Cupping – Can It Change Your Life?

Just another health fad… or is there more to this ancient technique than meets the eye?

Gwyneth Paltrow started it, appearing at a film première with huge, dark blotches on her skin.

That was back in 2004. Since then a string of celebs, including Madonna, Victoria Beckham and Jennifer Aniston, have been snapped in public looking shamelessly like Mr Blobby.

And now, as anyone who watched the Rio Olympics will have noticed, the fashion has spread to sports stars – with many athletes like the US swimmer Michael Phelps and gymnast Alex Naddour showing off their circular welts and claiming it helped them perform pain-free.

The marks may look like very big, round love bites, but they’re caused by cupping. It’s a therapy that – although relatively new to most of us – has actually been around for thousands of years.

“The earliest evidence of cupping therapy has been seen on drawings in pharoahs’ tombs in Egypt,” says neurologistDr Ahmed Younis, an associate professor at St George’s University, London.

Dr Younis has researched the therapy in depth. Now president of The British Cupping Society, he has trained many doctors in the practice.

“When I first heard of it I was as sceptical as anyone else,” he says. “After looking into it and understanding the process, I ran a trial on patients with knee pain. After just one session of cupping, the participants recorded that their pain level had dropped from an average of 8/10 to 2/10. What’s more, their pain continued to lessen over the next two to three weeks, without further treatments.”

Dr Younis’ research has led him to recommend the treatment for many different conditions but most notably back pain, knee pain, migraine and stress. “Examining blood from the site of the therapy, we have clearly seen how key natural painkilling chemicals have increased in the body. There is the advantage that these chemicals – which act similarly to morphine, steroids and antidepressants – have none of the side-effects of man-made drugs.”