Shirley says: Hi, I’ve read about the increasing popularity of cosmetic acupuncture. Can you please tell me about its possible side effects and whether it works to improve skin’s condition?
Left Brain Laments
This logical, less emotional Beauty Brain is usually unaffected by most of the nonsense propagated by the beauty industry. Fluff claims are relatively harmless and add fun to the cosmetic experience.
But certain subjects like dubious beauty supplements, unsupported chemical scares, the inherent superiority of expensive brands, and questionable cosmetic treatments really unhinge my undies. Cosmetic acupuncture is one such subject. I’ll try to maintain control but I can’t promise anything.
What is cosmetic acupuncture?
According to this New York Times article, cosmetic acupuncture is an anti-aging treatment which involves practitioners sticking needles in your face to reduce wrinkles and other signs of aging. It’s supposed to be an alternative to a face lift. But more likely it’s placebo poppycock.
Cosmetic acupuncture benefits
The site Chimedicineworks lists the following benefits of cosmetic acupuncture.
Promotes blood and lymph circulation; increased circulation dilates peripheral blood vessels for better distribution of oxygen and nutrients as well as cellular regeneration.
Rehydrates the skin’s external layers through stimulation of the secretion of the sweat and sebacious glands which encourages the regeneration of healthy skin cells.
Helps exfolliation, aids the proliferation of new skin cells, increases nutrition to the skin’s surface, improves the quality of the skin and promotes a healthy glow.
Allows healthy “breathing” of the skin, increasing the skin’s protective ability to ward off infections and clogged pores.
Increases oxygen consumption of the skin’s external layer speeding up the release of carbon dioxide and nitrogen at the cellular level, helping to keep skin deeply clean; contributes to reducing the accumulation of excess grease on the skin’s surface.
Stimulates the production of elastin and 4 collagen proteins in the skin to reduce and soften wrinkles.
Reduces and relaxes the tension in the nerves and muscles improving the integrity of the skin resulting in improved overall facial appearance.
All that from one kind of treatment? Wow. Now you might be wondering, is this stuff true? Let’s look at the claims and the science behind it.
Deconstruction of Cosmetic Acupuncture Claims
1. Promotes circulation – The wording of this claim is important. They merely say circulation is promoted not that it is increased. There is no proof that sticking needles in your skin increases circulation.
2. Rehydrates the skin’s external layers – While needles might stimulate the sweat and sebacious glands, there certainly aren’t enough inserted to have much effect on skin moisture levels. This is unproven nonsense.
3. Helps exfoliation – Big deal. You can say almost anything you do to skin will “help” exfoliation. The claims of increasing skin nutrition is complete bogus.
4. Allows healthy “breathing” of the skin – Another fluff claim that doesn’t mean anything. Washing your face allows skin to “breath”. What is the new benefit offered here?
5. Increases oxygen consumption of the skin’s external layer – The skin’s external layer is made up of dead cells that don’t use oxygen. It’s baffling to me how acupuncture would increase the consumption of oxygen by dead cells. Plus, there is no proof that this even happens. More nonsense.
6. Stimulates the production of elastin and 4 collagen proteins – This just isn’t true. Poking yourself with needles has not been demonstrated to increase elastin and collagen levels in skin.
7. Reduces and relaxes the tension in the nerves and muscles – Of all the claims this one is the most plausible. Acupuncture is a relaxing procedure that could have some effect on muscle tension and thus slightly change your appearance. But that hardly seems worth $150 per treatment.
Acupuncture is bunk
For years people have been trying to prove that acupuncture has some scientific validity. And study after study demonstrates there is no benefit beyond a placebo effect. According to Quackwatch.com, the National Council Against Health Fraud concluded:
- Acupuncture is unproven
- Its theory and practice are based on primitive and fanciful concepts of health and disease that bear no relationship to present scientific knowledge
- Research during the past 20 years has not demonstrated that acupuncture is effective against any disease.
- Perceived effects of acupuncture are probably due to a combination of expectation, suggestion, counter-irritation, conditioning, and other psychologic mechanisms.
Beauty Brains Bottom Line
If you’re going to get a cosmetic procedure done, don’t waste money on acupuncture. Save up for a full blown face lift. At least that will be done by a reputable doctor and has been proven to work. And if surgery isn’t something you want to do, stick to the high quality facial products you can buy at your local drug store. They’re just as good as the department store products.
What do YOU think? Do you believe in cosmetic acupuncture? Leave a comment for the rest of the Beauty Brains community.
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This article is written by somebody with no scientific background. Anyone referencing quackwatch needs a brain transplant.
@Paul – your ad hominem demonstrates an inability to make a logical argument. What is your expert, scientific source and what does it say about cosmetic acupuncture?
The highly respected May 2009 British Journal of Anaesthesia editorial endorsing acupuncture as an effective treatment for nausea and vomiting, equally effective as anti-sickness medications, will come as a sorry blow to the “quackwatchers” claims that there is no scientific basis to acupuncture.
@Audrey – See, that’s the difference between a scientific thinker and a dogmatic thinker. If there was evidence that our position is wrong, we would be happy to change our opinion. When you follow a scientific approach, EVIDENCE is what matters, not what your opinion was in the past.
Your news is not a “sorry blow”. It’s just another piece of evidence. Whether it is compelling or not is a different story. An editorial is not science.
