No — Cupping Is Not An Olympic Event

I am not following the Olympics, but when news breaks — I hear the tinkling of little glass cups.

What are the red, round hickeys on swim champ Michael Phelps’ shoulders?

“Cupping?”

Medical care is not often dispassionately or rationally chosen.  Certain methods of treatment come back into fashion like the springtime.  The problem is differentiating the romance from the efficacy in ancient and traditional venerated methods.  Still, as a true believer in science, who has become critical of some modern methods, I must try.

I don’t think I ever read a neurology or neurosurgery textbook that did not quote the Ebers papyrus (about 1500 BC). Cupping is described there.

Ge Hong, Master Chinese physician in the early 4th century A.D. said that between cupping and acupuncture, about half of all human ills could be cured.

By the second century, Avicenna in Persia had invented the “double-blind placebo controlled trial.”  According to his rules, which are such a gold standard researchers are still trying to follow them today, you need to compare a therapy with a sham or “fake” therapy, where both the practitioner and the patient have no idea who is getting what.  Then, when all is said and done, you take the results and “unblind” — that is, figure out who got what and see if it worked.

Things like acupuncture or cupping are almost impossible to test, since nobody has done a really good job of coming up with “fake” acupuncture or “fake” cupping.

Cupping therapy seems to have been the therapy of choice worldwide in the 18th century.  By the mid to late 19th century, it had been disregarded in favor of a modern, “scientific” model of medicine.

Every single article I found about cupping in the National Library of Medicine is either descriptive, or a small “pilot study,” where some volunteers got cupping treatments and said they felt better afterwards.

It could be doing something, but people often report they feel better when a concerned person, preferably professional, has spent time with them.

Not that I’m blowing my horn here, but the last three personal friends who called me on the phone said they felt better after talking to me.  I may have enough friends to have a study.

At any rate, back to cupping — which is the topic of a nice review and description from the National Library of Medicine database.

Back to science and medicine.

The procedure creates a vacuum between a “cup” generally by burning something under a “cup,” which is then applied to the skin.  In wet “cupping,” there has been a previous incision in the skin to let some blood out.

If this continues, we could put leeches out of business!

Vacuum increases local blood flow, which can cause things to become enlarged a bit.

In the past, I have recommended vacuum pumps for erectile dysfunction.  There, I can see why some people may seek a little swelling.

Circulation may well be “diverted.”  Heat and cold and the like do that, too.

Claims about “removal of toxins” seem to fanciful — no molecular proof here that I can find, or even hypothesize. Toxins are the boogeymen (and women) of alternative medicine, and many treatments are justified by claims of ridding them from the body.

Anything that breaks the skin has an infection risk, possibly providing a way for an infection to get into the body.  Things like hepatitis C or HIV or MERSA could happen.
Let’s just say nobody gets to cut MY skin without aseptic procedure and a damned good reason.

Sounds more like pseudoscience to me, but with a colorful history and perhaps some style.

Enjoy the Olympics, if that is your thing — but I think it is the wrong time to copy the celebrities.  I recommend avoiding this one.