According to recent studies, treatment of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease can now be done with the help of acupuncture. With acupuncture, the shortness of breath during activities is soon relieved and the obstructions caused in the path of the air tract are greatly reduced.
So, what is Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Exactly?
COPD, also known as chronic obstructive lung disease (COLD) is primarily characterized by chronically poor airflow into the lungs. The symptoms include cough, shortness of breath and sputum production and it probably worsens over time. Later of course, you develop symptoms like inflammation of lungs, asthma and emphysema.
There aren’t many methods to curb this disease except to quit smoking, giving vaccinations, bronchodilators and steroids. So with these things in mind, scientists have found means of curbing this disease by the intricate method of acupuncture.
What is Acupuncture?
Being a traditional Chinese method of treatment, acupuncture requires you to insert needles into certain measured parts of the body that triggers hormonal and other physical changes inside your body. It is scientifically tested and evaluated that for different problems, there are different parts of the body that need to be triggered to curb it.
So, how was the Study Performed?
In order, to gain further information about the effectiveness of acupuncture on COPD patients, Masao Suzuki, the head of the team who led the study from Kyoto University as well as Meiji University of integrated Medicine in Japan, selected 68 patients affected with the COPD syndrome from across Japan. They then, divided them into two groups. One group were assigned to receive acupuncture for 12 weeks while the other group received placebo acupuncture, or an acupuncture procedure that uses blunt needles which do not actually enter your skin. However, all of them were asked to remain on the medicine they were prescribed previous of this experiment.
Now, the patients who had received the acupuncture saw a significance improve in their condition, being less breathless, and having less coughing syndrome and being able to walk a lot longer than those treated with placebo acupuncture.
The research further found evidence that strength and mobility of the patient’s chest muscles were greatly improved, thus allowing free movement of lungs. This breakthrough in the research has proved to be a valuable asset in the treatment of COPD. However, this still requires a lot of extensive investigation to evaluate.
Photo Credit By: blog.acupunctureofiowa.com
