HEALTH UPDATE: placebo effect in acupuncture

Acupuncture can relieve knee pain due to arthritis, but the benefits may be partly from a placebo effect. Previous studies have come to inconsistent conclusions about the effectiveness of acupuncture for treating knee osteoarthritis, NDTV reports.
Nine clinical trials conducted in Europe, US and Thailand over 15 years for the treatment of knee arthritis were combined and each trial included a patient group that received acupuncture for knee arthritis, as well as a control group that received standard therapy or sham acupuncture.
Sham acupuncture worked by using non-penetrating needles, or inserting needles only into the superficial layer of skin, at random points rather than the specific points used in real acupuncture.