Acupuncture may be beneficial for men who have certain types of infertility, suggests a new preliminary study.1 But after some inconsistent findings, the research team also stressed that more study is necessary before this can be applied in the clinical setting.
"The use of traditional or complementary/alternative medicine (CAM) for health care has been increasing, including the use of acupuncture for the treatment of infertility," wrote Jian Pei, PhD, of Christian-Lauritzen-Institut in Ulm, Germany, who led the study, and his colleagues.
Encouraging results from other studies prompted Pei and his team to find out if acupuncture could improve the structure of sperm in men with infertility.
An Ancient Approach
The use of acupuncture dates back more than 2,000 years in China, but became more common in the United States in the early 1970s. The approach involves stimulating anatomical parts of the body using a variety of techniques. The more common approach used in this country involves penetrating the skin with thin, metallic needles that are manipulated by a practitioner's hands or through electrical stimulation.2
The use of acupuncture has surged in popularity in the United States in the past 20 years. According to a government survey, about 8 million American adults reported that they had used acupuncture at some point in their lives, and an estimated 2 million reported they had used the approach in the previous year.3
Achieving and Maintaining a Balance
Based on traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), the body comprises two opposing yet inseparable forces: yin and yang. Yin represents the cold, slow, passive principle, while yang represents the hot, excited, active principle. Acupuncture is designed to maintain a balance between these two states, which disease tends to disrupt, according to TCM principles. Creating this imbalance blocks the flow of qi (chee), according to Chinese medicine. The blockage occurs along pathways known as meridians, and more than 2,000 points on the human body connect with these meridians.2
While it's not completely understood how or why acupuncture works, studies have suggested that it helps regulate the nervous system, which results in the production of pain-killing biochemicals like endorphins,4 or it may alter brain chemistry by releasing beneficial chemicals that target the nervous system.5
Does Acupuncture Benefit Infertile Men?
Male patients were recruited for this study from a group of infertility patients who were seeking treatment at the researchers' medical institution. All study participants underwent a complete workup, which pointed to an unknown male factor responsible for each couple's infertility. Each man in the study was assigned at random to a group receiving acupuncture therapy for a total of 5 weeks, or a group receiving no treatment. Then, outcomes of both groups were compared.
A semen sample was collected from each patient before the study began, and then again after the study concluded. After separating the sperm from the semen, the researchers determined whether their structure was normal or not. To eliminate the possibility of bias, none of the researchers knew whether the sperm they were observing were from men who underwent acupuncture or no treatment.
More Healthy Sperm Reported
When sperm were analyzed before the study began, the researchers noted that the numbers of healthy sperm in all patients were very low, "confirming the presence of male factor infertility." However, after five weeks of acupuncture therapy, the numbers of healthy sperm in the men receiving treatment significantly improved, Pei's group wrote. The average percentage of healthy sperm improved by about a quarter percent following acupuncture, they noted.
Next, the study team wanted to know which parts of the sperm directly responded to acupuncture therapy. They did this by comparing the structure of certain sections on the sperm before and after treatment.
They found that the normal position of the acrosome (AK-roh-sohm), a membrane-enclosed section on the head of the sperm that contains enzymes used in fertilization, improved an average of about 8% in the sperm from men who underwent acupuncture. That compares to about a 6% improvement, on average, in the sperm from men who received no treatment.
The normal shape of the acrosome also improved up to 38%, on average, Pei and his colleagues reported.
Inconsistent Findings
Other measures of sperm structure varied, however. In some cases, there was an improvement in certain structural defects in the sperm from the men undergoing acupuncture, but in other analyses, no differences were found between the treatment or non-treatment groups.
Despite the non-congruent results, Pei's group concluded that the use of acupuncture may improve sperm quality. However, further research is necessary to confirm these findings. "Our future aim is [to] strengthen our findings by enlarging the study group for more investigations," they wrote.
1. Pei J, Strehler E, Noss U et al. Quantitative evaluation of spermatozoa ultrastructure after acupuncture treatment for idiopathic male infertility. Fertil Steril 2005 Jul;84(1):141-7.
2. National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM). National Institutes of Health (NIH). Get the Facts: Acupuncture. Available at: http://nccam.nih.gov/health/acupuncture/#2. Accessed August 9, 2005.
3. Barnes PM, Powell-Griner E, McFann K, Nahin RL. Complementary and alternative medicine use among adults: United States, 2002. CDC Advance Data Report #343. 2004.
4. Hsu DT. Acupuncture: A review. Reg Anesth 1996 Jul-Aug;21(4):361-70.
5. Chen GS. Enkephalin, drug addiction and acupuncture. Am J Chin Med (Gard City NY) 1977 Sprin;5(1):25-30.
John Martin is a long-time health journalist and an editor for Priority Healthcare. His credits include overseeing health news coverage for the website of Fox Television's The Health Network, and articles for the New York Post and other consumer and trade publications.
