- A British scientist has come up with
a new theory on how the ancient Chinese medical art of acupuncture might
be explained by modern science.
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- At the moment it is impossible to explain
scientifically how sticking fine needles into the arms or legs could effect
the body's vital organs.
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- But a paper by Dr Mae Won Ho, Reader
in Biology at the Open University, speculates that the needles may be creating
tiny bio-electrical disturbances.
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- These are then transmitted by the water
that surrounds collagen proteins in the skin and muscles. She believes
it may explain what Chinese doctors call the body's invisible energy force
of chi.
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- Conduction by collagen
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- Collagen is the most commonly found protein
in our skin, muscles and tendons. The collagen molecules are aligned into
long fibres which twist round each other like to work like a three-core
electrical flex, according to Dr Ho.
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- "The alignment of the fibres is
especially suited to the mechanical functions that are performed and our
theory is that it is not just mechanical, they can conduct electrical current
as well," she says.
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- The idea of water surrounding proteins
conducting electrical messages through the body may sound far-fetched.
But some scientists say we know so little about the way organisms work
on the bioelectrical level that it is not beyond the bounds of possibility.
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- Normally water molecules are highly active
- bonding with other water molecules and then switching their molecular
partner in a perpetual liquid dance. But when they come in contact with
a substance like collagen, they abandon the dance and arrange themselves
in a sort of scaffold three or four molecules thick.
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- Ordered water
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- This is known as ordered water, according
to Tony Watts, professor of bio-chemistry at Oxford. He says: "It
is well established that water does order itself when it meets up with
protein like collagen. And so water does form large networks of ordered
molecules on the surface on a wide range of biological molecules."
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- The ordered water networks appear neither
liquid nor solid - more of a type of liquid crystal, rather like the liquid
crystals in many computer screens and watches. Research at the University
of Wales and also in America suggests that it is possible to improve the
electrical conductivity of proteins like collagen by surrounding them with
a coat of water.
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- Dr Ho postulates in The American Journal
of Alternative Medicine that the very special layer of water round collagen
in the body makes it ideal for the transmission of tiny bio-electrical
impulses from one part of the body to another.
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- She thinks the structured water networks
along the chains of collagen proteins may just be the channels of vital
energy that acupuncturists refer to as meridians.
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- "What we think is that the kind
of conducting water channels that more or less follow the collagen fibres
may correspond to the so-called meridians of the acupuncture channels.
So when you put a needle in you are giving a local electrical stimulation
which then enables this positive electricity to be conducted to some distant
sites."
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- New approach
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- Until now the only scientific verification
of how acupuncture works has been by studying how it effects the production
of natural pain-killers. Dr George Lewith, a physician at Southampton Hospital
who also researches into complementary medicine, says this is now widely
understood.
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- "When you give someone acupuncture,
it stimulates the release of opium like substances - or endorphins - and
these very effectively block pain," he says.
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- But pain is a small part of acupuncture
theory. In fact the most scientifically conclusive effect of acupuncture
is in treating nausea by needling an acupuncture point on the wrist - and
that's nothing to do with pain relief.
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- Dr Ho proposes a series of experiments
to test her highly speculative hypothesis as to how such an effect might
be achieved. But researchers in the field say grants for this sort of basic
science are very hard to obtain - especially if they refer to something
like complementary medicine.
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