Acupuncture Treatment in Adults Undergoing Diagnostic Upper Gastrintestinal Endoscopy: A Double-Blind Placebo Controlled Randomized Trial

Acupuncture is being used as one part of Chinese medicine for more than 2,500 years in treating diseases. Recent functional magnetic resonance imaging demonstrated that acupuncture can suppress the "pain" area in the brain so as to reduce the pain that felt by human subjects. Western medicine proposed the acupuncture mechanisms as to "provoke the release of endogenous substances" from central nervous system so in reducing pain. Many studies had been done using acupuncture in reducing pain for post-operation period, however, most of them were not very systematic and even some of them are leak of control group. Furthermore, to our knowledge, the use of acupuncture for reducing anxiety during EGD has not been previously investigated.