Scientists just starting to study acupuncture

WASHINGTON -- Four-year-old Eliza Brady held still as Dr. Yuan-Chi Lin slowly stuck hair-thin needles into her legs. After six months of these acupuncture treatments, the painful intestinal inflammation that plagued Eliza for two years was finally better.

Coincidence or the ancient Chinese therapy? No one knows for sure, because inflammatory diseases can wax and wane.

But scientists are just starting to study acupuncture in young children -- unusual in U.S. kids despite its popularity among adults. And some say if tots could put aside the fear of needles, it might prove as helpful for them as it does for certain adult conditions.

"It's not easy to do for kids. You really need to spend time and effort to explain it to the patient and the family," said Lin, a Harvard Medical School anesthesiologist who often needles the parents first, saying children are less afraid if mom doesn't flinch from what some describe as the mosquito-bite sensation.

Studied 243 children

Lin's pain clinic at Children's Hospital in Boston just finished a study of yearlong acupuncture in 243 children, one of the largest pediatric studies yet. The children reported less pain and missed school due to headaches, abdominal pain and other common conditions than before they tried acupuncture, he told a recent meeting of the American Society of Anesthesiology.

He's preparing another, more scientifically stringent, study -- giving half the children real acupuncture and half a sham version.

Adult acupuncture has gained in popularity in recent decades, particularly after the National Institutes of Health in 1997 declared it can help relieve certain conditions, such as surgical pain and the nausea and vomiting that accompanies chemotherapy.

Oriental medicine practitioners say needles placed at certain points, along with other practices such as the use of herbs, can heal by correcting flows from the body's energy channels.

While many Western scientists are skeptical that acupuncture has as many bodywide effects as Oriental medicine practitioners believe, they have found evidence that it may affect body chemicals related both to pain sensitivity and other functions. Now the NIH is funding half a dozen studies to see if acupuncture significantly helps certain disorders unrelated to pain, such as high blood pressure.

You can't assume what works in adults will work in children -- it must be tested, cautions Dr. Brian Berman, the University of Maryland's director of complementary medicine.

Yet pediatric acupuncture research is in its infancy, says Richard Nahin of the NIH's National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. There have been a handful of pilot studies, on conditions including attention deficit disorder and cerebral palsy, but Nahin says the strongest evidence so far backs acupuncture to relieve chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting. The NIH now is studying child cancer patients.

'I had nothing to lose'

Parents' interest is rising, says Lin, who estimates a third of pediatric pain centers have begun offering child acupuncture.

"I had nothing to lose and everything to gain," said Eliza's mother, Susan Luchetti.

There are 15,000 licensed acupuncturists, non-physicians who learn acupuncture and Oriental medicine techniques at nationally accredited schools. Also, a small but growing number of mainstream physicians like Lin mix acupuncture with conventional treatments.

Few specialize in children, and state laws governing who is qualified to practice acupuncture in general vary widely. People can find information on acupuncturists at the National Certification Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine -- www.nccaom.org -- or the American Academy of Medical Acupuncture -- www.medicalacupuncture.org.