Getting to the point: the potential for modern medical acupuncture in dermatological therapy

Abstract

Since a journalist covering Richard Nixon's historic trip to China in the early 1970s reported on his incredible experience of having an emergency appendectomy performed under acupuncture anesthesia, acupuncture gradually increased in popularity and sophistication in the United States. Although most noted for its effects on pain, acupuncture has been studied extensively and found to be effective in a variety of medical conditions, including skin disorders such as atopic dermatitis, acne, and psoriasis.1-8 The term acupuncture is derived from the Latin words acus (needle) and punctura (puncture)—or using a needle to puncture the body. A more modern and expansive definition of acupuncture is the stimulation of specific points on the body with needles and/or other stimuli (eg, moxibustion, heat, massage, and electricity), which are discussed subsequently in this article. To understand how stimulating points on the body with any modality could lead to physiologic changes that might be beneficial, one must first remember that human beings are composed of matter and energy and that energy condenses into matter and matter can become energy. A fundamental tenet of all energetic medicine is that the goal of therapy is to eliminate energetic dysfunction before it condenses into material or physiologic disturbances. Initially, energetic dysfunction manifests itself as symptoms and symptom complexes that lead to reversible alterations in matter that