Stuff You Should Know - Does acupuncture work?

Episode Date: January 14, 2011

Acupuncture is an ancient Chinese practice rooted in the precepts of Taoism, and for thousands of years it has been used to treat a range of ailments. The western world has historically dismissed this treatment -- but why? Tune in and learn more. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff stuff that'll piss you off The cops are they just like looting? Have they just like pillaging they just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack move or be in Rob they call civil acid Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast I'm Langston Kermit. Sometimes I'm on TV. I'm David boring. I'm probably on TV right now David and I are going to take a deep dive every week into the most exciting groundbreaking and sometimes problematic black conspiracy theories We've had amazing past notable guests like Brandon Kyle Goodman Sam J. Quinta Brunson and so many more

New episodes around every Tuesday many episodes out on Thursdays where we answer you the listeners conspiracy theories Listen to my mama told me on the iHeart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff? You should know from house stuff works calm Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant's 2011. This is stuff. You should know I think 2011 our first one And we've been doing this for years like four seven eight years something like that. I think it's our twelfth year. Yeah Overall, we've been doing it since 99 99. Yeah, there's this everybody's worried about black helicopters Yeah, and that was our second podcast. I think was on the y2k bug wasn't it?

It was didn't that pan out to be almost nothing You know the iPhone has a bug like a y2k bug that's left over if you don't have your yeah Apparently, that's a y2k grand kid Well, I think if you're depending on your iPhone to wake you up, then well, no, I do. Do you I don't use anything, but we'll look at you So 2011 man. Yeah, future man Omega man Chuck. Yes, you ever heard of a little condition called amblyopia. No Amblyopia is also

unfortunately referred to as lazy eye. Ah, yes, then yes, and I used to have a friend in college named Grant and Grant Did not have amblyopia unless he'd been drinking and like you could tell how much Grant had drunk depending on How pronounced his amblyopia was yeah, and I didn't know I knew Grant for a while before I finally noticed this and it was Surprising when I finally did and he's like yeah, it happens sometimes Did you ever take English from that guy at Georgia that had the Michael Jordan? Doesn't there was an English teacher named Michael Jordan No, had a lazy eye and on the first day of class. He said this is the eye that's looking at you

Mm-hmm. Just to clear it up. Yes. This is was like as my friend guy called it a disco. I it was way out of whack Oh, really? Oh, yeah, see I have a soft spot for people with Strabismus, which is any kind of you know walleye lazy eye and cross-eyed disco. I I've never heard that one before But it's same thing, right? Yeah, I actually wrote a pretty cool blog post on it. Once you should check it out Strabismus blogs at how stuff works. It should bring it up, right? Yeah, but Chuck I recently ran across an article that showed a study of kids aged seven to twelve years with amblyopia Right were cured of their lazy eye through acupuncture Really? Yeah, and this is a this is an accredited article in the archives of ophthalmology

Which is a publication of the American Medical Association? Wow, and basically they had a control group Which was kids who had their eye patched their I guess dominant or good eye non-lazy eye Patched for two hours a day, which I guess kind of forces the lazy eye to correct itself, right? That's the pretty standard treatment or the other group We're given acupuncture five times a week. What a cruel study We're gonna fix you kids, but we're hoping you don't show any improvement. You you would think so, but get this the kids who had their eye patched 16.7% had their amblyopia resolved really 41.5% had their amblyopia resolved in the acupuncture alone group What was it again? 16% 1641%? Yeah, that is huge. Yeah, huge

But you'll know my my incredulousness Yeah When I was saying no, this was published in a respectable journal, right, right? That's because this podcast was recorded in the West Yeah, Easter medicine is still poo pooed in many circles around here. It is but with acupuncture specifically This is one of those those things that has made the crossover largely into the West Mm-hmm, and it kind of has you know, Western thought puzzle a little bit like what's going on with this, right? and there's what let's talk about both approaches to acupuncture like explaining what's going on because one of the

Um, the the predominant thoughts about Acupunctures that it works somehow. Yeah, right. So if you're Chinese Chuck, how does acupuncture work? If you're Chinese Josh, you believe that Your body has the yin and the yang couple of opposing forces. Yeah, and that your body has a an energy Running through it called chi even though spelled qi and That when your body is in balance and we've talked about balance and what homeostasis and all that and in the east, right? Then you have good chi energy is flowing. Mm-hmm when things get blocked up that means your chi is blocked That means the yin and the yang fall out of balance and that means you get sick, right?

