Acupuncture maintains a long history os being used for numerous diseases. But does it work and is there any evidence to back that up?

I started my investigation into acupuncture at The Cochrane Collaboration, which is a conglomeration of the best evidence available for the physician and patient to help make treatment decisions.

I confined my investigation into the following conditions: Low Back Pain, Neck Pain, Shoulder Pain, Joint arthritis, and rheumatoid arthritis. Acupuncture for Fibromyalgia and Headaches wasn’t looked at.

The American Academy of Medical Acupuncture (2004) states: “In the United States, acupuncture has its greatest success and acceptance in the treatment of musculoskeletal pain.They state acupuncture may be used as an alternative treatment for the problems in the list below, stating: “Most of these indications are supported by textbooks or a least one journal article. However, definitive conclusions based on research findings are rare because the state of acupuncture research is poor but improving.”

So it’s well known that the overall state of acupuncture research is poor, but that musculoskeletal pain benefits the most from the treatment.

Here are the assorted conditions and what the Cochrane Collaboration concludes about each.

Low Back Pain: Thirty five studies were reviewed. The studies were inconclusive regarding acute low back pain results from acupuncture. However, for chronic low back pain, acupuncture was more effective than no treatment or sham treatment in the short term. Also, the study recommended acupuncture as a potential useful adjunct to other treatments for chronic low back pain. This is comparable to chiropractor treatment in efficacy, but opposite. Chiropractic adjustment works well for acute low back pain, and its effectiveness for chronic low back pain is in question.

Neck Disorders: Ten studies were reviewed concerning acupuncture for chronic neck pain - in this case pain over six weeks.

Individuals with chronic neck pain who received acupuncture reported, on average, better pain relief immediately after treatment and in the short-term than those who received sham treatments.

Individuals with chronic neck pain with symptoms radiating to the arms who received acupuncture reported, on average, better pain relief in the short-term than those who were on a waiting list. Bottom Line: There is moderate evidence to support acupuncture for chronic neck pain (over 6 weeks.)

Peripheral Joint Osteoarthritis: 16 trials were reviewed looking at acupuncture for knee and/or hip arthritis. Pain relief for both hip and knee had statistically significant beneficial results with acupuncture. However, the apparent great result was somewhat due to placebo. So it helped in the studies, but what was real vs. placebo was questionable.

Shoulder pain: 9 studies were reviewed. The end result was there may be benefits in the short term with pain and function. However, the evidence was not top notch and the Cochrane Collaborative mentioned a need for more well designed trials.

Rheumatoid Arthritis: Only 2 studies were reviewed. From the little evidence available, acupuncture did not appear to improve the symptoms of RA.

From the Cochrane review of acupuncture for these issues it’s apparent it works at least short term except for Rheumatoid Arthritis.

Summary:

Acupuncture therefore represents another treatment that is useful to have in the armamentarium for pain management.