CHICAGO — Fake acupuncture works nearly as well as the real thing for low back pain, and either kind performs much better than usual care, German researchers have found. Almost half the patients treated with acupuncture needles felt relief that lasted months. In contrast, only about a quarter of the patients receiving medications and other Western medical treatments felt better. Even fake acupuncture worked better than conventional care, leading researchers to wonder whether pain relief came from the body’s reactions to any thin needle pricks or, possibly, the placebo effect. ‘Acupuncture represents a highly promising and effective treatment option for chronic back pain,’ study co-author Dr. Heinz Endres of Ruhr University Bochum in Bochum, Germany, said in an e-mail. ‘Patients experienced not only reduced pain intensity, but also reported improvements in the disability that often results from back pain and therefore in their quality of life.’ Although the study was not designed to determine how acupuncture works, Endres said, its findings are in line with a theory that pain messages to the brain can be blocked by competing stimuli. Positive expectations the patients held about acupuncture — or negative expectations about conventional medicine — also […]