And your energy flows along pathways in the body called meridians, right? Yeah, you've got I think a dozen of them Yeah, from point to point. We'll get to the acupoints later But right so these well, let's get to now the acupoints are there's 2,000 of them later Okay, I'm just kidding. There's 2,000 right? Yeah, yeah along these 15 meridians There's I think 12 right 12 meridians. Yeah, sorry There's a total of 2,000 little points and these are acupoints and some Correspond to like that part of your body. Yeah, and others correspond to others and like you said We'll get into a little a little more later on but the point being

Energy flows along these meridians. Yep it can get blocked at these points if you manipulate these points the chi flows freely and Yin and yang are balanced and you may have a bad tattoo as a result. Yeah, stimulate stimulate these points And there's lots of ways to do that Well, what what happens if you are in the West? How does acupuncture work? Well in the West they would say that it's Stimulates the central nervous system releases hormones neurotransmitters boost the immune system Dulls pain stuff like that Gotcha, so you know same thing same result two ways of explaining it. Isn't it? Yeah. Yeah, that's what I think so Chuck

Um, you mentioned that this was Chinese didn't you ancient Chinese, right? Where did it come from? How long has it been around? Well more than 2,500 years in China and it's rooted in Taoism Which is all about harmony between the humans and nature and the earth and stuff like that the yin and yang again Can't have good without bad light without dark all that all that good stuff And if you have too much of one or the other you either can't see or you can't see yeah too bright or too dark either way You can't see right. It's true. I'm deep. I think that's they say the first place it appeared in text was in the Nijing which is the yellow emperors classic of internal medicine by Huang B I like how succinct the Chinese are in their language. Yeah, me too two words for yellow emperors classic of internal medicine

Yeah, Nijing to one syllable words and that's at a 300 BC and he described Huyang describes Diseases and it was from what I can tell one of the first medical books to actually be written and He described various acupuncture points in this book. Yeah, boom there it is boom then about 500 years later acupuncture is completely laid out in this 12 volume text called the Zengzhu ji yi zheng the comprehensive manual of acupuncture and moxibustion Yeah, I didn't know about moxibustion. We're getting into that. That's kind of cool but this comprehensive manual is like I said it's 12 volumes and

It basically says like this point here will do all of this you got this problem Right it right here, right and but there's only 365 acupuncture points. Yeah early on one for each day of the year Yeah, and then eventually like this just stupid. There's 2,000. Let's just come out and say there's 2,000 acupuncture I wonder if the 12 meridians had something to do with the 12 months Maybe so yeah Or the 12 days of Christmas for the 12 signs of the zodiac perhaps Early on instead of needle while they were needles

But they were made from stone and bone which probably wasn't a lot of fun Mm-hmm, so they decided we should probably use metal like bronze and gold and silver and That worked for a little while these days of stainless steel. Yeah, thankfully and now that you mentioned that It occurred to me that we never defined acupuncture. Oh Everyone knows what it is, right? I thought everyone knew a roller derby was All right acupuncture is a Eastern medicine where the small needles are stuck into various points of the body and manipulated in certain ways or not Yeah, and because you're living today. Those are little tiny stainless steel hair hair thin. Yeah needles not like you know

Knitting needles or anything not like a bone No, but it was at a time. I already said that. Oh, yeah So in the 19th century early 19th century People started going to China and were introduced To acupuncture brought it back to the West in Europe to a certain degree in the course of doctors in Europe Probably before the doctors in the United States are like hey, this is kind of neat. Let me experiment around especially in France with George Suley

