Cupping

Cupping is an ancient method used by modern therapists.

Now, cupping is used as a weight loss method, for beauty, skin problems and pain in China, but as a naturopathic method it also has a tradition reaching back to ancient times. Interestingly, cupping as a therapeutic measure is found in numerous cultural circles. It is also firmly anchored in Western naturopathy, such as in monastic medicine, and is experiencing a renaissance again and again in mo.

Cupping is a so-called reflex therapy, in which a healing stimulus is applied and bodily functions are to be stimulated. Small, glass suction cups (cupping heads) are placed on the skin, in which a negative pressure is created by means of a burning cotton ball. When the remaining air in the applied cupping bell cools down, the negative pressure created causes the glass to stick to the skin and the flesh is sucked in a little. Due to the increased blood flow, the skin reddens.

Sometimes it is incised before the bells are applied, so that "toxins" in the sense of naturopathy can flow out of the body with the blood. With the cupping according to TCM one treats above all pain in the reflex zones laterally of the spinal column. According to TCM teachings, internal organs should also be reached and influenced via these reflex zones.

Neither the Chinese nor the occidental cupping therapy is really recognized by the evidence-based medicine, commonly called orthodox medicine. Although it is possible today to imagine mechanisms of action quite well and to simulate them in models, no scientifically proven evidence has been produced. Valid studies have never been initiated even with this very old method.

Just for the sake of completeness, detoxification in the naturopathic sense is not known in evidence-based medicine. it  is there the elimination of metabolic intermediate and end products. As a naturopath, however, I like to stick to the term established there.