Needles beat pills for treating hot flashes in breast cancer survivors, according to a new trial that compared acupuncture, “sham” acupuncture, the medication gabapentin and a placebo pill.
Interestingly, sham acupuncture came in second place for effectiveness, the researchers said.
Furthermore, the effects of acupuncture were “significant and enduring for hot flashes while gabapentin’s effect only happened when a patient was taking the medication,” said study first author Dr. Jun Mao, an associate professor of family medicine and community health at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
The study was published Aug. 24 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
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Mao and his colleagues tested the treatments in 120 women who were
