What's the Alternative?

Acupuncture is a good treatment for some seeking relief.

Conventional medicine doesn't cure everything. Perhaps that's why many people try integrative medicine. Addressing a person's whole health (mind, body and spirit), integrative medicine combines massage, yoga, herbal supplements, acupuncture and other complementary health practices with the best of conventional medicine.

"Integrative medicine isn't a panacea, but there is a growing interest," says Brent Bauer, M.D., internal medicine specialist and director of the Mayo Clinic Complementary and Integrative Medicine Program.

Acupuncture, in particular, is going mainstream as researchers document the benefits of the ancient Chinese practice of inserting thin needles into specific body points to improve health. Eight years ago, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) noted promising results when acupuncture was used to reduce nausea after surgery or chemotherapy. The NIH consensus was that acupuncture also could be useful to treat headache, menstrual cramps, low back pain, asthma and other conditions. And the body of research keeps growing.

Last year, a large study showed that acupuncture provided relief for people with osteoarthritis, a condition that affects more than 20 million Americans and is a frequent cause of physical disability. Patients who received acupuncture had a 40 percent decrease in pain and nearly 40 percent improvement in function.

Those results were better than those from a control group and a group that had sham acupuncture. The study, funded by the National Institutes of Health, was published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, and was released soon after scads of scary headlines about the potential dangers of pain relievers used to treat arthritis.

Vioxx was pulled from the market last fall because of concerns about cardiovascular problems. Doctors at Mayo Clinic worked with patients to find alternatives -- one of the recommendations was acupuncture.

"It just shows that there can be other options besides pills and surgery," says Dr. Bauer. While researchers aren't entirely sure how acupuncture works, it's clear that it works for some patients. If you think acupuncture could help you, find a practitioner who is licensed and credentialed.