Acupuncture works by stimulating a natural painkiller in the body that swells arteries and allows more blood to flow through, scientists have discovered.
Scientists were able to triple the beneficial effects of simply sticking needles in mice by adding a leukaemia medication that increased their amounts of the molecule.
Dr Maiken Nedergaard, a neuroscientist at the University of Rochester, New York, said: "Acupuncture has been a mainstay of medical treatment in certain parts of the world for 4,000 years, but because it has not been understood completely, many people have remained sceptical.
"In this work, we provide information about one physical mechanism through which acupuncture reduces pain in the body.
"What we found is that adenosine, a natural pain killer, is released during acupuncture and that adenosine may be the primary way acupuncture reduces pain.
"The most important observation is that acupuncture worked almost three times as long if we gave a drug that slow down the removal of adenosine."
Adenosine, which also helps to regulate sleep and keep the heart healthy, becomes active in the skin after an injury to inhibit nerve signals and ease pain.
The researchers, whose findings are published in Nature Neuroscience, performed acupuncture treatments on mice that had discomfort in one paw, giving them each a thirty minute acupuncture treatment near the knee, with very fine needles rotated gently every five minutes, much as is done in standard acupuncture treatments with people.
Src: [telegraph.co.uk]
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