Qigong Healing Research

In Vitro Test Of External Qigong by Garret Yount et al

BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine 2004, 4:5 doi:10.1186/1472-6882-4-5

Background
Practitioners of the alternative medical practice 'external Qigong' generally claim the ability to emit or direct "healing energy" to treat patients. We investigated the ability of experienced Qigong practitioners to enhance the healthy growth of cultured human cells in a series of studies, each following a rigorously designed protocol with randomization, blinding and controls for variability.

Methods

Results
During a pilot study (8 experiments), a trend of increased cell proliferation in Qigong-treated samples (CFE Qigong/sham ratios > 1.0) was observed (P = 0.162). In a formal study (28 experiments), a similar trend was observed, with Qigong-treated samples showing on average more colony formation than sham samples (P = 0.036). In a replication study (60 experiments), no significant difference between Qigong-treated samples and sham samples was observed (P = 0.465).

Conclusion
We observed an apparent increase in the proliferation of cultured cells following external Qigong treatment by practitioners under strictly controlled conditions, but we did not observe this effect in a replication study. These results suggest the need for more controlled and thorough investigation of external Qigong before scientific validation is claimed.

This is a summary of the article. The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6882/4/5