I found an interesting website recently.
Daily Strength is an online hub of support groups for over 500 different medical syndromes.
Over 40,000 people have used this website to rate the effectiveness of countless different treatments for their health issues. I suppose this could easily be hijacked by vested interest groups rating their particular product as very effective and yet the treatments that get the highest ratings are the ones that don't make profits for anyone.
Exercise, laughter, eating well, music, art, writing, dance, prayer, pets, helping others, education, the 12 step program, support groups, and heat were all rated above 90% effective.
The only other treatments to rate that highly were inhalers, warfarin (a blood thinning drug), D&C (a type of gynaecological surgery) and divorce!
So how did acupuncture rate? 69% effective with over 3,500 reviews. This compares quite well with the other passive treatments ie. those that you have done to you - pills, massage, physio etc, rather than those that you have to do yourself - exercise, art, eating well etc.
So acupuncture was rated just as effective as pills but without the messy side effects. Just another reason I love my job!
