What can acupuncture help with? A list from the World Health Organization

The World Health Organization (WHO) published a list of conditions that acupuncture has been proven, through clinical trials, to be effective for in a 2003 report titled “Acupuncture: Review and Analysis of Reports on Controlled Clinical Trials”.

Diseases, symptoms or conditions for which acupuncture has been proven—through controlled trials—to be an effective treatment:

• Pain-related:

  • Low back pain

  • Neck pain

  • Knee pain

  • Periarthritis of the shoulder (frozen shoulder)

  • Tennis elbow

  • Dental pain

  • Postoperative pain

  • Headache

  • Migraine

    
    

• Neurological:

  • Facial pain (including temporomandibular joint dysfunction)

  • Trigeminal neuralgia

  • Peripheral neuropathies

  • Stroke (assisting in rehabilitation)

  • Paresis following stroke

    
    

• Digestive:

  • Nausea and vomiting (including from chemotherapy or pregnancy)

  • Peptic ulcer

  • Acute and chronic gastritis

    
    

• Respiratory:

  • Allergic rhinitis (including hay fever)

  • Sinusitis

  • Acute bronchitis

  • Bronchial asthma

Citation: World Health Organization. (2003). Acupuncture: Review and analysis of reports on controlled clinical trials. World Health Organization. https://iris.who.int/handle/10665/42414