Traditional Chinese acupuncture reduces the severity of menopause-related hot flushes, the results of a new study indicate.

Turkish researchers looked at 53 middle-aged women who were all classified as being post-menopausal - they had spontaneously stopped having periods for a year.

Their symptoms, including hot flushes, vaginal dryness and mood swings, were measured using a five-point scale.

Twenty-seven of the women received traditional Chinese acupuncture twice a week for 10 weeks, with needles left in position for 20 minutes without any manual or electrical stimulation. The rest were given sham acupuncture.

Hormone levels of oestrogen, follicular stimulating hormone (FSH), and luteinising hormone (LH) were measured before the study began and after the first and last acupuncture sessions in both groups to see if these changed.

The results showed that after 10 weeks, those who were given traditional acupuncture had significantly lower scores for hot flushes and psychological symptoms, such as mood swings, than those given the sham treatment.

The acupuncture did not appear to affect urogenital symptoms, such as vaginal dryness.

The results also indicated that the effects were cumulative, with stronger results seen between the first and last sessions.

Oestrogen levels also rose, while LH levels fell in the group treated with traditional Chinese acupuncture. Low levels of oestrogen and high LH and FSH levels are characteristic of the menopause, as the ovaries start to fail.

However, the researchers explained that because of the differences between the groups in these various hormones to start with, there was little evidence to suggest that any hormonal fluctuations were themselves responsible for the changes in symptom severity.

They suggested that the reduced severity of hot flushes might be because acupuncture boosts the production of endorphins, which may stabilise the body's temperature controls.

The team from the Ankara Research and Training Hospital acknowledged that their study was small and warned that they did not monitor how long symptom relief lasted. But they suggested that traditional Chinese acupuncture could be an alternative for those women unable or unwilling to use hormone replacement therapy (HRT) to ease troublesome menopausal symptoms.

Details of these findings are published in the journal, Acupuncture in Medicine.