Demorand yeah, he was like the champion of acupuncture in the West but he went to China Yeah, he's a scholar He went to China at the turn of the 20th century, which means the 1800s of the 1900s and he saw firsthand that acupuncture worked and And he brought it back and championed it. Yeah in France in France actually came up with their own Type of acupuncture. Yeah, I bet it's because of him actually I would think so because he was probably the first dude to get it going right Are we in we're gonna talk about that now you want to skip on to that later? We'll get to it in a second

We need out here co-host with Eric Alexander of reparations the big payback podcast in our podcast We explore the arguments for and against reparations for black Americans Enslavement is theft the people who are owed for slavery are no longer here. I want to check I don't think reparations is a good idea Everyone should be given the damage that was done to their family cash payment. I don't want no government hand-off All episodes are available now on the iHeart radio app blackathet podcast network or wherever you get your podcast Looking to continue the story make sure to stream our new documentary the big payback Co-directed by me and Whitney Dow as we examine the attempt to make reparations for African Americans a reality

Available now on the PBS app or wherever you get your films I'm dr. Laurie Santos host of the happiness lab podcast the show that presents the latest science-based strategies to help us live Happier more joyful lives in a special new year season of the happiness lab. I look at the pressures We all feel to change for the better in 2023 and how if we're not careful those pressures can make us feel worse If I'm honest, it's just hard man. It's really it's really it's really hard to be present With the help of my favorite scientists and experts We'll look at overwork and explore whether striving for career success is really the route to happiness Too many of us bring the best of ourselves to work and then bring the leftovers home

And we'll see why latching on to fad New Year's diets and exercise plans may not be the best way to give our bodies What they're really craving when I look back now I think how unrealistic of me to think that an issue as complex as an eating disorder or disordered eating or body image Could just be fixed because it's a date on the calendar listen to the happiness lab on the iHeart radio app or wherever you get your podcasts then it eventually like all things made its way to the United States and the article that said President Nixon's visit to China Was a big deal as far as introducing a lot of Chinese ways to the states. It was like China fever Yeah, you know the first blast of China fever right and then in the u.s. There's a guy named James Reston who writes for the New York Times where he did and he had a

Appendectomy while he had appendix surgery which I take to be appendectomy Right, I think so and he he got acupuncture to treat His pain and it worked. Yeah, and he wrote about it. And this is the first mention and now here we are today right here We are It is viewed as a legitimate medicine right Yeah, I've got a stat that says 20 million Americans have undergone acupuncture, which is a lot higher than the article, but it may just be more recent

Right because that was the 2002 national health survey. Yeah, the FDA said that Americans spent a half a billion dollars in the 90s alone On acupuncture. There's a lot of and that was the 90s You know now people are all kooky for this kind of stuff. So it's probably even more I would think so not the cynical 90s. It was also legitimized in 1996 when the FDA Decided that acupuncture needles should be considered Uh medical instruments. Yeah, that was a good thing. Yeah, it makes the whole process a lot safer now because you have to use sterile needles Yeah disposable right um or or they have to be sterilized somehow Like you're not going to get an infection and if you are you really go into the wrong acupuncture

Yeah, you know, yeah, I would say so um and uh, like you said, how many how many billions of dollars do we spend on a chuck? Half a billion 500 million in the 90s I know that's sort of an old stat, but you know the FDA I don't even know what that means. I don't either. Uh, yeah, that's the stat they gave me So chuck, uh, we've been focusing just on the Chinese Version although we did foreshadow that there's a french version too. Yeah tcm traditional chinese medicine Yes, let's talk about the different kinds of acupuncture. Well, that's the chinese kind Okay comes out of tcm right and uh, there's the japanese

