Sometimes alternative medicine techniques sound too odd to be true. I’ll give you an example. Imagine someone who has no clue about alternative medicine and what it’s all about. Now imagine going up to that person and telling them that for thousands of years, people have been going to perfect strangers to have ultra thin, ultra sharp needles strategically placed throughout their body. It’s reasonable to suspect that that person would believe those people are masochists.

One can only imagine what that person would think when you tell them that those needles help reduce pain. They’d probably starting moving in the other direction, thinking you’re a kook.

Of course, I’m talking about acupuncture – the ancient Chinese practice that for thousands of years has helped reduce and even eliminate pain for the millions who’ve tried it. While there is no doubt the procedure itself looks kooky that only ding-a-lings on television try these days, the fact of the matter is acupuncture has become more mainstream than ever and more backed up by scientific research as to its effectiveness than ever.

The latest study to assess acupuncture’s effectiveness comes out of Germany’s third largest city, Munich, at the Center for Complementary Medicine Research at TUM (Technical University of Munich, Germany). Lead by Dr. Klaus Linde, he and his researchers performed approximately 33 acupuncture treatments on about half of the 6,730 patients involved in the overall study. While acupuncture is used for many different conditions – from lowering blood pressure to lowering stress levels – the patients in this study all had some kind of headache that ranged in severity from mild to miserable.

To assess the effectiveness of acupuncture over traditional treatments, like pharmaceutical or OTC headache medicines, some of the patients went through eight weeks of acupuncture treatments. The other half of patients only received pharmaceutical-based treatments (i.e. painkillers).

By the end of the eight week study, the patients who received acupuncture treatments reported feeling better overall compared to those who only received painkillers for their headaches.

This study adds to the bevy of studies already conducted on the truly powerful impact of acupuncture in improving pain, this time with regards to headaches. Now it is true there are a number of studies out there that talk about “sham” acupuncture treatments being just as effective as real acupuncture treatments. But if you only read the headline to these studies and reports, as many people often do, it suggests that all acupuncture treatments are “shams” or non-effective. After all, “sham” connotes something fake or something that looks like one thing but in fact is something else entirely. But in studies of “sham” acupuncture treatments, the “sham” is referring to the fact that the needles were placed on “non-acupuncture points.” It’s not saying that the acupuncture treatments themselves weren’t effective in treating pain. To the contrary – they were effective! Thus, the only real conclusion to draw from these “sham” studies is whether there are more acupuncture points on the body than once thought.

Acupuncture points increase blood flow and stimulate the release of the body’s natural painkilling hormones.

Some may reject my reasoning, saying that what these studies are really saying is acupuncture is in effect no different than a placebo – where the belief that a treatment is effective is all that’s needed for it to actually be effective. I find that reasoning hard to swallow – especially for something that’s been used for thousands of years and for conditions that can’t be willed by the mind (like problems with fertility, lowering blood pressure, osteoarthritis or carpel tunnel syndrome).

If alternative medicine is a new road you have yet to travel, make acupuncture your first stop on the alternative medicine tour. It’s a great avenue for a health-promoting attitude!