Acupuncture For Depression

By Y.C. Chan, OMD, Dipl Ac

An estimated 38 million American adults have experienced varying degrees of depression. This condition affects men and women of all ages and races. The number of women who suffer from depression is significantly greater than the number of men.

Depressed individuals often suffer from insomnia, anxiety, body aches, pain, poor circulation, loss of memory and lack of interest/enjoyment. For some extreme cases, the patient becomes completely helpless or hopeless. As a result, suicide may occur.

The mechanism of emotional problems in the Western theories of psychosomatic medicine is in some ways similar to the Chinese Medicine Theory. If we translate vigorous emotions into Yang vital energy, and depressive emotions into Yin, then we can see the similarities between the East and West theories.

Since some psychotropic drugs have been found to have side effects, and may impair the function of vital organs, acupuncture may be a safe substitute in some depression patients, but always check with your doctor before going off of any prescribed therapies.

A recent study was conducted by the University of Arizona, Department of Psychology. Thirty-eight women were selected and randomly assigned to one of three treatment groups 1.) Specific treatment involved acupuncture treatments for symptoms of depression; 2.) nonspecific treatment involved acupuncture for symptoms that were not clearly part of depression; 3.) a wait-list condition involved waiting without treatment for eight weeks. The nonspecific and wait-list conditions were followed by specific treatment. Five women terminated treatment prematurely, four prior to the completion of the first eight weeks. Following treatments specifically designed to address depression, 64% of the women experienced full remission.

A comparison of the acute effect of the three 8-week treatment conditions showed that patients receiving specific acupuncture treatments improved significantly more than those receiving the placebo-like nonspecific acupuncture treatments, and marginally more than those in the wait-list condition. Results from this small sample suggest that acupuncture can provide significant symptom relief in depression, at rates comparable to those of psychotherapy or pharmacotherapy. Acupuncture may hold sufficient promise to warrant a larger scale clinical trial.