Ted Kaptchuk wrote "The Web That Has No Weaver," one of the first books about Chinese medicine in the USA. He's been doing research about the placebo effect, and its relationship with Chinese medicine. Fascinating. Two studies (described here) show that acupuncture is almost twice as effective as optimal mainstream care in treating chronic lower back pain. However, acupuncture and sham acupuncture achieve similar clinical effects... but work in the body in different ways.
"... while both genuine and sham acupuncture equally reduced noxious stimuli, needle stimulation inhibited incoming noxious stimuli with a peripheral-central bottom up somatosensory modulation, while sham acupuncture activated a top-down modulation of pain and worked through the brain's emotional circuitry." (1)
Read the whole article, here:
http://media.virbcdn.com/files/59/FileItem-112513-KaptchukCJIMRESPONSES2010.pdf
See more of Kaptchuk's research, here:
http://tedkaptchuk.com/selected-publications
References
(1) Kaptchuk TJ, Chen Ke-Ji, Song Jun. Recent Clinical Trials of Acupuncture in the West: Responses from the Practitioners. Chin J Integr Med 2010 Jun;16(3):197-203
from
Kong J, Kaptchuk TJ, Polich G, Kirsch I, Vangel M, Zyloney C, et al. An fMRI study on the interaction and dissociation betwen expectation of pain relief and acupuncture treatment. NeuroImage 2009;47:1066-1076.
