However , probably thinking acupuncture that seems kind of like fringe science . But what I can assure you is that there are now quite a few clinical trials funded by government agencies like the National Institutes of Health showing that acupuncture is a very effective treatment for a number of different things including fertility and pregnancy . But for hormone status , for stress relief , but even for chronic illnesses of different kinds , including autoimmune illnesses .
So this is no longer considered fringe science . In fact , one of the best laboratories in the world working on this is a laboratory out of Harvard Medical School run by a guy named Chu Fu Mom . Uh Chu's lab has really been exploring in a mechanistic way how the different stimulation sites that are used in acupuncture .
Um Both as it relates to females and as it relates to males . Um one of the best papers that I happen to like is one that we'll provide a link to in the references entitled Acupuncture and Herbal Medicine for female fertility and overview of systematic reviews . So a review , a review of reviews , this was published recently in um 2021 we'll provide a link to that and um there's also going to be a link to a review that relates to acupuncture for male fertility and hormone augmentation .
And so the issue of whether or not acupuncture can assist in getting pregnant and in carrying a child to term and for that child to be healthy , uh are really starting to emerge uh in a major way . And uh rather than go into all those data in detail , what I can tell you is that there are clinical trials and data supporting the fact that female fertility itself can be supported by acupuncture through several mechanisms . One of which is the balancing and I realize that's a somewhat tricky term and I'll define it better in a moment , the balancing of hormones across the ovulatory slash menstrual cycle , including regulating levels of FSH , so that they're not too high , nor too low and restricting the FSH to the follicular phase of the , of the menstrual cycle , as well as using acupuncture to improve things like blood flow and the health of the ovary itself and other aspects of the female reproductive axis .
So all these um quote unquote ancient maps of the human body as they relate to acupuncture are now being parsed at the level of mechanism , which I think is wonderful because it not only is showing us that so much of what has been purported and reported in the landscape of acupuncture actually has an underlying mechanistic basis . And with additional mechanistic understanding , of course , always arrive new and better practices . That's the idea to evolve these fields of acupuncture to evolve the fields of mechanistic understanding of our biology and health .
