Have you noticed the weird circular skin marks at the Olympics. No, it’s not a rare skin condition. It’s the cupping craze. But does it work? And if so, how? It’s hard to do a controlled scientific experiment with cupping. I used to see this in the middle east and, of course, it’s been used for centuries in China. Make no doubt about it, it works! But placebos also work. It’s a mind body thing and pretty harmless.
Cupping involves heat and/or suction to rupture skin capillaries and might even promote circulation to underlying tissue. It’s interesting that so many athletes are showing up with these “hickeys” at the Olympics. I don’t know of any harmful side effects, but it might harm the skin barrier to all those nasty bugs in the sea water in Rio. I hope we don’t begin to see infections.
Harvard actually has an Institute for Placebo Research and have done some interesting studies comparing placebos one against the other. Interesting they all have some positive effect. The power of belief can be richly rewarded – in some cases with gold!
But let’s not take too much credit for these miracles like cupping. As I used to tell my patients, God heals and the doctor (or the Olympic cupping therapist) sends the bill.