Cupping: How It Works (And How It Doesn't)

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Today’s 30-Second Summary

If you don’t have time to read the whole email today, here are some key takeaways:

• “Cupping” is an old traditional medicine practice, using the power of a vacuum against the skin, with the intent of rebalancing qi and removing toxins.

  • Today’s main feature looks at the absence of evidence for that, and/but also looks at what evidenced-based benefits cupping does actually offer.

• As we age, our collagen levels tend to get depleted more easily. Collagen is important not just for youthful good looks, but also for the health of bones and joints

  • Today’s sponsor NativePath are offering high-quality collagen without additives or harmful impurities

• Today’s featured recipe is for antioxidant match snack bars, with cacao nibs and other nutritional secrets!

Read on to learn more about these things, or click here to visit our archive

A Word To The Wise

Watch and Learn

Ridged Nails: What Are They Telling You?

Dr. Yaseen Arsalan, a Doctor of Pharmacy, has advice on the "nutraceutical" side of things:

Prefer text? The above video will take you to a 10almonds page with a text-overview, as well as the video!

Mythbusting Friday

Good Health By The Cup?

In Tuesday’s newsletter, we asked you for your opinion of cupping (the medical practice), and got the above-depicted, below-described, set of responses:

• About 40% said “It may help by improving circulation and stimulating the immune system”

• About 26% said “I have never heard of the medical practice of cupping before this”

• About 19% said “It is pseudoscience and/or placebo at best, but probably not harmful

• About 9% said “It is a good, evidence-based practice that removes toxins and stimulates health”

• About 6% said “It is a dangerous practice that often causes harm to people who need medical help”

So what does the science say?

First, a quick note for those unfamiliar with cupping: it is the practice of placing a warmed cup on the skin (open side of the cup against the skin). As the warm air inside cools, it reduces the interior air pressure, which means the cup is now (quite literally) a suction cup. This pulls the skin up into the cup a little. The end result is visually, and physiologically, the same process as what happens if someone places the nozzle of a vacuum cleaner against their skin. For that matter, there are alternative versions that simply use a pump-based suction system, instead of heated cups—but the heated cups are most traditional and seem to be most popular. See also:

National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health | Cupping

It is a dangerous practice that often causes harm to people who need medical help: True or False?

False, for any practical purposes.

• Directly, it can (and usually does) cause minor superficial harm, much like many medical treatments, wherein the benefits are considered to outweigh the harm, justifying the treatment. In the case of cupping, the minor harm is usually a little bruising, but there are other risks; see the link we gave just above.

• Indirectly, it could cause harm by emboldening a person to neglect a more impactful treatment for their ailment.

But, there’s nothing for cupping akin to the "the most common cause of death is when someone gets a vertebral artery fatally severed” of chiropractic, for example.

It is a good, evidence-based practice that removes toxins and stimulates health: True or False?

True and False in different parts. This one’s on us; we included four claims in one short line. But let’s look at them individually:

• Is it good? Well, those who like it, like it. It legitimately has some mild health benefits, and its potential for harm is quite small. We’d call this a modest good, but good nonetheless.

• Is it evidence-based? Somewhat, albeit weakly; there are some papers supporting its modest health claims, although the research is mostly only published in journals of alternative medicine, and any we found were in journals that have been described by scientists as pseudoscientific.

• Does it remove toxins? Not directly, at least. There is also a version that involves making a small hole in the skin before applying the cup, the better to draw out the toxins (called “wet cupping”). This might seem a little medieval, but this is because it is from early medieval times (wet cupping’s first recorded use being in the early 7th century). However, the body’s response to being poked, pierced, sucked, etc is to produce antibodies, and they will do their best to remove toxins. So, indirectly, there’s an argument.

• Does it stimulate health? Yes! We’ll come to that shortly. But first…

It is pseudoscience and/or placebo at best, but probably not harmful: True or False?

True in that its traditionally-proposed mechanism of action is a pseudoscience and placebo almost certainly plays a strong part, and also in that it’s generally not harmful.

On it being a pseudoscience: we’ve talked about this before, but it bears repeating; just because something’s proposed mechanism of action is pseudoscience, doesn’t necessarily mean it doesn’t work by some other mechanism of action. If you tell a small child that “eating the rainbow” will improve their health, and they believe this is some sort of magical rainbow power imbuing them with health, then the mechanism of action that they believe in is a pseudoscience, but eating a variety of colorful fruit and vegetables will still be healthy.

In the case of cupping, its proposed mechanism of action has to do with balancing qi, yin and yang, etc (for which scientific evidence does not exist), in combination with acupuncture lore (for which some limited weak scientific evidence exists). On balancing qi, yin and yang etc, this is a lot like Europe’s historically popular humorism, which was based on the idea of balancing the four humors (blood, yellow bile, black bile, phlegm). Needless to say, humorism was not only a pseudoscience, but also eventually actively disproved with the advent of germ theory and modern medicine. Cupping therapy is not more scientifically based than humorism.

On the placebo side of things, there probably is a little more to it than that; much like with acupuncture, a lot of it may be a combination of placebo and using counter-irritation, a nerve-tricking method to use pain to reduce pain (much like pressing with one’s nail next to an insect bite).

Here’s one of the few studies we found that’s in what looks, at a glance, to be a reputable journal:

Cupping therapy and chronic back pain: systematic review and meta-analysis

It may help by improving circulation and stimulating the immune system: True or False?

True! It will improve local circulation by forcing blood into the area, and stimulate the immune system by giving it a perceived threat to fight.

Again, this can be achieved by many other means; acupuncture (or just “dry needling”, which is similar but without the traditional lore), a cold shower, and/or exercise (and for that matter, sex—which combines exercise, physiological arousal, and usually also foreign bodies to respond to) are all options that can improve circulation and stimulate the immune system.

You can read more about using some of these sorts of tricks for improving health in very well-evidenced, robustly scientific ways here:

The Stress Prescription (Against Aging!)

Take care!

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Vote on Which is Healthier

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Now for today’s choice:

Click on whichever you think is better for you!

Bonus (Sponsored) Recommendation

Recipes Worth Sharing

Antioxidant Matcha Snack Bars

The antioxidants in this come not just from the matcha, but also the cacao nibs and chocolate, along with a lot of other nutrients built in:

Click below for our full recipe, and learn its secrets:

One-Minute Book Review

Acid Reflux Diet Cookbook : Delicious Recipes for Soothing Relief and Healing, to Rapidly Reduce GERD & LPR – by Dr. Harmony Reynolds

Notwithstanding the title, this is far more than just a recipe book. Of course, it is common for health-focused recipe books to begin with a preamble about the science that’s going to be applied, but in this case, the science makes up a larger portion of the book than usual, along with practical tips about how to best implement certain things, at home and when out and about.

Dr. Reynolds also gives a lot of information about such things as medications that could be having an effect one way or the other, and even other lifestyle factors such as exercise and so forth, and yes, even stress management. Because for many people, what starts as acid reflux can soon become ulcers, and that’s not good.

The recipes themselves are diverse and fairly simple; they’re written solely with acid reflux in mind and not other health considerations, but they are mostly heathy in the generalized sense too.

The style is straight to the point with zero padding sensationalism, or chit-chat. It can make for a slightly dry read, but let’s face it, nobody is buying this book for its entertainment value.

Bottom line: if you have been troubled by acid reflux, this book will help you to eat your way safely out of it.

Click here to check out the Acid Reflux Diet Cookbook, and enjoy!

Penny For Your Thoughts?

May today see you well-prepared for the coming weekend,

The 10almonds Team