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"Acupuncture
Helps Some Quell Need For Cocaine" Experts
on drug abuse say cocaine addiction is one of the most difficult
forms of drug dependency to treat. And while many treatment centers
have been using acupuncture for some time, usually in combination
with other therapies, scientific studies of its effectiveness in
treating cocaine addiction have been inconclusive. In
the Yale study, 53.8 percent of the subjects who had needles inserted
In four acupuncture "zones" in the ear five times a week
tested free of cocaine at the end of the eight-week study period.
In comparison, 23.5 percent of control subjects given "sham"
acupuncture treatments and 9.1 percent of subjects who watched relaxation
videos tested free of the drug during the final week of the study.
The
report appears in the August issue of the journal Archives of Internal
Medicine. The
study involved 82 men and women in the New Haven area who were addicted
to both heroin and cocaine. They were 1 receiving methadone treatment
for heroin addiction, but were still using cocaine regularly. Thirty
of the subjects however, were dropped from the study after missing
sessions. The
researchers called the findings promising but cautioned that the
study was relatively small and that more research needed to be done
to confirm the results. They
also said that acupuncture was not a panacea and suggested that
it should be used along with other therapies like counseling. ñThese
are a difficult group of people to deal with," said Dr. Herbert
D. Kleber, the medical director of the National Center on Addiction
and Substance Abuse in New York and a professor of psychiatry at
Columbia University, who is familiar with the study. "We
don't have medicine treating cocaine addiction, and acupuncture
appears to be a useful adjunct for decreasing dependence,"
Dr. Kleber said. Dr.
Arthur Margolin, a research scientist in the department of psychiatry
at YaleÍs medical school and lead author of the report, said that
among the benefits of acupuncture were its low cost and lack of
side effects. And
unlike pharmaceutical treatments, Dr. Margolin said, it can be offered
to pregnant women. The
study's findings are also encouraging, he added, because "they
suggest that with the proper groundwork we can conduct rigorous
trials of complementary or alternative therapies." One
obstacle that has confronted researchers trying to determine whether
acupuncture works has been the difficulty of finding convincing
ñplaceboî treatments to act as scientific controls. For the sham
needle treatment, the Yale researchers inserted four needles along
the rim of the ear, in spots that are not commonly used in acupuncture
treatment and had little effect when stimulated in preliminary tests.
The relaxation tapes were used to control for the possibility that
simply sitting quietly for 45 minutes in a darkened room might itself
produce an effect. In
the acupuncture treatment, the needles were inserted five times
a week for about 45 minutes per session, according to guidelines
developed at Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx, and adopted by the National
Acupuncture Detoxification Association. Urine
samples were taken three times a week to test for cocaine use. All
the subjects in the study, which was financed by the National Institute
on Drug Abuse, also received psychotherapy as part of the treatment
program. Dr.
Margolin said that scientists did not yet understand how acupuncture
might work to curb addiction but that there were a variety of theories.
For example, acupuncture has been linked to the release of opioids,
the body's natural painkillers, which might help reduce the craving
for cocaine. Or
the procedure might stimulate the vagus nerve that runs through
the center of the ear, producing a relaxing effect. In
Chinese medicine, Dr. Margolin added, the stimulation points used
in the study are associated with a diagnosis called "empty
fire." "This is a pretty good either metaphorical or literal description of a cocaine-addicted individual," he said.
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