Research behind the news: Accupuncture works - the how and why

The News:
As explained in this presentation at ArsTechica.com, the researchers discovered that acupuncture needles reduce pain by tricking the body into producing high levels of its own natural pain killer, called adenosine. Working with mice, they found that acupuncture treatments increased levels of adenosine by some 24 times above normal, and that the levels of the pain killer remained high even well after the treatment ended. More from the article by Carl Laron in the Consumersearch blog from June 3, 2010.


The Research:
Read the research behind this story: "Adenosine A1 receptors mediate local anti-nociceptive effects of acupuncture," by Nanna Goldman, Michael Chen, et al. in Nature Neuroscience, published online: 30 May 2010.

Research Behind the News: Is Marriage Good for Your Health?

The News: In 1858, a British epidemiologist named William Farr set out to study what he called the “conjugal condition” of the people of France... Using birth, death and marriage records, Farr analyzed the relative mortality rates of the three groups at various ages. The work, a groundbreaking study that helped establish the field of medical statistics, showed that the unmarried died from disease “in undue proportion” to their married counterparts. (Read more at the New York Times Magazine for Sunday, April 18th, 201002.)


The Research:
Read some of the research behind this story in "Hostile Marital Interactions, Proinflammatory Cytokine Production, and Wound Healing," published in the Archives of General Psychiatry, Vol. 62, #12, December 2005, pgs. 1377-1384.