Acupuncture is no longer an alternative medical procedure reserved for patients being treated by practitioners of ancient Chinese techniques.
The modern medical world is now embracing the benefits of various types of acupuncture to treat a wide variety of ailments.
In fact, it's effective even for such diverse conditions as yeast infections, cancer, and immune system disorders.
How Does Acupuncture Work? Many people hear the word acupuncture and immediately visualise someone lying prone on a table with a large number of long needles sticking out of their body.
Whilst this may be the traditional form of pinpointing acupressure points, or acupoints, modern medical practitioners also use such methods as heat, pressure, electrical currents, lasers, and micro- or magnetic waves, or a combination of these.
The concept behind this is to stimulate various parts of the body which are connected to the body's internal organs and systems.
It is thought that this stimulation produces an actual physical change in nerve cells and causes them to release hormones, proteins, and chemicals in the brain.
In this way, acupoints help control blood pressure and body temperature and boost the immune system while releasing endorphins, the body's natural painkiller.
Acupuncture is now an approved medical treatment in several countries, including the United States, throughout Europe, and in China and Japan.
About the Immune System The body's immune system responds to diseases, bacteria, and viruses.
It contains both endorphin and neuropeptide receptors in its lymphoid organs, which produce white blood cells, or lymphocytes.
Communication occurs between the central nervous and immune systems via chemical messages which influence the body's immunity, and the creation of lymphocytes.
It is the job of the immune system to scan every cell in the human body, then classify each as normal or abnormal.
Those cells that indicate signs of infection or irregularity are attacked by T-lymphocytes created in the thymus gland.
There are other types of cells in the lymphoid organs, all of which have a particular function in identifying, inactivating, destroying, defending, or eliminating abnormalities.
How Acupuncture Benefits the Immune System Acupuncture is thought to retrain the immune and central nervous systems to more accurately detect dangerous cell growth and boost its ability to seek and destroy abnormal cells such as cancer.
No matter the type of acupuncture used, the body perceives stimulation to acupoints as a threat.
The immune system will be called to action to resist and defend against this invasion.
Properly instituted, acupuncture can actually channel the body's natural defenses to concentrate on particular abnormal cells and provide new instruction, or even reactivate the previously ineffectual immune system.
The benefits of acupuncture over modern medical procedures are many and Acupuncture is quickly becoming the favoured alternative to other forms of treatment for a variety of ailments.
The amazing and verifiable link between pressure points and the body's immune system means that acupuncture can perform near miracles, without the side effects of prescription drugs or invasive medical procedures.
This ancient form of therapy might well become the latest, greatest "innovation" in the world of health and medicine.