'Basic science in animals has shown that electro-acupuncture can make the brain release endorphins as well as influence a type of neurotransmitter called norepinephrine. Those types of neurotransmitters, which transmit signals from one neuron to another in the brain, have also been implicated in temperature regulation. I’d seen some studies demonstrating that acupuncture may be effective in reducing hot flashes, but often the number of people in the study was very small and the design was kind of problematic. So I set out to design my own study. When I wrote the trial, there was a study showing that in a large sample of breast cancer survivors, gabapentin was effective for hot flashes, so that’s why I picked it as an effective comparator.'