- Never again demonstrate that a study is fraudulent just because its findings are too good to be true.
- Never again utter a critical word about our SCAM-loving sovereign, King Charles.
In case you are puzzled by my resolutions, please consider this: contrary to the above-cited evidence, it has been shown that only 12% of people who make new year’s resolutions will actually keep them. And this brings me to my last (and only realistic) resolution for 2023:
8. I shall not feel tempted to adhere to my New Year’s resolutions.
Is so-called alternative medicine (SCAM) compatible with Christian beliefs? This is not a question that often robs me of my sleep, yet it seems an interesting issue to explore during the Christmas holiday. So, I did a few searches and – would you believe it? – found a ‘Christian Checklist’ as applied to SCAM Since it is by no means long, let me present it to you in full:
- Taking into consideration the lack of scientific evidence available, can it be recommended with integrity?
- What are its roots? Is there an eastern religious basis (Taoism or Hinduism)? Is it based on life force or vitalism?
- Are there any specific spiritual dangers involved? Does its method of diagnosis or practice include occult practices, all forms of which are strictly forbidden in Scripture.
Now, let me try to answer the questions that the checklist poses:
- No! – particularly not, if the SCAM endangers the health of the person who uses it (which, as we have discussed so often can occur in multiple ways).
- Most SCAMs have their roots in eastern religions, life force, or vitalism. Very few are based on Christian ideas or assumptions.
- If we define ‘occult’ as anything that is hidden or mysterious, we are bound to see that almost all SCAMs are occult.
What surprises me with the ‘Christian Checklist’ is that it makes no mention of ethics. I would have thought that this might be an important issue for Christians. Am I mistaken? I have often pointed out that the practice of SCAM nearly invariably violates fundamental rules of ethics.
In any case, the checklist makes one thing quite clear: by and large, SCAM is nothing that Christians should ever contemplate employing. This article (which I have quoted before) seems to confirm my point:
The Vatican’s top exorcist has spoken out in condemnation of yoga … , branding [it] as “Satanic” acts that lead[s] to “demonic possession”. Father Cesare Truqui has warned that the Catholic Church has seen a recent spike in worldwide reports of people becoming possessed by demons and that the reason for the sudden uptick is the rise in popularity of pastimes such as watching Harry Potter movies and practicing Vinyasa.
Professor Giuseppe Ferrari … says that … activities such as yoga, “summon satanic spirits” … Monsignor Luigi Negri, the archbishop of Ferrara-Comacchio, who also attended the Vatican crisis meeting, claimed that homosexuality is “another sign” that “Satan is in the Vatican”. The Independent reports: Father Cesare says he’s seen many an individual speaking in tongues and exhibiting unearthly strength, two attributes that his religion says indicate the possibility of evil spirits inhabiting a person’s body. “There are those who try to turn people into vampires and make them drink other people’s blood, or encourage them to have special sexual relations to obtain special powers,” stated Professor Ferrari at the meeting. “These groups are attracted by the so-called beautiful young vampires that we’ve seen so much of in recent years.”
You might take such statements not all that seriously – the scorn of the vatican does not concern you?
Yet, the ‘Christian Checklist’ also raises worries much closer to home. King Charles is the head of the Anglican Church. Undeniably, he also is a long-term, enthusiastic supporter of many of those ‘quasi-satanic’ SCAMs. How are we supposed to reconsile these contradictions, tensions, and conflicts?
Please advise!
Hypericum perforatum (St John’s wort) is often recommended as a remedy to relieve pain caused by nerve damage. This trial investigated whether homeopathic Hypericum leads to a reduction in postoperative pain and a decrease in pain medication compared with placebo.
The study was designed as a randomized double-blind, monocentric, placebo-controlled clinical trial with inpatients undergoing surgery for lumbar sequestrectomy. Homeopathic treatment was compared to placebo, both in addition to usual pain management. The primary endpoint was pain relief measured with a visual analog scale. Secondary endpoints were the reduction of inpatient postoperative analgesic medication and change in sensory and affective pain perception.
The results show that the change in pain perception between baseline and day 3 did not significantly differ between the study arms. With respect to pain medication, total morphine equivalent doses did not differ significantly. However, a statistical trend and a moderate effect (d = 0.432) in the decrease of pain medication consumption in favor of the Hypericum group was observed.
The authors concluded that this is the first trial of homeopathy that evaluated the efficacy of Hypericum C200 after lumbar monosegmental spinal sequestrectomy. Although no significant differences between the groups could be shown, we found that patients who took potentiated Hypericum in addition to usual pain management showed lower consumption of analgesics. Further investigations, especially with regard to pain medication, should follow to better classify the described analgesic reduction.
For a number of reasons, this is a remarkably mysterious and quite hilarious study:
- Hypericum is recommended as an analgesic for neuropathic pain.
- According to the ‘like cures like’ axiom of homeopathy, it therefore must increase pain in such situations.
- Yet, the authors of this trial mounted an RCT to see whether it reduces pain.
- Thus they either do not understand homeopathy or wanted to sabotage it.
