Jennifer Matthews: Every Tuesday, for 33 years, Eddie Thomas has done the same thing.

Eddie Thomas: I have to set the board up. I put the quickies out.

Jennifer Matthews: The church bingo game keeps Eddie going -- despite the cancer in his colon that spread to his lungs.

Eddie Thomas: I was coughing a lot, and I went to the doctors, and they found nodules in my lungs.

Jennifer Matthews: Chemo keeps the nodules under control, but it's an alternative treatment that recently helped this gambling man cope with the cancer.

Eddie Thomas: Acupuncture? Wow! That's exciting. It's an exciting word to me.

Jennifer Matthews: Doctor Ellen Redinbaugh and colleagues are looking to these tiny needles as a way to improve the quality of life for cancer patients. More than that, they're trying to understand why it works.

Dr. Ellen Redinbaugh: I think we, in Western science, have some tools available to us that can help answer that question.

Jennifer Matthews: Using cotton, study participants' saliva is tested for the stress hormone cortisol four times a day. Redinbaugh thinks she knows what they'll see.

Dr. Ellen Redinbaugh: Their cortisol levels will actually start to decline because their overall stress will decline.

Jennifer Matthews: These days Eddie is feeling good. He says part of it may be the acupuncture and another part, his faith. Together, they're a winning card. This is Jennifer Matthews reporting.