• DOI:10.1038/ajg.2009.662
• Corpus ID: 13063819

Francis Weld Peabody's Classic Quotation

@article{Kittisupamongkol2010FrancisWP,
  title={Francis Weld Peabody's Classic Quotation},
  author={Weekitt Kittisupamongkol},
  journal={The American Journal of Gastroenterology},
  year={2010},
  volume={105},
  pages={699-699}
}

• W. Kittisupamongkol
• Published 1 March 2010
• Medicine, Psychology
• The American Journal of Gastroenterology

To the Editor: Lembo and colleagues (1) reported an interesting randomized, controlled trial of acupuncture for irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and concluded that acupuncture is not superior to sham acupuncture in the treatment of IBS, even in a limited or an augmented patient – practitioner interaction. In this trial, both limited and augmented patient – practitioner interactions were designed, which I think is unnece ssary. As stated before, IBS is associated with generalized anxiety disorder (2,3) and psychological implication or treatment is helpful. Both acupuncture and sham acupuncture have a nonspecifi c therapeutic eff ect, which is also known as a psychological eff ect. Th is is the reason why acupuncture and sham acupuncture take eff ect for IBS. Th e patient – practitioner interaction in this article acted as a certain kind of psychological therapy, and the author did not compare the infl uence of limited patient – practitioner interaction with that of augmented patient – practitioner interaction in a genuine or sham acupuncture group. Th erefore, I think the patient – practitioner interaction design is unnecessary. In addition, IBS is an internal functional disorder. In traditional Chinese medicine, IBS is considered to be a large-intestine disorder, and hence acupoints on related meridians are usually selected. As any kind of treatment produces psychological comfort to a certain degree, I think the selection of acupoints on the IBS-non-related meridian is more appropriate for the control group.