Peripheral Neuropathy (PN)
Acupuncture's efficacy in the treatment of PN
Recent acupuncture research findings - including nerve conduction studies (NCS) - show favourable outcomes in treating peripheral neuropathy (PN) symptoms; most notably, acupuncture applied in clinical and animal mechanism studies show its ability to encourage nerve regeneration (Matthew Bauer, 2023).
For example, a trial - Electrophysiologically Verified Effects of Acupuncture on Diabetic Peripheral Neuropathy in Type 2 Diabetes: The Randomized, Partially Double-blinded, Controlled ACUDIN Trial - lead by neurologists published in the 2020 edition of the Journal of Diabetes reached this conclusion:
“Conclusions: Classical needle acupuncture had significant effects on DPN. Improvement in NCS values presumably indicates structural neuroregeneration following acupuncture.”
Other random controlled trials, dating back to the late 1990s, show similar results for chemotherapy induced PN (CIPN) and idiopathic PN (IPN). I’ve included a short list of studies below.
References:
“Effect of Acupuncture on Diabetic Neuropathy: A Narrative Review” International Journal of Molecular Sciences
“Acupuncture improves chemotherapy-induced neuropathy explored by neurophysiological and clinical outcomes - The randomized, controlled, cross-over ACUC N trial” Phytomedicine 2022 September
