Sham (fake) acupuncture vs. “real” acupuncture. Real acupuncture vs. sugar pills vs. real drugs. Practitioner and patient bias and it’s in healing. These were some of the fascinating topics covered in the keynote speach by Ted Kaptchuk on Friday night.
A quirky, intelligent, often hilarious, researcher and practitioner he shared his latest studies and outcomes.  A few gems included one in which either real or fake acupuncture was better that the guidelines of care for back pain. In another, sham acupuncture was pitted against real acupuncture and then MRI’s were performed on the patients. The result showed that the real acupuncture, activated the sensory areas of the place while the fake activated the emotions center. So while both are effective the mechanism of action is different. For a interview with Ted on PBS, check out this link.
http://www.pbs.org/saf/1307/features/kaptchuk.htm