DAAN Chinese Herbs and Acupuncture

Acupuncture is found to be effective in reducing painful side effects of breast cancer treatments.

A new medical study finds that acupuncture, an ancient form of healing that has been around for thousands of years, is as good as, or better than modern medicine in helping ease the side effects of breast cancer treatment.

Acupuncture may alleviate some unpleasant side effects of hormone therapy.The findings, which were presented today at the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology’s annual meeting in Boston, suggest that this ancient therapy can give cancer patients a wide range of benefits above modern medicine.

Cancer treatments, like chemotherapy, which kills breast cancer cells, can wreak havoc on a woman’s body, throwing many into menopause with severe symptoms.

“I got about two hot flashes an hour,” said Susan Azar, 43, a breast cancer survivor. “Very intense ones where you would break out in a sweat.”

The “conventional” remedy for Azar’s chemotherapy-induced hot flashes is a daily anti-depressant. But these pills can produce side effects of their own, including dizziness, nausea and constipation.

In an effort to find a way to alleviate some of chemotherapy’s symptoms, Azar enrolled in a clinical trial to receive acupuncture once or twice a week, for 30- to 45-minute sessions.

“Two to three weeks into the study, you start to notice the hot flashes, the intensity and the frequency would decline,” Azar said.

Acupuncture, an ancient Chinese therapy, practiced for thousands of years, uses very thin needles to reduce pressure at specific points. Most patients do not feel any pain from the needles.

Most women in the study said they saw the same dramatic effect from the acupuncture treatment as Azar did.

“Acupuncture is equal to drug therapy in decreasing hot flashes,” said Dr. Eleanor Walker at the Henry Ford Hospital and lead author of the study. And even better, she said, it has no side

According to a recent study, acupuncture may cut hot flahses and enhance sex drive in breast cancer patients.

Acupuncture is just as good as standard medication to ease hot flashes and other uncomfortable symptoms in women undergoing breast cancer treatment.

And as an added bonus, the needle treatment may boost the patient’s sex drive and contribute to clearer thinking.

“I think the data shows you that acupuncture is a good option for these patients [and] it has no side effects,” added Dr. Eleanor Walker, division director of breast services in the department of radiation oncology at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, and lead author of a study appearing online Dec. 28 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

But another expert warned against taking the findings too seriously at this stage.

“It’s provocative but the problem is it’s a small number of patients and, having participated in research trials in vasomotor [hot flashes, night sweats, etc.] symptoms in women, it’s a field that has a large placebo effect,” said Dr. Jay Brooks, chairman of hematology/oncology at Ochsner Health System in Baton Rouge. “It needs to have a bigger trial.”

Prior studies have shown that acupuncture can reduce hot flashes in postmenopausal women without breast cancer.

All of these studies, however, compared acupuncture to sham acupuncture, not to commonly used drugs, Walker noted. This is the first randomized controlled study to compare acupuncture alongside medication.

Many women with breast cancer receive anti-estrogen hormone therapy, usually for as long as five years, in addition to other treatments.

Although hormone therapy is effective in reducing tumor recurrence, it does cause hot flashes and night sweats.

The antidepressant Effexor (venlafaxine) is the most commonly used therapy for relieving these symptoms, but the drug brings its own problems, namely dry mouth, reduced appetite, nausea and constipation.

“We need something that’s accessible that doesn’t add adverse effects,” Walker said.

For this study, 50 women with breast cancer were randomly assigned to receive 12 weeks of acupuncture (twice a week for four weeks then once a week) or daily Effexor. They were followed for a year.

Initially, both groups of women experienced similar reductions (about 50 percent) in hot flashes and depression, with an overall improvement in quality of life.

But the acupuncture benefits were longer lived. Two weeks out, women taking the antidepressant saw a resurgence in hot flashes while women in the acupuncture arm continued to have far fewer problems.

About 25 percent of women receiving acupuncture also reported more interest in sex while many also reported more energy and clearer thinking.

How might acupuncture work its magic? One expert had a theory.

Acupuncture operates as a balancing mechanism, said Janet Konefal, a licensed acupuncturist and assistant dean of complementary and integrative medicine at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. “It is a regulator for the systems of the body,” she explained. “It doesn’t add or take anything — it simply increases activity or decreases activity depending upon the points used. In this situation, it helped regulate the endocrine system, thus helping to balance the activity of hormones, neurotransmitters, and other biochemical reactions that regulate the body.”

A recent study have found that acupuncture can greatly ease hot flashes in women undergoing treatment for breast cancer.

NEW YORK – A new study provides more evidence that acupuncture can help ease hot flashes in women with breast cancer who are being treated with the “anti-estrogen” drug tamoxifen. Acupuncture, researchers found, is free of side effects and has a side benefit for some women: an increased sex drive.

“Acupuncture appears to be at least as effective as drug therapy,” Dr. Eleanor M. Walker of Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit and her colleagues report, “and it may provide additional and longer-term benefits without adverse effects.”

Breast cancer patients with estrogen-sensitive tumors are typically given estrogen-blocking drugs for years at a time. These drugs, which include tamoxifen, bring on menopausal symptoms like hot flashes and night sweats.

The antidepressant drug Effexor (venlafaxine) is the standard treatment for these symptoms, Walker and her team note in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, but it can have unpleasant side effects, including dry mouth, nausea, and constipation. Non-drug treatments with few or no side effects are “urgently needed,” they add.

To investigate whether acupuncture might be an option, Walker and her team randomly assigned 25 women to receive Effexor or acupuncture for 12 weeks, following them for up to year after the end of treatment.

Both treatments reduced hot flashes, night sweats, and symptoms of depression to a similar degree, and also significantly improved mental health, the researchers found. But within two weeks after treatment ended, women in the Effexor group saw their hot flashes increase; this didn’t happen in the acupuncture group.

Eighteen women in the Effexor group had side effects, such as dizziness and anxiety, while none of the women given acupuncture had such side effects. About a quarter of the women given acupuncture said their sex drive had increased. “Most women also reported an improvement in their energy, clarity of thought, and sense of well-being,” Walker and her team note.

The researchers also point out that Effexor could impair the effectiveness of tamoxifen in some patients, because it can block the body’s metabolism of the drug.

Acupuncture, they conclude, is a “safe, effective and durable treatment” for hot flashes and other menopausal symptoms stemming from anti-estrogen hormone therapy in women with breast cancer. They hope this study will “lead to a change in the pattern of practice” of treating these symptoms in patients with breast cancer.