- As they are well-known pro-homeopathy researchers affiliated with a university that promotes homeopathy (Witten/Herdecke University, Herdecke, Germany), both explanations are highly implausible.
- The facts that the paper was published in a pro-SCAM journal (J Integr Complement Med), and the study was sponsored by the largest German firm of homeopathics (Deutsche Homoeopathische Union) renders all this even more puzzling.
- However, these biases do explain that the authors do their very best to mislead us by including some unwarranted ‘positive’ findings in their overall conclusions.
In the end, none of this matters, because the results of the study reveal that firstly the homeopathic ‘law of similars’ is nonsense, and secondly one homeopathic placebo (i.e. Hypericum C200) produces exactly the same outcomes as another, non-homeopathic placebo.
It’s again the season for nine lessons, I suppose. So, on the occasion of Christmas Eve, let me rephrase the nine lessons I once gave (with my tongue firmly lodged in my cheek) to those who want to make a pseudo-scientific career in so-called alternative medicine (SCAM) research.
- Throw yourself into qualitative research. For instance, focus groups are a safe bet. They are not difficult to do: you gather 5 -10 people, let them express their opinions, record them, extract from the diversity of views what you recognize as your own opinion and call it a ‘common theme’, and write the whole thing up, and – BINGO! – you have a publication. The beauty of this approach is manifold:
-
- you can repeat this exercise ad nauseam until your publication list is of respectable length;
- there are plenty of SCAM journals that will publish your articles;
- you can manipulate your findings at will;
- you will never produce a paper that displeases the likes of King Charles;
- you might even increase your chances of obtaining funding for future research.
- Conduct surveys. They are very popular and highly respected/publishable projects in SCAM. Do not get deterred by the fact that thousands of similar investigations are already available. If, for instance, there already is one describing the SCAM usage by leg-amputated policemen in North Devon, you can conduct a survey of leg-amputated policemen in North Devon with a medical history of diabetes. As long as you conclude that your participants used a lot of SCAMs, were very satisfied with it, did not experience any adverse effects, thought it was value for money, and would recommend it to their neighbour, you have secured another publication in a SCAM journal.
- In case this does not appeal to you, how about taking a sociological, anthropological or psychological approach? How about studying, for example, the differences in worldviews, the different belief systems, the different ways of knowing, the different concepts about illness, the different expectations, the unique spiritual dimensions, the amazing views on holism – all in different cultures, settings or countries? Invariably, you must, of course, conclude that one truth is at least as good as the next. This will make you popular with all the post-modernists who use SCAM as a playground for enlarging their publication lists. This approach also has the advantage to allow you to travel extensively and generally have a good time.
- If, eventually, your boss demands that you start doing what (in his narrow mind) constitutes ‘real science’, do not despair! There are plenty of possibilities to remain true to your pseudo-scientific principles. Study the safety of your favourite SCAM with a survey of its users. You simply evaluate their experiences and opinions regarding adverse effects. But be careful, you are on thin ice here; you don’t want to upset anyone by generating alarming findings. Make sure your sample is small enough for a false negative result, and that all participants are well-pleased with their SCAM. This might be merely a question of selecting your patients wisely. The main thing is that your conclusions do not reveal any risks.
- If your boss insists you tackle the daunting issue of SCAM’s efficacy, you must find patients who happened to have recovered spectacularly well from a life-threatening disease after receiving your favourite form of SCAM. Once you have identified such a person, you detail her experience and publish this as a ‘case report’. It requires a little skill to brush over the fact that the patient also had lots of conventional treatments, or that her diagnosis was never properly verified. As a pseudo-scientist, you will have to learn how to discretely make such details vanish so that, in the final paper, they are no longer recognisable.
- Your boss might eventually point out that case reports are not really very conclusive. The antidote to this argument is simple: you do a large case series along the same lines. Here you can even show off your excellent statistical skills by calculating the statistical significance of the difference between the severity of the condition before the treatment and the one after it. As long as this reveals marked improvements, ignores all the many other factors involved in the outcome and concludes that these changes are the result of the treatment, all should be tickety-boo.
- Your boss might one day insist you conduct what he narrow-mindedly calls a ‘proper’ study; in other words, you might be forced to bite the bullet and learn how to do an RCT. As your particular SCAM is not really effective, this could lead to serious embarrassment in the form of a negative result, something that must be avoided at all costs. I, therefore, recommend you join for a few months a research group that has a proven track record in doing RCTs of utterly useless treatments without ever failing to conclude that it is highly effective. In other words, join a member of my ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE HALL OF FAME. They will teach you how to incorporate all the right design features into your study without the slightest risk of generating a negative result. A particularly popular solution is to conduct a ‘pragmatic’ trial that never fails to produce anything but cheerfully positive findings.
- But even the most cunningly designed study of your SCAM might one day deliver a negative result. In such a case, I recommend taking your data and running as many different statistical tests as you can find; chances are that one of them will produce something vaguely positive. If even this method fails (and it hardly ever does), you can always focus your paper on the fact that, in your study, not a single patient died. Who would be able to dispute that this is a positive outcome?