Uh, counterpart it's a little more subtle. Mm-hmm needles are generally a little shorter a little thinner. Yeah uh, don't pierce the skin as much And there are two kinds root and local obviously root As if you treat the whole body for something and then local Yeah, local is when they you know get like I'll stick in the ear to fix your foot um, you me lived in japan for a little while and she told me that There were two couples in her um, little province little town Uh-huh um that performed acupuncture and both couples were blind

Really? Isn't that crazy? I would trust that Yeah, it seems like it because you know, you know the body feel around sure for the points. Yeah, lots of touchy Like if I need a doctor to have eyes to know where my kneecap is Then I don't want to be at that doctor You should be able to feel your way around to the kneecap Sure All right, so uh the five element death crack gerry up for some reason five element acupuncture is chinese as well

And that treats the body and mind and that's based on the idea Uh that The earth and body and everything in nature is governed by the five elements water wood fire earth and metal So that's kind of neat. Yes, and apparently you can um Manipulate the balance of these elements through acupuncture within yourself, right? Yeah, and then here finally everyone Who's been hanging on for this one? This is the french one oricular Right. Oh, yeah, that is a french one. Yeah, the the french um

Apparently decided that the ear is all you need to do. Yeah, there's um 200 uh acupoints located on the ear that correspond to different parts of the body And by manipulating these acupoints, you can do the same thing that um can be done with traditional chinese acupuncture. Yeah, right? um and apparently that's Kosher in china because uh, it's viewed the ear is viewed as a sensitive spot for manipulating chi the flow of chi Interesting, isn't it? Well, yeah, and with all the acupoints on the ear The wonders how piercing affects that, you know, if there's one thing if I could spend like $500 to do something to my body

It would be to cover up these old ear piercing holes. Yeah, I got one too, but mine's uh looks so stupid Yeah, I think about the dudes with the gauges It's cool now kids And of course, you don't want to be the old guy saying just wait till you're older But it's one thing to have a tattoo. You're not proud of another thing to have it like a big hole in your ear Yeah, or both Yeah, I think it's generally both, isn't it? Yeah those kids Uh korean hand acupuncture is is is the last one listed here and that's

Essentially the same thing as the auricular except it all goes through the hands, right? And then check you mentioned moxibustion, right? Oh, did I so moxibustion is um acupuncture What these are we just mentioned the different types of acupuncture. There's also So different things you can do while you have needles sticking out of your body. Yeah, these are related Sure things that you can do moxibustion is one of those things. So um, this is the The stimulation of acupoints using heat, right? and moxa is an herb that comes from the mugwort plant and Traditionally in chinese medicine. Um, you take about a rice grain sized piece of moxa

Put it on an acupoint and set that thing on fire and then let it burn and Create pain and leave a scar now This can be done in conjunction with the needle treatment as well. Is that right? No, I think this is in lieu of it unless you're doing indirect. That's direct moxibustion Unsurprisingly then there's indirect moxibustion, which is um, basically wrapping moxa in paper Lighting the paper which you know makes the moxa smolder and then holding it near an acupoint or Or wrapping moxa around an acupuncture needle lighting that thing. Gotcha, right?

Yes, you can also use a electro acupuncture or sano acupuncture to either move an electrical current through The needles or in the case of sano, it's there are no needles But you use sound to affect your acupoints right when I went they put a heat lamp over the needles To heat up the needles while they were in when you went. Yeah, I did acupuncture once awesome once Just kind of is not the point you're supposed to go like a chiropractor and get it, you know until you're fixed But yeah, I think I'd mentioned it once before I found a cheap place in la that was like a school

You could get for like 10 bucks. You could get acupuncture It was awesome. Was it? Oh, he was real relaxed. Why didn't you go back? Um, I wanted to and then you know like some big job came up and I got distracted. It was one of those deals So it wasn't that I didn't believe in it. You set up like huh and ran out with all these needles sticking out of your back So chuck you then know what to expect, right? I do if you go get acupuncture at least from this one lady Okay, did it follow kind of what the uh the article details dim lights and uh

Soothing uh heat lamp she left me alone close the door Almost purple on the on the cd player. Yeah on low So it was very relaxing. I think there was music actually so you're well. Yeah, sure deep purple I mean that was my experience. I've never been locally here Well, we were talking about um the acupoints right and how they corresponded different parts of the body Um, and they're actually mapped, right? It's not just like this sounds like this. So let's try your cornea Yeah, it's not like that. It's numbered out and charted. So it's standardized. Sure. Absolutely. So the the the 12 meridians We talked about are um, they relate to different parts of the body, right?