Recently, the highly respected British Medical Journal published a paper that concluded the following…
“A small analgesic effect of acupuncture was found, which seems to lack clinical relevance and cannot be clearly distinguished from bias. Whether needling at acupuncture points, or at any site, reduces pain independently of the psychological impact of the treatment ritual is unclear.”
Basically, they haven’t found any proof that it works.
But if someone ever does demonstrate that acupuncture works it would be great news for this “quackwatcher”. Until that proof arrives, acupuncture remains quackery in our opinion.
It is unfortunate to read incorrect information. I have had cosmetic acupuncture and my friends ask me what am I doing to look so wonderful. If you google acupuncture and Harvard, there are studies happening at Harvard University with Kiiko Matsumoto and Japanese style acupuncture as well. I wonder what your state of health, not only physical, but your mental and spiritual well-being is like since you are limited in belief and knowledge. Not everyone wants to under a knife and health comes from ones choices not by giving our power over to a doctor.
To be more accurate in your critic maybe you should have an acupuncture facial session…This will give you more understanding on how people feel after this procedure. I really felt and saw the difference in my face, neck and belly.
Could you tell me why acupuncture works in animals? Do they have any idea that they are going to be treated? Because if they have this understanding, you must admit that they are aware of what is happening to them in a deeper sense and…yes, that they have a more sophisticated intelligence than they are meant to have – at least according to the human’s knowledge on them.
Assuming that they are just animals, how does the “placebo effect” work?
Hum—That’s a hard one to answer…
Give it a try.
Having the procedure wouldn’t prove anything. It would merely provide inconclusive anecdotal evidence. Only double blind studies can really answer the question whether it is just a placebo effect or not.
What is your proof that it works in animals? What does it cure? Do you have published studies to refer me to?
Placebo effect doesn’t work in animals but that doesn’t mean there isn’t an explanation. For example, animals do respond to human touch and kind treatment. This could explain strange effects. But I’d need to see some study before accepting your hypothesis that it works in animals.
No Left Brain you are totally right….over 5,000 years, an entire country, and millions upon millions of Chinese/Japanese people are all going by placebo….You are right on….
I don’t need a research study that is usually paid for by a pharmaceutical company to tell me if something works for me or not. I think I’ll go by the 5,000 yrs of a country and its people using acupuncture for a variety of things.
Why is it when people go to a bad physician they don’t deem that profession full of nonsense, or if they take a pharma drug that gives them terrible side effects, they don’t deem the entire line of pharmaceutical drugs full of nonsense.
Yet many do so with CAM professions.
Just doesn’t make common sense. And for those who think it is completely nonsense, it is okay to have that opinion, but unless you’ve true experience with it, your opinion is unvalidated.
Yes I am an acupuncturist and have been for years…I’ve seen it do amazing things, and I’ve seen it not help certain people…that doesn’t make it nonsense. Stop being ignorant.
@Margaret – What do you say to the fact that needles aren’t even required to make acupuncture work? This study shows toothpicks that don’t penetrate the skin work just as well. http://tinyurl.com/pds9yk Yes, millions upon millions of people can all experience the “placebo effect.”
Cool!
Hi everyone, i came across this site trying to find out more about cosmetic acupuncture, as a medical professional and a practitioner of acupuncture, i try to gather all the information abailable.
For those who need evidence that acupuncture has an effect on the body, try to this search on pubmed: acupuncture and gene expression
i found several articles that demonstrate that acupuncture works at the level of gene regulation, i think that all the clinical trials indeed lack of statistical value, but my own experience tells me that it works for a lot of conditions, including acne, and im still wondering why is that.
To anyone who says acupuncture doesn’t work i say get off your tomatoe box and go do some homework. It is an absolutely fantastic therapy for many conditions, and can often help where western medicine can’t.
Funny that the “placebo effect” of acupuncture works on people who don’t believe in it then.
I guess you haven’t read anything about acupuncture on our country’s most renowned medical research center the National Institute of Health. Many studies conducted at institutes such as Harvard and Duke concluded that acupuncture is effective. Even the WHO (world health organization) recognizes acupuncture an effective treatment for many various conditions. Maybe you should take a little more time to read up on these readily available sites.
And you call yourself the beauty ‘brains’?? HA!!
You’re all a bunch of uninformed, judgemental QUACKS that I would never come to for a credible opinion.
BeautyBrainDead:
“Come on girls! Let’s all go and get full-blown face-lift! Woohoooo!”
NO PROOF IS EVER ENOUGH FOR THE SHELTERED SKEPTIC.
Sure there is proof we would accept. Simple, double-blind, placebo controlled studies would work. Do you have anything like that?
Is there any evidence that would convince you that acupuncture doesn’t work? I suspect No Proof would ever be enough for a true believer.
Cleveland Clinic Pain Management uses Acupunture as part of their methodology. That should tell a person something right there. I have experienced the benefits of acupuncture, though the benefits are too temporary for me to shell out that kind of money. Yoga is working better and is far cheaper.
As for the facial acupuncture, I’ve had a few sessions and did not see much of a difference (though I felt it temporarily.) However, I am working on acupressure massage points and bought a book on those specific facial points. I’m going to get the right facial needles on my own and do my own deciding on the matter in a much cheaper way. Experiment.
The ancient Chinese did it, after all.
But I have read a lot of reviews online that a lot of women feel they wasted their money. About half that I read about.
Acupuncture has a placebo effect just like giving someone a sugar pill and telling them it will make them feel better. That doesn’t mean it actually works in the way that people say it works. Acupuncture just helps your mind cure itself.
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