A new study from the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, published in The Journal of Clinical Oncology, adds to the growing body of evidence supporting the valiue of acupuncture.
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.
Here’s a key take-away point. Both drugs therapy and acupuncture helped during the treatment phase of the study, but after treatment stopped the drug therapy group returned to square one while the acupuncture group held onto their improvement.
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.
Both groups experienced side effects. But the side effects of the drugs were bad and the side effects of the acupuncture were quite welcome.
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.
