Every person who has tried to stop smoking, considers almost anything. They order some liquid off the internet or get pills from health food stores. They explore just about all the stop smoking aids available. And sure, sometimes they work, but not for the reason you might imagine. There is an effect which is very powerful in creating a desired medical outcome. That effect is known as the placebo effect. People become so motivated to quit that it really doesn't matter what they try, because their motivation and belief that something will work is so great. Heck, they might quit if they believed that eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches twice a day for 2 weeks would help them to stop smoking.
Enter acupuncture. Most researchers agree that acupuncture works about as well as quitting cold turkey, somewhere around 3-8% success, depending on which journal you read. But there is new evidence published in the Complementary Therapies in Medicine (Jan 2011) journal, that acupuncture might actually help attenuate withdrawal symptoms and smoking cues-induced autonomic responses.
The researchers compared two groups which they labeled real acupuncture (RA) and sham acupuncture (SA). The cigarette withdrawal scale (CWS) of the RA group was significantly lower than the SA group. However, there were only 15 and 14 participants in each group (respectively). I would have liked to see a larger group enrolled. However, this does provide some kind of scientific proof that acupuncture can help with smoking cessation. Is it all placebo, were the participants highly motivated, were some more addicted than others? Well, those are questions that could be answered by enrolling more smokers.
But if you're motivated and still struggling with withdrawal symptoms, perhaps acupuncture will help take the edge off. Then again, it may not, so stay tuned.
