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The Metabolic Treatment
of Fibromyalgia
by Dr. John C. Lowe
Readers' Comments
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Acupuncture: Is it an Effective
Treatment for Fibromyalgia?
Reply to a
Question by Dr. John C. Lowe
September
7, 2005
Question: I read in a newspaper
article that acupuncture cures fibromyalgia. Doesn't that show that your
idea that fibromyalgia is caused by hypothyroidism is wrong?
Dr. Lowe: Perhaps you did read that
acupuncture "cures" fibromyalgia. If so, what you read is wrong.
Of course, media people commonly misrepresent the contents of press releases
they receive from researchers and institutions, and you may have read one of
these misrepresentations.
The story you read was probably based on a recent press release sent out by
the Mayo Clinic. The subject of the press release was a study conducted by
Dr. David Martin. He reported the results at the 11th World Congress of the
International Association for the Study of Pain in Sydney, Australia.[1]
Dr. Martin is a Mayo Clinic*
anesthesiologist and the study's lead investigator.
You said you read that acupuncture cures fibromyalgia. But here is what the
press release actually said about the effects of acupuncture: ". . .
the patients saw improvement in symptoms," with fatigue and anxiety
improving most. Note that the release did not say the patients were relieved
or freed of their symptoms; instead, they saw improvement.
Logically, improvement could entail full recovery, but the release didn't
say the patients no longer met the criteria for fibromyalgia. In fact, Dr.
Martin wrote, "Their physical function did not increase even though the
patients were less tired and felt less pain." The patients obviously
didn't fully recover. If they had, then surely the release would have
emphasized it. Improvement, then, meant that acupuncture only reduced the
intensity of some of the patients' symptoms.
Dr. Martin wrote that "acupuncture is one of the few things shown to
be effective for these symptoms." (Italics mine.) However, that
acupuncture is effective at all for fibromyalgia patients is far from
conclusive. After all, another 2005 study of acupuncture treatment for
fibromyalgia showed that it worked no better than "sham" (pretend)
acupuncture.[5]
But assuming Dr. Martin is correct that acupuncture was effective in his
study, we must be careful to deduce what he meant by the term
"effective." The term could mean anything from fully relieving to
barely reducing patients' symptoms.
I am often critical of fibromyalgia (and other) researchers for failing to
precisely formulate their statements. This criticism is no mere quibble. In
Dr. Martin's case, some fibromyalgia patients may mistake his term
"effective" to mean that acupuncture can fully free them of
fibromyalgia. But clearly, patients in the study got a palliative—not
curative—effect from the acupuncture.
Dr. Martin also wrote, "Our study was performed on patients with
moderate to severe fibromyalgia. It's my speculation that if acupuncture
works for these patients with recalcitrant fibromyalgia—where previous
treatments had not provided satisfactory relief—it would likely work for
many of the millions of fibromyalgia patients."
Many fibromyalgia patients may get palliative benefits from acupuncture. I
say "may" because of the other 2005 study that showed acupuncture per se
was not effective.[5]
We don't for a second suggest, however, that fibromyalgia patients not avail
themselves of possible palliative benefits from any form of treatment,
including acupuncture. In fact, we always give fibromyalgia patients a
particular piece of advice: use most any form of treatment that makes life
tolerable for you until you can recover with metabolic rehab. One should not
forget, though, that at best, the benefits of acupuncture are palliative. By
definition, palliative treatments lessen the severity of symptoms without
relieving them; the improvement is temporary and less-than-complete. Because
of this, palliative treatments should not substitute for patients undergoing
metabolic treatment that may fully free them from their symptoms.
The press release quotes Dr.
Martin as saying, "there's no cure available." This absolute
statement implies that he has omniscient knowledge of the treatment studies
of fibromyalgia. If he did, however, he could not be responsible and make
this statement. In his defense, however, our major studies were blocked from
publication in journals that have major indexing. Partly because of that, he
most likely is unaware of our studies. Nonetheless, the studies exist. And
in line with those studies, theoretical deductive science shows that
fibromyalgia is a disorder of hypometabolism underlain mainly by too little
thyroid hormone regulation. We will soon make this known on the broadest
scale so that investigators such as Dr. Martin are aware of it.
The bottom line is this: acupuncture may give some fibromyalgia patients
palliative benefits, as do massage therapy and chiropractic care. Patients
and clinicians should keep in mind, however, a statement by acupuncture
researcher Dr. Haiko Sprott that I quoted in The
Metabolic Treatment of Fibromyalgia:[6,p.921]
"Acupuncture is useful only when used as an adjunct within a
comprehensive therapeutic program. The clinician is cautioned not to use
acupuncture as the only remedy.[3]"
| *I
must say that personally, I hold in the highest suspicion any
study announcement coming from the Mayo Clinic. When some doctors at
an institution have been found guilty of science fraud, I forever
distrust the institution's competence or willingness to uphold
integrity in science.
As Professor Linus Pauling reported, [2,pp.233
& 312-313] in 1985 six of
Mayo's doctors committed science fraud. They did so by intentionally
falsely reporting (in the New England Journal of Medicine[4])
that high-dose vitamin C had no value for advanced colon and rectal
cancer patients. In my mind, the Mayo doctors' fraudulent action demeaned the
reputation of the Clinic. It also raised serious doubts about the New
England Journal of Medicine’s internal controls for insuring
honesty and accuracy in medical science reporting. But even worse,
popularization of the Mayo doctors' fraudulent report may be
responsible for worsening the misery and shortening the lives of many
patients whom high-dose vitamin C therapy may have helped.
This statement of my distrust is
directed at the Mayo Clinic and the New
England Journal of Medicine. It is not directed at Dr. David
Martin personally or professionally.
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References
[1] http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20050824230209990001.
[2] Pauling, L.: How to Live Longer and Feel Better. New
York, Avon Books, 1986.
[3] Sprott, H.: Efficiency of acupuncture in patients with
fibromyalgia. Clin. Bull. Myof. Ther., 3(1):37-43,
1998.
[4] Moertel, C.G., Fleming, T.R., Creagan, E.T., Rubin, J.,
O'Connell, M.J., and Ames, M.M.: High-dose vitamin C versus placebo in the
treatment of patients with advanced cancer who had no prior chemotherapy. N.
Engl. J. Med., 312:137-141, 1985.
[5] Assefi, N.P., Sherman, K.J., Jacobsen, C., et al.: A randomized
clinical trial of acupuncture compared with sham acupuncture in fibromyalgia. Ann.
Intern. Med., 5;143(1):I24, 2005.
[6] Lowe, J.C.: The Metabolic Treatment of Fibromyalgia.
Boulder, McDowell Publishing Co., 2000.
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