Next time you hear someone scoff at acupuncture, enlighten him or her by sharing some fascinating new information about adenosine, a compound that the body produces in response to injury and that is known to block pain-transmitting nerve signals. In a new study, scientists performed 30-minute acupuncture treatments on mice with discomfort in the right paw. Results: During and immediately after acupuncture, levels of pain-relieving adenosine in tissues near the needles were 24 times greater than before treatment… and discomfort was relieved by an estimated two-thirds (as shown by the animals’ responses to stimuli such as touch and heat).
As further evidence of adenosine’s role, the researchers also showed that in mice given a drug to prolong adenosine’s presence in tissues, acupuncture’s pain-relieving effects lasted three times as long… that mice experienced reduced pain when adenosine was injected directly, without using acupuncture… and that in mice genetically designed without adenosine receptors, acupuncture did not work.
