J Acupunct Meridian Stud 2017;10(4):229e230
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- RESPONSE -
Reply to the Letter to the Editor (Electrodermal
Conductance at Acupuncture Points and
Asthma)
To the Editor,
We would like to thank your correspondent for his letter
commenting on our recent paper in your journal [1],
particularly for his appreciative final comment that he
would recommend the paper to those interested in tradi-
tional Asian medicine.
As regards his detailed comments on the effects of asthma
treatments on skin conductance, we would differ from his
statement that: “The reading of electrodermal conductance
measurements is generally determined by dermal water
content.” The general understanding of the use of machines
like AcuGraph 4 (Miridia Technology Inc., Idaho, USA) that our
group employs, is that the readings are determined more or
less by the level of Qi in the meridian being measured, and
that dermal water content is only a secondary influence.
Nevertheless, we agree that it is a very important influ-
ence, and that skin moisture has to be carefully controlled.
Among our initial studies was a repeated measures study of
five measurements on two consecutive days at the same
times of day for each individual [2]. This showed that the
machine is accurate to the 10 points given as the upper
and lower limits of desired deviation from normal by the
designers of the machine, agreeing with the assessment of
the machine sponsored by the designers themselves [3].
(Allowance had to be made for their grouping of individuals
in the way they reported their data [4]).
In the use of AcuGraph, skin moisture is checked, and a
damp cotton wool swab is applied if it seems too dry [4].
Also, in the hot season and during monsoon in India, it
must be checked that the individual is not sweating, and
that the readings do not reach the 200 upper limit value of
the scale, due to excess dermal water content. Some of
our studies have had to delete up to 5% or 10% of data
pISSN 2005-2901 eISSN 2093-8152
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ª 2017 Medical Association of Pharmacopuncture Institute, Publishing services by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the
CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
because of this problem, even if it only occurs in one
meridian [5].
As regards the effect of the chemical drugs used in
asthma inhalers on electrodermal water content, and
hence on skin conductance [6], this is fine point that we
were not aware of, and we are grateful for having this
pointed out. However, in our studies here at the Yoga
University, it is not usually a factor that we need to
consider, because yoga has proved very effective against
asthma over the years [7,8].
However, in the data that we reported [1], the asth-
matics came from two sources, the first were participants
from our own clinic who were not, or were no longer, using
inhalers, and the second, a group at a conventional clinic
who were most certainly using them. Out of interest in the
possible influence of asthma inhalers’ chemical drugs on
electrodermal conductance measurements, we have now
compared the data from these two groups to see if there
was any systematic difference between their overall levels
of Qi energy, which might be expected from your corre-
spondent’s information.
Our findings were that the 14 individuals in our own Yoga
and Ayurveda clinic had a mean Qi energy level (denoted
E_L in AcuGraph) of 62  21, while the same measure for 14
individuals receiving the usual drug treatment in the con-
ventional, modern medicine clinic was only 59  20. The
significance of the difference was low, because the numbers
were small, but the effect is suggestive and needs to be
checked. It also raises interesting questions: (1) was the
difference because the Yoga practices raised the overall Qi
energy level, E_L, as we have seen in the past [5,9]; or (2)
was it due to a systematic change in dermal water content?
As regards conductance at nonacupuncture points, these
are generally known to be higher from work by the founders
230
of electroacupuncture [5]. AcuGraph 4 records a series of
acupuncture measurements on its computer, and is not
programmed to add extra comparison points. Nevertheless,
this difference could be assessed. Some acupuncture sci-
entists do not believe that measurements of electrodermal
resistance actually refer to a form of subtle energy. The
editor of the British Medical Journal’s journal in the field
refused to publish one of our submissions on the surprising
grounds that: (1) it was inappropriate to refer to Qi or its
Indian equivalent Prana by their traditional names in a
scientific paper; and (2) that no one had shown that the
differences were not due to general galvanic skin resistance
differences events. Work on this question is in progress, and
will be reported in a separate article.
Again, many thanks to your correspondent.
Disclosure statement
The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.
References
[1] Ghosh K, Hankey A, Srinivasan TM. Electrodermal screening of
asthmatics with AcuGraph 4. J Acupunct Meridian Stud. 2017;
10:125e130.
[2] Meenakshy KB. Acugraph Electrodermal Measurements: A
Reliability Study. Master’s Thesis. Swami Vivekananda Yoga
Anusandhan Samasthana; 2009.
[3] Mist SD, Aickin M, Kalnins P, Cleaver J, Batchelor R, Thorne T,
et al. Reliability of AcuGraph system for measuring skin
conductance at acupoints. Acupunct Med. 2012;29:221e226.
Response
[4] Sharma B, Hankey A, Nagendra HR, Meenakshy KB. Interoper-
ator variability of electrodermal measure at Jing Well Points
using AcuGraph 3. J Acupunct Meridian Stud. 2014;7:44e51.
[5] Nagilla N, Hankey A, Nagendra HR. Effects of yoga practice on
acumeridian energies: variance reduction implies benefits for
regulation. Int J Yoga. 2013;6:61e65.
[6] Yiu Ming Wong. Electrodermal Conductance at Acupuncture
Points and Asthma. J Acupunct Meridian Stud. 2017;10:
227e228.
[7] Nagendra HR, Nagarathna R. Yoga for bronchial asthma: a
controlled study. Br Med J. 1985;291:1077e1089.
[8] Nagendra HR, Nagarathna R. An integrated approach of yoga
therapy for bronchial asthma: 3e54-months prospective study.
J Asthma. 1986;23:123e137.
[9] Meenakshy KB, Sharma B, Hankey A, Nagendra HR. Electro-
dermal assessment of SMET program for business executives.
Voice Res. 2014;2:61e65.
Kuntal Ghosh*
Alex Hankey
Thaiyar M. Srinivasan
Department of Yoga and Physical Science, Swami
Vivekananda Yoga Anusandhan Samsthana University,
Bengalore, India
*Corresponding author.Department of Yoga and Physical
Science, Swami Vivekananda Yoga Anusandhan Samsthana
University, Bengalore, India.
E-mail: ghosh.kun@gmail.com (K. Ghosh)