Acupuncture “significantly improves” fatigue, anxiety, depression and sleep problems. The findings build on earlier research that discovered the therapy reduces joint pain.
Electroacupuncture, a form of acupuncture that uses small electrical currents through acupuncture needles, achieves a turn round in the health problems within just eight weeks, say researchers from the University of Pennsylvania.
They tested the therapy on a group of women with early-stage breast cancer who were being treated with aromatase inhibitors (AIs), which cause joint pain in half of patients.
The AIs also cause other side effects, such as anxiety, depression, and fatigue, and the researchers wanted to see if acupuncture could improve those problems, as it had improved joint pains in an earlier study.
It was tested against ‘sham’ acupuncture, where the needles were not inserted into the skin, and women who had the real treatment reported a halving in fatigue, anxiety and depression.
(Source: Cancer, 2014; doi: 10.1002/cncr.28917)