Although even now sometimes viewed with skepticism in the West, acupuncture as a healing medium has been used for more than 4000 years. The oldest known medical text in the world still used today, The Canon of Medicine by Nei Jing describes the energy pathways or meridians along which the life waves travel. A major breakthrough in the acceptance of acupuncture by Western medicine came in 1998 when researchers at Fudan University were able to use an infrared spectrophotometer to, for the first time prove that acupuncture meridians do exist.

The basic theory behind Acupuncture is that when you are sick or in pain, the flow of energy is impeded and by means of acupuncture or acupressure you can restore balance to the meridians by unblocking them and thus restoring the body to full health. A nice analogy for the way this works is to imagine what happens when the lights in your house suddenly dim, that is the result of a drop in the flow of electricity, when the flow is restored the light go back to full power.

The drawback of acupuncture has always been the need to visit practitioners rooms and for many people the thought of having needles stuck into them was not exactly pleasant.

An exciting recent development is the innovative LifeWave acupuncture patch, a nanotechnology patch which contains a crystalline structure works on the acupuncture meridians, to produce various health related effects.

The patches which have an FDA medical device listing, contain patented nano structured biomolecular crystals which when activated by body heat start to oscillate, thereby producing specific energy waves which travel along the body meridians to transmit signals to the various target organs where they produce their balancing effect.

The patches are placed on known acupuncture points, where the skin has less than 1 sixth of the normal electrical resistance.

Acupressure patch technology is still really at an early stage so there are only a limited number of conditions for which there are available patches, but this technology is such a breakthrough that you can be certain many more will be developed.

Current applications are; the temporary relief of pain, lessening of sleep problems, help with managing weight loss, anti aging and increased energy production.

Interestingly, the patches caused a furore when a number of members of the US swim team were seen wearing them, resulting in an investigation by the USA and World doping agencies.

Fortunately, because nothing actually enters the bloodstream, the agencies decided that no action needed to be taken. After that it became quite common to see elite athletes from various sports and even racehorses wearing the patches.

For instance at the last Olympics company representatives announced there were more than 400 athletes from 11 different countries wearing the patches. Certainly there are many press photographs and magazine articles that seem to support these claims.

However, as per usual it is best to check these things out for yourself.