So you've got like the bladder you have the kidney the large intestine the spleen. Yeah the gallbladder Yeah, um the liver the pericardium Which is what is that? It's over your heart, right? I think that's the covering of your heart It's got cardio in there. It's got to be stomach. Mm-hmm heart Okay, man now. I'm second guessing myself in the pericardium long small intestine and the triple heater That's that's the closer. Yeah So you've got you've got these different. These are the 12 meridians and then uh, there's you know different numbers corresponded To the different acupoints along that meridian. So for example, you have a gb1

Is a certain acupoint on the gallbladder meridian? Okay Yeah, but that's how it's spelled out, but that doesn't necessarily mean if I want to fix the gallbladder I'm going to stick you in the gallbladder meridian precisely. You could stick stick it in the shoulder. Who knows An acupuncturist would know. Well, yeah, exactly So um, what when you go to an acupuncturist when you have a malady you're going to tell him or her what's going on Here she's going to take a history um Get an idea of what your problem is like a regular

Dr. Right and then consult this map and say, oh, okay. Well, uh, this guy's having lower back pain. So I'm going to go Stick some needles around. Um, the ub 54 point. Yeah, I'm going to swap you for acupoint. Well some alcohol That's a big part of it. Yeah, if you're not swapped with alcohol get out of there I'm going to take the needle out of the package. So, you know, it's nice and new Then I'm going to stick uh anywhere from two three five to 15 needles In some area that will correspond To that meridian right and or to that pain these needles are going to be stuck in anywhere from a quarter of an inch To three inches which brings up a potential danger

With uh acupuncture organs you have organs that are closer to your skin than three inches So you couldn't conceivably have a kidney punctured a lung punctured. This is why you want to go to a a certified Acupuncturist. Yeah, and I want to say it's very rare. So don't let something like that scare you because we could tell you American surgical stories that are equally as horrifying like They remove my kidney and they weren't supposed to right that kind of thing

So don't think oh my gosh, I'm going to get stabbed through the lung with a needle It's you know, that's called a big big mistake and it happens in all medicine Sure, everybody stabs people through the lung with a needle Uh, it's it's not you might feel a little bit of pain with the initial prick of the needle But after that, it's not like you feel the needle inside your body. Yeah, you said it was relaxing, right? It was very relaxing. I didn't even feel the needles going in to be really just a little tap Huh, and they're really tiny the ones they used on me very very thin Uh, they'll leave it in there five to 20 minutes for me. It was about 20 minutes

I think and they can stimulate them while they're in your skin like we said with the various ways like heat Electricity or they might even twirl them with their fingers if they're feeling saucy if they want to do it by hand Um, you said that you're supposed to go more than once. I think the the average is something like um 12 weeks once a week for 12 weeks Yeah, it all depends on your issue Which if you're on medicare, you're probably not going to do because it costs anywhere from 60 bucks to 120 bucks Probably more than that um for an acupuncture session, right? Um, and if you have to go 12 times you want insurance that's going to cover it

Unfortunately medicare doesn't even though the federal government recognizes Acupuncture needles as medical instruments, right? It's a bit of a double standard um Our insurance covers it Actually, which is good and a lot of major insurance carriers cover it. I'm going to give it a try Are you I've been meaning to I've got this um I have a A muscle in my neck right here. Mm-hmm that has turned into you know those um metal cables