- Now that you have grown into an experienced pseudo-scientist who has published several misleading papers, you may want to publish irrefutable evidence of your SCAM. For this purpose run the same RCT over again, and again, and again. Eventually, you want a meta-analysis of all RCTs ever published (see examples here and here). As you are the only person who conducted studies on the SCAM in question, this should be quite easy: you pool the data of all your dodgy trials and, bob’s your uncle: a nice little summary of the totality of the data that shows beyond doubt that your SCAM works and is safe.
The year 2022 is drawing to a close, and I am reminded of my ‘WORST PAPER OF 2022 COMPETITION’. As a prize, I am offering the winner (that is the lead author of the winning paper) one of my books that best fits his/her subject. I am sure this will overjoy him or her. I hope to identify about 10 candidates for the prize, and towards the end of the year, I let my readers decide democratically on who should be the winner. In this spirit of democratic voting, let me suggest to you entry No 10 entitled ‘Conventional Homeopathic Medicine and Its Relevance to Modern Medicine‘. Here is the unadulterated abstract:
Context: Homeopathic medicine can be explained as a symptoms-based method of treatment, and it can act as an alternative treatment strategy against allopathy by focusing on the symptoms of illness, as opposed to causative agents as allopathic medicine does. Also, homeopathic medicines are extracted from nature rather than being chemically synthesized as western drugs are.
Objective: The review intended to briefly describe the concept of homeopathic medicine, its emergence from a historical point of view, and its broader healing properties, providing examples of key homeopathic drugs and comparing them to modern medicines.
Design: The research team performed a narrative review by searching databases like Pubmed, Google Scholar, and other national search engines. The search used the keywords homeopathic medicine, alternate medicine, materia medica, allium cepa, Zingiber officinale, penicillium, Agaricus muscaria, Botulinum toxin.
Setting: Dr. D.Y. Patil Homoeopathic Medical College and Research Centre, Dr. D.Y. Patil Vidyapeeth (Deemed to be University), Pimpri, Pune.
Results: This review highlights the rich sources homoeopathic drugs and their corelation with modern medicine. The current review focuses on the significance of the Homeopathic Materia Medica and on notable remedies in homeopathy that align with allopathy in addressing different pathological conditions, including treatments that the two types of medicine have in in common and that are effective in homeopathy.
Conclusions: Many studies are being conducted to prove the mechanism of action of homoeopathic medicines. Droplet Evaporating Method (DEM), Raman, UltraViolet-Visible (UV-VIS) spectroscopy and Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) are commonly used methods to characterize homeopathic medicines at ultra-low concentration and many such studies will surely indicate how homoeopathic medicines act. Such research results may subsequently lead to the betterment of treatment procedures and the integration of homeopathic principles into mainstream medical practices.
I find it quite an ‘achievement’ to put so much nonsense into such a short abstract. My ‘favorite’ statement is this one: “many such studies will surely indicate how homoeopathic medicines act.” Since he published this paper, the first author has done another article; it is entitled “Breast Abscess Healing with Homoeopathy: A Case Report” and would be a further contender for my award.
But let’s not give him an unfair chance to win the competition!
PS
The next time I post about this will be about deciding on this year’s winner. So, you might want to give it some consideration.
Like traditional acupuncture, “cosmetic acupuncture” involves the insertion of needles into the skin. Also called facial rejuvenation acupuncture, cosmetic acupuncture is believed to stimulate collagen and therefore reduce the look of wrinkles. They also claim that cosmetic acupuncture rejuvenates your skin by improving your overall energy and is a great addition to your overall wellness routine – at least, this is what enthusiasts want us to believe. 
No surprise then that many consumers give cosmetic acupuncture a try. But what, if after paying for a session, you don’t notice any difference? What, if you even look worse than before?
Impossible?
Not at all! One of the few studies on the subject showed that about half of the clients complained of blotchiness and hyperpigmented spots.
Cosmetic acupuncturists are well prepared for this argument and claim that the treatment will take longer to show any results: “Most cosmetic acupuncture treatments are meant to be taken in a series, generally in a group of 10,” says DiLibero. “The effects of acupuncture are cumulative, so follow-up appointments are recommended.”
And what does the evidence tell us about the effectiveness of cosmetic acupuncture?
One study showed “promising results as a therapy for facial elasticity”. Another one “showed clinical potential for facial wrinkles and laxity.”
That’s great!
No, it isn’t; the studies were published in 3rd class journals and did not even have control groups. Sorry, but I don’t call this evidence. In fact, the type of study that merits the term has not emerged. In other words, cosmetic acupuncture is a swindle!
But at least cosmetic acupuncture is not harmful.
Wrong!
- It will cost you a lot of money because the therapist will persuade you that you need 10 treatment sessions or more.
- It can cause blotchiness and hyperpigmented spots, as mentioned above.
- It has been reported to cause extensive facial sclerosing lipogranulomatosis.
So, you want to improve your looks?
I am not sure what therapies work for this purpose. But I do know that cosmetic acupuncture isn’t one of them.
