German researchers have found that visiting an acupuncturist might be the best method of curing migraines. Reporting on Wednesday in The Lancet Neurology 's online edition, the reserachers said that acupuncture was on par with standard drug therapy as far as treating migraines was concerned.

 

 In a study conducted in multiple centers with 1200 participants, the researchers found that drug therapy, real acupuncture and even fake acupuncture relieved the symptoms of migraine successfully and also reduced the number of days that patients suffered it. "Needling at non-acupuncture points could exert biological effects similar to ones achieved when needling specific acupuncture points," said lead researcher Hans-Christoph Diener. "Another possible explanation of the mode of action of acupuncture is a powerful placebo effect.


Placebo treatments exert powerful effects on pain modulating brain structures." However, researchers were unsure of the mechanism by which the fake treatment proved so effective. The researchers divided the participants into three groups and administered standard drug therapy to one group, while giving real acupuncture to the other and fake or sham acupuncture to the third group. It was found that 40 percent of patients receiving drug therapy remained symptom-free for 50 percent of the time, while 47 percent receiving real acupuncture remained migraine-free.

Interestingly 39 percent of the patients receiving the sham acupuncture also felt considerable relief from their symptoms. "Ultimately, one could argue that the efficacy of a treatment, especially a treatment with almost no adverse events of contra-indications, is more important than the knowledge of the mechanism of action of this particular therapy," commented Dr Diener. "The decision whether acupuncture should be used in migraine prevention remains with the treating physician." Acupuncture is an ancient Chinese medicinal therapy, which seeks to relieve pressure at specific points in the body by inserting fine needles.