Yeah, uh-huh that are braided. Uh-huh. I have one of those in my neck. Really? Yeah, oh man I need to see if they can do something about that. Get you me to walk around on that thing. She does. Yeah, but I mean, it's kind of like Are we traffic or right? Gotcha. Oh, this dozen eggs has one broken in it Something you know you need to relax my friend. I know. Oh, you know how that they have that tiger heart place in uh It's sort of in in park old fourth ward It's on edgewood You should go there. It's an acupuncture tiger heart acupuncture

You getting kickbacks from no, of course not. It's all my way to work though. So Whitney Dow here co-host with Eric Alexander of reparations the big payback podcast In our podcast we explore the arguments for and against reparations for black americans Enslavement is theft the people who are owed for slavery are no longer here. I want to check I don't think reparations is a good idea Everyone should be given the damage that was done to their family cash payment I don't want no government handle All episodes are available now on the iHeart radio app blackathet podcast network or wherever you get your podcast

Looking to continue the story make sure to stream our new documentary the big payback Co-directed by me and Whitney Dow as we examine the attempt to make reparations for african-americans a reality Available now on the pbs app or wherever you get your films I'm dr. Laurie Santos host of the happiness lab podcast the show that presents the latest science-based strategies to help us live Happier more joyful lives in a special new year season of the happiness lab I look at the pressures we all feel to change for the better in 2023 And how if we're not careful those pressures can make us feel worse if i'm honest, it's just hard man It's really it's really it's really hard to be present with the help of my favorite scientists and experts

We look at overwork and explore whether striving for career success is really the route to happiness Too many of us bring the best of ourselves to work and then bring the leftovers home And we'll see why latching on to fad new year's diets and exercise plans may not be the best way to give our bodies What they're really craving when I look back now I think how unrealistic of me to think that an issue as complex as an eating disorder or Disordered eating or body image could just be fixed because it's a date on the calendar Listen to the happiness lab on the iHeart radio app or wherever you get your podcasts Um, is it safe josh? I know you mentioned the one the one issue with the

Stabbing through the organs but other than that well like you said for the most part it is very safe Especially now that it's more regulated. Um, I think 40 states have some sort of standard Yeah, and require the acupuncturists be certified for the most part. Um, and this was news to me. There are Plenty of western physicians who um, who practice acupuncture Yeah, you can be a med school doctor and practice acupuncture or You can go through an acupuncture only program The cool thing about that is is it requires a lot more hours To get accredited without the medical degree. So right. It's like two two to three hundred two hundred to three hundred hours

If you're a doctor to become an accredited acupuncturist if you're just doing the acupuncture thing It's like two thousand to three thousand hours. Yeah, so that's I mean I would trust that for sure That is a lot of hours. Yeah, and you have to do it within a certified masters program Yes, so you have to be a smart person to be an acupuncturist apparently I would say so Uh, you might bleed a little bit. Don't worry too bad But if you do have a bleeding disorder if you're on blood thinners They recommend you probably shouldn't do it or if you have like a pacemaker or anything else regulating your heartbeat Electronically, it's probably not a good idea there because accidental electro acupuncture is not good. No, no

um, so chuck We've we've shown that it is becoming more and more accepted in the west but As far as hard science goes Western hard science the well, I guess hard science is western hard science, isn't it? Yeah The jury is still out, right? Yeah, but there's been a a lot of studies Um that show well kind of mixed results But there's been plenty that show like this this um the one with the lazy eye Lazy eye study the famous landmark lazy eye study that just happened

