Dr. Christi Jin

There are thousands of individuals who are inflicted with physical and mental ailments and many people are diagnosed with these problems every year. What is troubling, though, is the fact that many times these patients are simply given prescription medications to treat the symptoms that they have as though prescription drugs are the miracle workers of society prancing around giving help to anyone who needs it. However, one method that many people don’t give weight to is acupuncture. There are many reasons that even the mention of the alternative therapy of acupuncture may make heads turn, but it seems as though Western society is becoming too dependent as a whole on prescription medications. Everything from Zoloft to Xanax is given to patients in order to treat everything from Major Depression to common viral infections.

However, there needs to be more studies done about the effectiveness of the therapy of acupuncture and how it would eventually be able to help, if not replace, prescription drugs altogether. Just about 10 years ago, though, in 1998, the University of Arizona completed a double-blind study about the effectiveness of acupuncture.

In this study, patients who were suffering from Depression were treated with acupuncture while the other group was subjected to bouts of psychotherapy and prescription medication. In the end of the study by the university, they found that the patients who were inflicted with Depression had most of their symptoms relieved by the therapy of acupuncture. There have been other private studies done since then, however, none large enough that really attracted any authorities in the medical field. But still, the fact that the research at the University of Arizona pointed in the favor of acupuncture, it begs the question of why nothing has been done about it.

Since it has been shown that acupuncture can successfully treat Depression symptoms then there must definitely be more fund money and research that sheds light on the fact and reaches the conclusion that America and Western society must incorporate the therapy of acupuncture more wholly into the treatment of different ailments.

One of the problems with replacing prescription drugs with acupuncture, though, is the fact that prescription drugs are scientifically based. Whereas the effects of prescription drugs can clearly be seen by monitoring the pictures in patient’s brain, acupuncture can not be readily studied, therefore, the physiological affects of such a therapy is not readily embraced. But why does Western society and America in general have a fear of the unknown? Perhaps the reason lies that many people consider their wealth to lie in the information and knowledge that they know.

All in all, though, acupuncture has already been proven to be effective by the thousands of people living in America and Western society who care to learn more about the therapy. It is now time to infiltrate the medical field and bombard all the researchers and physicians with accurate pictures of just how it works, and how it can be an effective way to get rid of the need for prescription drugs!