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Evidence. Questions. Evolution.

A curated library presenting what scientific research currently tells us — including supportive findings, contradictions, uncertain results, methodological limitations and unanswered questions.

Science is a method of inquiry, not a final voice of truth.

Scientific knowledge evolves. Hypotheses are tested, challenged, refined and sometimes replaced as new evidence and better methods emerge. Tao Point presents what current research tells us — including supporting evidence, contradictions, limitations and unanswered questions — without confusing today’s scientific understanding with an immutable truth.

01 · Source

Traceable research

Priority to peer-reviewed research, systematic reviews, meta-analyses and primary scientific databases.

02 · Interpretation

What it currently tells us

Evidence is interpreted in context. Association, plausibility, consensus or one positive study are not treated as immutable truth.

03 · Evolution

Knowledge can change

Controls, sample size, heterogeneity, uncertainty and future discoveries matter. Scientific conclusions remain open to revision when better evidence emerges.

Library · Starting collection

Research worth reading

Acupuncture · Chronic Pain · Meta-analysis

Acupuncture for Chronic Pain: Update of an Individual Patient Data Meta-Analysis

Vickers AJ et al. · The Journal of Pain · 2018 · 39 trials · 20,827 patients

Tao Point summary. Across randomized trials of chronic musculoskeletal pain, osteoarthritis, chronic headache and shoulder pain, acupuncture performed better than sham acupuncture and no-acupuncture controls. Differences were substantially larger against no-acupuncture controls than against sham.

Limitations / interpretation. The results support a clinical effect in the studied chronic-pain populations, but do not establish traditional meridian or Qi theory as the biological mechanism.

Acupuncture · Chronic Pain · Persistence

The persistence of the effects of acupuncture after a course of treatment

MacPherson H et al. · Pain · 2017 · 29 trials · 17,922 patients

Tao Point summary. This analysis asked what happens after treatment ends. In the chronic-pain trials studied, treatment effects generally did not decrease importantly over 12 months, although persistence differed depending on the comparison group.

Limitations / interpretation. Longer-term follow-up was available for only part of the dataset, and persistence of benefit does not identify the physiological mechanism responsible.

Acupuncture · Methodology · Controls

Influence of control group on effect size in trials of acupuncture for chronic pain

MacPherson H et al. · PLOS ONE · 2014

Tao Point summary. The measured size of acupuncture's effect changed according to the comparison procedure. Trials using penetrating sham needles tended to show smaller differences than trials using non-penetrating or non-needle sham procedures.

Why this matters. “Acupuncture versus placebo” is methodologically complex: a sham procedure may itself contain physiological or contextual effects. The control intervention must therefore be examined before interpreting the size of the treatment effect.

Editorial standard

Supportive, inconclusive and negative evidence all belong here.

The Scientific Library is not a collection selected to defend Chinese medicine — or to treat current scientific consensus as unquestionable authority. Positive, negative, contradictory and inconclusive findings belong side by side. The objective is to understand what is known today, how strong that knowledge is, what remains uncertain, and how future evidence may change the picture.

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