Um, and there's been plenty of others that have shown that acupuncture definitely does work, right? Yes. We talk about those. Yes osteo Arthritis 2004 and the annals of internal medicine They found that acupuncture significantly reduced pain and improved function And they studied 294 patients and this was in the knee people with knee pain And these were people that couldn't get help through regular medicine and after eight weeks They had far less pain in that affected knee. Yeah, so that's one pain's one. That's an easy one. Sure because it's pain. Yeah What about

chemotherapy induced nausea Yeah, nausea period. Yeah, it turns out as we said nausea in general is is supposedly supposed to be has been shown To be aided by acupuncture. There's a 2000 study in uh the jama, right? Um the journal the american medical association um that that studied electro acupuncture in people Well 104 women with breast cancer who'd received um high dose chemotherapy, right? Yeah, and they found that um the women with The acupuncture had about a third of the vomiting episodes of women who did not receive acupuncture for treatment Yeah, and they were both on nausea reducing medicine, right? But anyone who's ever had chemo can tell you that a lot of times

That stuff does not work Yeah, and then a meta analysis of 11 different studies found that nausea in general Like similar results for any kind of study of acupuncture relieving nausea Right, that's right and fertility Fertility, uh, if you're undergoing in vitro fertilization, there was a study in oh six an odd six And the fertility and sterility journal, which is a hoot to read And uh, they said that women undergoing acupuncture had an eight to 18 percent More likelihood better chances of getting pregnant

Not bad the problem is They also were slightly more likely to miscarry than the non Acupuncture group. Yeah, I want a percentage there. They didn't give one that bothered me was slightly mean So like point one or something or one or two slightly is journalism for for I don't have the numbers in front of me Fibromyalgia Yeah, fibromyalgia the Mayo Clinic, buddy. Yeah 2006 they did a study of 50 patients And found that the uh symptoms of fibromyalgia that include muscle pain fatigue

Joint stiffness were significantly helped It's another journalism, right? What is significant significant is that's a lot greater than one I've got a couple of more quickie graph stats here Um, they did some um asking of questions polling of people who had acupuncture Boy, it is 2011 and that we've been off. This is a rough one. Um, they asked people how satisfied they were with their acupuncture treatment And 24 percent said somewhat satisfied very satisfied. Yeah, exactly Uh, somewhat satisfied led with 34 percent 24 percent were extremely satisfied and only 8 percent were not at all

Satisfied those people are never satisfied That should have been the last question. Are you ever satisfied with anything? Are you are you a jerk? Are you satisfied with this question? Uh besides acupuncture, have you ever utilized any other treatment based on traditional Chinese medicine? And 80 percent said no. Wow. So even if you don't believe in it, you know, that mean you won't go Lay down on the table and get stuck with needles And that's really the only interesting ones on here actually. So we've got this um, uh, well all this information all these studies that show that it works polls

Journal of the american medical association all this stuff But the problem is people still poo poo it. There's still a lot of um, a lot of skeptics Uh, who view acupuncture the way others may view hypnosis. Yeah, and that the underlying mechanism isn't Chee or hormones or neurotransmitters. It's the placebo effect, right? Yeah, and that's tough because with placebo in uh, Like a pill you just get a pill that probably looks like the other pills for acupuncture They're going to stick you with needles, right? But they're not going to stick you in the acupoints They're gonna they're gonna skip your acupoints purposefully. So

You know you get these needles stuck in you. You might think i'm getting better Yeah, but it's the same as any placebo effect though because you have you're still getting a pill that you don't know whether or not It's gonna work Though I think the the larger point rather than poo pooing medicine and and the placebo effect is investigating how to manipulate the placebo effect Because if we can heal our own bodies without Drugs or sticking ourselves with needles or doing whatever. Yeah, um, then why not? You know, it still has the same effect true. Huh good point Like can we end this now?

