An ordinary meeting of the Society was held on the 9th January 2008. The president was in the chair. He introduced the speaker Professor George Lewith, of the Complimentary Medicine Research Unit at SGH, who spoke to the title ‘Acupuncture – recent advances’.

He said that with respect to acupuncture the critical discovery was of endorphins and the subsequentphysiological studies that showed that acupuncture increased CSF endorphins. The question that is of most concern though, is ‘what is acupuncture and what is placebo?’ He reported a study of acupuncture compared with mock TNS whose outcomes concerned pain, credibility and quality of life. Patients received 8 treatments in 4 weeks and follow up 1 year later showed that the acupuncture group had less pain than the placebo group. Acupuncture is about 10% better than placebo but the pain specific effect is 4 times smaller than its non specific effect which, he said, is also a generality for treatment of any chronic benign illness with anything. He pointed out that for a bronchodilator to get a licence it only had to be only 7% better than placebo.

He said most studies had difficulties with controls. A German study of acupuncture using Chinese acupuncture points compared with placing the needles anywhere showed formal acupuncture was better but Professor Lewith said there were lots of studies showing that it doesn’t matter where the needles are placed and others that showed the experienced acupuncturist was no better than the novice.

Research has been conducted using false theatrical-dagger style needles compared with real ones, using brain scanning, and the holistic health questionnaire for the patients viewpoint, which showed, that besides the insula lighting up, that expectation was the most important part of the treatment. He ended with a philosophical discussion about medication and its placebo effect in general medical treatment.

There being no other business the meeting was closed at 10.00pm