www.med-vetacupuncture.org is the new URL for "The Medical
Acupuncture Web Page", originally hosted on the WWW server of the
Medical School at Aristotle
University of Thessaloniki.
Its pages aim to inform medical doctors, veterinarians and other healthcare
professionals about the therapeutic properties, clinical applications and
neurophysiological mechanisms of acupuncture in human and animal subjects.
This is a non-commercial educational site. Most of its articles were written by
experienced practitioners of acupuncture therapy (medical doctors, veterinarians,
dentists and practitioners of traditional Chinese Medicine). Authors of articles
on these pages are responsible for what they have written. These data are not
intended to replace the advice of a qualified health professional. Readers may
contact the authors directly, or email us describing your comments or questions.
Links to related sites of interest are selected based on their source and content.
Inclusion of a link does not constitute an endorsement of any individual or
sponsoring organization. We are not responsible for the reliability of information
available on this site, or on external sites.
The effectiveness of acupuncture analgesia to ease clinical pain has been
established thousands of years ago and modern research is beginning to explain its
neurophysiological mechanisms. Today, it is accepted widely that acupuncture
modulates neural transmission, both peripherally and centrally. It promotes the
release of endogenous opiates and other neurotransmitters that up-regulate or down-
regulate neural activity in the limbic system, hypothalamus and cerebral cortex
and autonomic nervous system.
Neuro-autonomic modulation can explain the analgesic effects of acupuncture, and
explain partially its efficacy in non painful diseases (such as infectious
disease, disease associated with immuno- or autonomic- dysfunction, hormonal
dysfunction, etc.), for which the precise mechanisms are unknown yet.
Notes to Authors:
(1) Professionals, to share your knowledge with the acupuncture community, please
email us high-quality manuscripts (research papers, clinical articles, case
histories, essays, reviews and notes of interest). Send papers, comments or
suggestions on medical acupuncture topics to Charisios Karanikiotis MD and on
veterinary acupuncture topics to Phil Rogers MRCVS. If they are of high quality,
we will publish them quickly.
(2) Please send us the URL addresses of relevant sites that are not included in
our Links Lists.
(3) If you have published on these pages before, please review your paper(s) and
update the text, especially to delete or replace any hyperlinks that may be dead.