Yeah, that's all I got acupuncture is uh, give it a give it a shot if you want to give it a try and I'm definitely gonna do it No, I was talking to everyone, but I know you specifically Josh give it a try Um, we uh, want to go ahead and apologize for this one is the first one that we recorded a couple Oh, it's bad. Oh cable neck. I'm sure geryl. Uh, oh wash it out. I can't pronounce words Um, if you want to learn more about acupuncture and see one really superfluous chart You should type in acupuncture. That's one C Uh in the handy search bar how stuff works dot com, which means it's time for listener mail Yes, josh, this is a homelessness email and we

We got a lot of response for the homelessness show ranging from I'm homeless to you guys are great. Thank you for highlighting this to Hey, it's not my responsibility to care for Uh veterans on the street Not a guy actually say that to me in one of his replies that I had engaged him in Regardless of what you believe if you're saying it's not my responsibility to care for homeless vets on the street then But I did go off. I just want to say one thing I went off on CEOs at the end pretty harshly

And I should have been more specific. I was referencing a story. I'd read that day About uh, and I wish I would have looked it up, but I didn't have time these Certain CEOs were in the news that day for taking these huge bonus record bonus payouts in the middle of the Financial crisis while their employees were being laid off. I read this I come in and sit down and read about talk about homeless uh people on the streets I got a little hot under the collar, which uh I should have been more specific in what I was criticizing because I'm certainly not criticizing All CEOs and I'm not saying that they're to blame for homelessness or it's their job to fix homelessness

It's everybody's job to fix homelessness and I wasn't clear enough in that so I want to clear that up Well put chuckers. Thank you. That's great. Was that it? A lot of CEOs do a lot of you know big time donating There's one guy who runs a carpet Carpet manufacturer Dalton carpets in georgia. No, I can't remember his name, but he's like the greatest CEO of all time Really? He's a good guy I have to be a CEO one day Really? No, are you kidding me? I'm not gonna get out for him, man Got a higher in fire

I couldn't do anything. No way. All right. So with that, uh, I'm gonna read up a letter from a homeless person Um, hello guys. My name is blank. I told her I wouldn't read it Uh, the podcast on homelessness really hit home with me. I'm a single mother of two I've been homeless on and off for the past three or four years I've always had a job, but my divorce basically bankrupted me and I've had to start all over again I think she's married to a CEO Um, I became homeless again, uh back in march 2010 and by june 2010 I was finally selected from about 1800 people in the city of tulsa to be approved for section eight

So I feel like now I'm finally on my way to permanence Uh, this whole thing has affected my kids greatly, uh, but we're managing to stick it out I believe there is stress of divorce and the stress of being homeless It's caused my son to have lower test scores in school My daughter's doing okay, but most likely because she was only one When her father and I divorced my son was three Anyway, I just thought you might like to hear from one of your fans It is true that getting assistance is very difficult. There just aren't enough funds to go around

And I know how it feels to be invisible People at my work have no idea that one of their own employees was homeless And they still don't and it's not something I like to broadcast. It's really very embarrassing Just know that homeless people may be working But they won't say they're homeless because of embarrassment better get back to work I would say so too so you can keep that child Uh, thanks for your great podcast and thanks for listening to me as well So that's a great example of one of the many emails we got. It is it is very thank you very much blank

And I have to say I'm conflicted because we spend a large part of the homelessness podcast like railing about how they shouldn't be Treated as anonymous or invisible and blank wrote in and said don't use my name Uh, let's see if you have a uh, I don't want to hear about acupuncture. I don't want to hear about What do you want to hear about chuck? Something give us something good. It's been so long since we had something good. Oh, what about I was talking about American surgery horror stories if you've ever known anyone that had like the wrong organ removed. Yeah, let's hear about that That's good stuff Uh, if you have a wrong organ removal story and we know someone out there does

Because we asked for sinking ship story got two Plus a plain one. Yeah, um, you want to send it in an email, right? It's stuff podcast at how stuff works. We're so sorry about this one dot com For more on this and thousands of other topics visit how stuff works dot com to learn more about the podcast Click on the podcast icon in the upper right corner of our homepage The how stuff works iphone app has arrived. Download it today on itunes Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 camry It's ready. Are you the war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff

Stuff that'll piss you off the cops. Are they just like looting have they just like pillaging They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack move or being robbed They call civil acid Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast Hey family, it's your boy, michael cal. You're the funniest man on the planet I'm excited to announce my new podcast michael talk to air body. Don't get it twisted. It's not everybody

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