The traditional Chinese acupuncture could reduce the symptoms of a musculoskeletal disease that disables many people, a study released on Tuesday said.

The disease, called fibromyalgia, is characterized by chronic, widespread musculoskeletal pain and symptoms such as fatigue, joint stiffness and sleep disturbance. No cure is known and available treatments are only partially effective.

But according to a research team led by Dr. David Martin, an anesthesiologist at the Mayo Clinic, fibromyalgia patients who received acupuncture reported improvement in fatigue and anxiety, among other symptoms.

Acupuncture was also well tolerated with minimal side effects, the researchers said in the June issue of the Mayo Clinic Proceedings. This work lends credence to patients' belief that nontraditional methods may improve their health, they noted.

The study involved 50 fibromyalgia patients enrolled in a randomized, controlled trial to determine if acupuncture improved their symptoms. Twenty-five in the acupuncture group and 25 in the control group.

In the acupuncture group, total fibromyalgia symptoms were significantly improved compared with the control group during the study period, the researchers found. Fatigue and anxiety were the most significantly improved symptoms during the follow-up period.

"We found that acupuncture significantly improved symptoms of fibromyalgia. Symptomatic improvement was not restricted to pain relief and was most significant for fatigue and anxiety," the researchers concluded.

According to Martin, the study demonstrated that acupuncture is helpful, and also proves physicians can conduct a rigorous, controlled acupuncture study.

Future research could help physicians understand which medical conditions respond best to acupuncture, how to apply it to best relieve symptoms, and how long patients can expect to their symptoms to decrease after each treatment.

Patients are increasingly interested in pursuing complementary medicine techniques, such as the acupuncture, in conjunction with their mainstream medical care, Martin said.

"The results of the study convince me there is something more than the placebo effect to acupuncture," he said in a statement.

"It affirms a lot of clinical impressions that this complementary medical technique is helpful for patients," he added.

Source: Xinhua