Study: Acupuncture Doesn’t Impact Ovulation (AAEP 2012)

Ovulation in healthy mares was not impacted by acupuncture in this study.
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Often mares have minds of their own, and their ovaries can be just as headstrong. Canadian researchers demonstrated this in a recent study when they showed that you can lead a mare to a stallion, but you can’t necessarily make her ovulate … even with the use of acupuncture.

Acupuncture is a popular traditional therapy in China for a spectrum of conditions in human medicine, but physicians and veterinarians in Western countries have not yet fully adopted this “adjunct” medical technique. This is partly due to lack of scientific evidence supporting its efficacy, noted Nora Huaman Chavarria, DVM, MVetSc, of the University of Saskatoon’s Western College of Veterinary Medicine, during her presentation at the 2012 American Association of Equine Practitioners’ Convention, held Dec. 1-5 in Anaheim, Calif. A handful of studies suggests acupuncture for conditions such as roaring is warranted, but despite the fact that acupuncture is already used by equine practitioners for a wide variety of mare reproductive conditions, such as sub- or infertility, scientific studies supporting its usefulness are lacking.

“We hypothesized that acupuncture might help induce ovulation in mares based on some convincing evidence in human studies that found acupuncture treatments have a positive effect on irregular cyclicity and, therefore, infertility in women” said Chavarria.

The research team randomly split 30 healthy, cycling mares into three groups. They treated the first group with the hormone human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), which is known to induce ovulation. They administered saline and acupuncture in the second and third groups, respectively

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Written by:

Stacey Oke, MSc, DVM, is a practicing veterinarian and freelance medical writer and editor. She is interested in both large and small animals, as well as complementary and alternative medicine. Since 2005, she’s worked as a research consultant for nutritional supplement companies, assisted physicians and veterinarians in publishing research articles and textbooks, and written for a number of educational magazines and websites.

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