Jenna Glazer was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2004 at age 34. And then she experienced one of the most intense and disturbing side effects of cancer treatment for young women, enduring up to 50 hot flashes a day and night sweats that constantly disturbed her sleep.

“I was having several hot flashes an hour, which was absolutely brutal,” Glazer said of her therapy-triggered menopausal symptoms. “I would be sitting in the living room in the middle of winter with the windows open and the air conditioning on in boxer shorts and a tank top.”

Now a new study suggests that acupuncture can help such symptoms. Indeed, it seems to be just as effective as Effexor, an antidepressant commonly used to treat treatment-related hot flashes, but without side effects such as insomnia, constipation, dizziness, or a lag in sex drive.

In fact, the study, which will be presented at the American Society for Therapeutic Radiation and Oncology meeting in Boston on Monday, suggests that women might get more than just symptom relief.

“It had benefits in terms of increased energy [and] increased clarity of thinking,” said study author Eleanor Walker, MD, a radiation oncologist at the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. “Overall, patients felt better and, in some patients, they had an increase in their sex drive.”

Next page: What the study found