[thelaxiankey]

I think my favorite point to this effect is that there's plenty of medical literature (in the Lancet, and others) suggesting hypnosis is as effective as certain drugs for killing pain in certain contexts. And hypnosis is nothing more than talking someone, in a very directed way. There's caveats of course, but that's true of all drugs... Not to mention all this stuff on gut microbiota, and even the truly 'woo-woo' stuff like acupuncture. Personally, I don't think it's crazy at all to imagine that sticking a needle near the right neuron can cause some kind of occasionally helpful physiological response... in fact, it would be almost more surprising to me if this wasn't possible. Modern medicine works wonders for infectious diseases & physical issues, but I'm not entirely convinced we have a handle on the more subtle stuff.

I've been a lot more attentive to this kind of stuff lately due to some chronic health stuff that came up in the family. I think there's probably some framework in modern medicine that makes it less prone to adopting these kinds of methods. Maybe it's just historical baggage, who knows...

[XorNot]

The problem with acupuncture is that the relative effectiveness compared to placebos has gotten worse and worse as better placebos have been developed for trials.

I.e. you mentioned "sticking a needle next to the right nerve" - that's a valid research question...and it was studied. Turns out sticking needles where an acupuncture specialist thinks they should go, versus just randomly has the same reported effect in trials.

[thelaxiankey]

Oh huh. Just quickly glancing, it seems that indeed you may be right, at least for a lot of the standard things it's used to treat. The exception seems to be allergies?

I'm not sure that invalidates my broader point in any case, but good to know!

[hattmall]

Can you expound on "better placebos" are you speaking in the context of acupuncture exclusively?

[somenameforme]

That is what this article is about.