Analysis of meridians potential as ground condition for objectification of acupuncture effect

Background: As patients are positioned at insulated bed and practitioner are positioned at insulated floor or shoes, it could be a cause of lessening effect in acupuncture practice. We investigated how Ground connection could influence on the electrical meridian potential between practitioner and patient during acupuncture practice. Method: We treated 30 normal healthy subjects with acupuncture and measured changes in the electrical potential between the stomach meridian points ST-39 and ST-37 in response to light touch after insertion of a needle at ST-36. At first, we stimulated needle and measured electrical potentials for non ground, patient ground only, practitioner ground only, all ground, respectively. Result: All ground subject elicited positive mean potential 44.6±19.2μV and showed 181.4±59.7μV peak to peak potential. practitioner ground only showed negative mean potential -51.5±9.3μV and 367.4±27.8μV of peak to peak potential. Patient ground only revealed no mean potential as 2.9±1.3μV, 16.4±11.9μV of peak to peak potential. All ground showed no mean potential as 1.6±0.7μV, 3.3±1.9μV of peak to peak potential, respectively.