Qi

Andrew J Vickers et al. (2017) · The journal of pain

This meta-analysis pooled the raw, patient-by-patient data of 20,827 people from 39 rigorously screened randomized trials — the largest and most careful analysis of acupuncture for chronic pain ever conducted. Acupuncture is the Traditional Chinese Medicine practice of inserting fine needles at specific body points; classical theory describes it as regulating qi (the body's vital functional energy) flowing through meridians (the mapped channels of that flow), while researchers here tested it purely on outcomes. Only trials with airtight randomization were included, covering four conditions: back and neck pain, osteoarthritis, chronic headache, and shoulder pain. The team obtained original data from trial authors and re-analyzed everything centrally — a gold-standard approach that removes many shortcuts ordinary meta-analyses must take. Acupuncture beat both comparison types for every condition (p < .001 — highly unlikely due to chance). Against no-acupuncture care the effect was about 0.5 standard deviations — in plain terms, starting from pain of 60/100, patients ended near 30 with acupuncture versus 43 without, and half of acupuncture patients achieved 50% pain reduction versus 30% of controls. Against sham (fake) acupuncture the margin was smaller (≈0.2 SD), meaning needle placement is only part of the benefit — but sham could not explain it all. Benefits lasted, fading only about 15% by one year. Neck and shoulder pain responded best (effect sizes 0.83 and 0.57 versus sham), and more sessions produced more relief (p = 0.001). Notably, the pooled effect matches or beats common anti-inflammatory drugs, whose effect sizes run below 0.23 for the same conditions. The authors' bottom line, unchanged since: referring a chronic pain patient for a course of acupuncture is a reasonable clinical option — with real, persistent, not-just-placebo benefit and an excellent safety profile.

Luís Carlos Matos et al. (2021) · International journal of environmental research and public health

This narrative review examined how scientists have tried to measure what happens during non-contact energy healing practices such as Reiki, external Qigong, Therapeutic Touch, Healing Touch, and Johrei. These practices rest on the idea of a biofield — a proposed field of energy and information within and around the body — known in traditional systems as qi (the vital functional energy of Traditional Chinese Medicine), ki (its Japanese counterpart), or prana (the life force in Ayurvedic and yogic traditions). Practitioners work near the body, or even at a distance, holding a focused intention to support healing. Rather than running a new experiment, the authors gathered decades of quantitative studies and organized them by measurement strategy: physical detectors (electromagnetic, acoustic, and thermal instruments), chemical reaction dynamics, biological materials such as cultured cells and bacteria, living sensors like plants and seeds, and measurements taken on the human body itself. The collected findings are striking but inconsistent. One laboratory reported that external qi sped a glucose-oxidase chemical reaction by up to 400% from several meters away. A Reiki study found increased light emission and cartilage-related gene activity (collagen II and aggrecan, p < 0.05 — meaning unlikely due to chance) in cultured cells. One biofield treatment study reported 41% more cancer-cell death alongside 64% less death in healthy brain cells. Yet replication kept failing: an initial Qigong effect on cell growth (p = 0.036) vanished across 60 repeat experiments (p = 0.465), and Johrei produced no reproducible cellular response at all. A Brazilian team found laying-on-of-hands with inhibitory intention slowed bacterial growth (p = 0.002), but only when that specific intention was held. The honest picture: laboratory signals exist, replication is the field's central problem, and no clinical treatment claim can be made from this evidence. The authors call for standardized designs, ways to verify practitioner competence, and focused research on intention — useful directions for anyone following the science of energy healing.