I’ve read a few interesting reports & studies on acupuncture. The stuff about the “meridians” doesn’t make sense at all… but that’s more the way the ancient Chinese describe it without knowing what it was actually doing.

IAs I understand it, although this is not at all my field,: In essence, the people who developed acupuncture mapped out…by trial and error, would hate to be the trial subjects…all of the nerve bundles close to the skin. Nerves originate at the spinal cord, and nerve pathways go through the body to their final destination. When you manipulate the nerve, you interfere with the (electric) nerve signal being passed from the nerve to the brain.

This is harnessed in traditional medicine via things like TENS units. Acupunture for pain uses needles with electrostimulation units.

I’ve also been though a traditional medicine procedure very much like acupuncture, only MUCH more painful, called “trigger point injections.”

It was years ago when I read this, so I don’t know where I found the specific paper that laid it out so clearly (and had diagrams showing how acupuncture points related to known nerve pathways, and so on). I don’t rmember what it was called. I’m sure if people look they can find it. Also if you look now, you can find a number of research papers like this:
http://www.annals.org/cgi/content/abstract/136/5/374

The way acupuncture is described by practitioners makes it sound entirely hokey and ridiculous. What they’re *doing*, however, is much more effective than the terminology makes it sound. It’s just still taught that way.

I suspect in the near future people will start teaching acupuncture more straightforwardly, so they say things more like, “If I stick a needle HERE, it’ll interfere with the nerves that lead to the painful area THERE and help relieve the pain” or some such.

@ the pad whitens punks:
Have you considered that the pad itself may be having an effect on your foot (e.g. pickling), making it sweat less? Try one on your other foot and see whether the cycle starts over.

As a side (well end technically) note: litmus paper turns red in acidic conditions, these pads turn black/brown in moist conditions, can anyone see where I’m going here…

Poultices are used to apply a medicine, heat, or cold to the body, or to absorb pus from an open wound. Yes, they have been around for centuries, but they aren’t used to miraculously draw out harmful chemicals, toxins, or whatnot though skin. If you can draw those out, you would almost invariably draw out just as many factors that are indeed beneficial to the human body.

I find it particularly odd that you are comparing poultices to an item such as this, which in essence, serve opposite functions, but claim that it makes some sort of sense when you apparently don’t fully understand it at all.

In other news, some studies recently are beginning to disprove viability of these foot pads (in this case the Kinoki brand), this lab was done at Berkeley in the U.S. and the Kinoki pads were found to be Bamboo Vinegar, and no difference was found between used and unused pads.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93710963

Most doctors will endorse alternative medicines for terminally ill patients, even if those treatments have no proven benefit. This is an important aspect of palliative care, which is far better for the patient than giving up on them altogether.

(See comment 9.)