Although acupuncture has been used for thousands of years, it has not been a proven method of treatment in the eye of science. With the leaps and bounds which science has accomplished over the last 100 years, they still have not found a way to understand why acupuncture works.

Acupuncture has been shown to have a stimulating effect on the immune system. Acupuncture has also shown great affects on blood circulation, blood pressure, rhythm of the heart, stroke volume of the heart, secretion of the gastric acid, and production of red and white blood cells. Acupuncture treatment stimulates the release of a variety of hormones that help our bodies respond to injury and stress which we encounter in everyday life situations.

The first phase of a study of weather acupuncture works is complete, with headline-grabbing results. In the largest study ever conducted of the 2,000-year-old practice, almost 90 percent of the 40,000 participants said acupuncture relieved their pain. About half of the participants suffered from back pain, 26 percent from headaches and 10 percent from degenerative knee or hip problems.

"I am not necessarily an advocate of acupuncture," says Hans-Joachim Trampisch of the Ruhr-University in Bochum, Germany, who coordinated the study. "I am a medical statistician." Such objectivity underscores the importance of the study's results, which, while preliminary, are encouraging.

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