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Alternative medicine is creeping into hospitals. Reflexology, homeopathy and reiki are being adopted by big medical centres across the continent. Demanded by patients and reimbursed by insurers, the popularity and acceptance of these therapies are on the rise.

Acupuncture has been particularly popular recently and its interest was bolstered by a recent Cochrane review suggesting it might help with tension type headaches. However, this review had a number of statistical problems with it.

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First, the data listed in the meta-analysis didn’t match the data presented in the published studies. Second, the review used a fixed-effects rather than a random-effects model. This is a subtle statistical point, but it means that a less rigorous statistical approach was used.

My big problem with the paper, though, was that the reported benefit was largely driven by one trial. This 2007 studyexamined traditional acupuncture against “sham” acupuncture where needles were inserted in random locations.