The WHO (World Health Organisation) have listed diseases and disorders that acupuncture can help with.

They include ‘diseases, symptoms or conditions for which acupuncture has been proved through controlled trials to be an effective treatment’ such as facial pain, headache, sciatica, knee, neck and low back pain.  The WHO also lists ‘diseases, symptoms or conditions for which the therapeutic effect of acupuncture has been shown but for which further proof is needed’. 

The complete list of conditions and more information can be found on the WHO website.

There have been several studies on acupuncture for non-specific, persistent low back pain.

In May 2009 NICE guidelines recommended acupuncture for early, persistent non-specific lower back pain within the NHS.

Several large clinical trials have been carried out on acupuncture for non-specific, low back pain:

In 2007 MacPherson compared ‘Acupuncture and GP care’ with ‘Usual GP care’ in 241 patients and found that the group who received acupuncture were ”...more likely to report fewer concerns about their back pain, less likely to report current use of analgesics for their pain, and more likely to report no pain for the past 12 months…”. You can read the entire York Acupuncture for Back Pain Trial article here.     

You may also want to read the Acupuncture may ease back pain article on the NHS Choices website.

And the following news articles:

‘Scott Henshall: I’m scared of needles but acupuncture works’ article by Adrian Lee on the Express.co.uk website 16/2/10

How’s your back? BBC Radio 4 - Eddie Mair’s Blog 27/5/09

Scientists find acupuncture can help to relieve chronic back pain The Times 12/5/09

Needles ‘are best for back pain’, BBC News Online, 25/9/07

The BAcC fully supports NICE's decision that acupuncture be made available on the NHS for persistent non-specific low back pain.

The British Acupuncture Council, the UK’s largest professional body for the practice of acupuncture, fully supports NICE’s (National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence) decision that acupuncture be made available on the NHS for chronic lower back pain.

Traditional acupuncture has been used for over 2,000 years to alleviate back pain and British Acupuncture Council members have for many many years been successfully treating patients for this condition either in private practice or working within the NHS. In effect, therefore, these new guidelines are a rubber stamp of the positive work already being undertaken as well as an endorsement of the wealth of research evidence now available in this area.

...continue reading

"I still can't quite believe it, but I'm an absolute convert to the benefits of acupuncture..."

Times Online, February 24, 2007, David Mattin.
It works for me: acupuncture

One woman’s life had been crippled by osteoarthritis until she found relief in Chinese medicine

Christmas 2005 wasn’t much fun for 73-year-old Maureen Vine. She had long been a sufferer from chronic osteoarthritis in her knees, hips and back and she was now afflicted by an arthritic right ankle, which left her in pain and limping. “My youngest grandchild was 4 years old and he couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t play with him on the floor on Christmas Day,” Vine recalls. “It was just too painful. The terrible pain in my ankle spread to the sole of my foot, and I could hardly walk.”

Vine had suffered from osteoarthritis - in which wear and tear causes joint stiffness and pain - in the back, hips, and knees for 30 years, and had tried occasional physiotherapy, which had brought a little relief. But a stomach condition meant that she had to avoid antiinflammatory medication or strong painkillers. In November 2005 her right ankle began showing signs that it, too, had become arthritic and by the new year, Vine was at her GP in Hackney, East London.

...continue reading

Acupuncture relieves headaches

Migraine Action - Acupuncture in the news

Posted 28/01/09

New research into the benefits of acupuncture has been featured in many newspaper articles, on GMTV and national TV news programmes over the past couple of days.

A review of 33 trials, involving nearly 7,000 people, showed that patients who underwent the alternative therapy did experience relief from headaches and migraines

...continue reading

Acupuncture is a 'valuable treatment' for people who suffer from tension headaches .

Acupuncture for headache - a review, published by The Prince’s Foundation for Integrated Health, 1/3/09.

Dr Adrian White is a Clinical Research Fellow at Peninsula Medical School. In this article, he summarises the findings of recent research on acupuncture for different types of headaches .

Headaches are common - in fact, the most common symptom experienced by the human race. There are various causes of headache, and of course careful conventional diagnosis is necessary in case the headache arises from some dangerous disorder - in which case acupuncture is not appropriate.

Most headaches fall into two general categories - tension type headache and migraine. These problems can persist for years. The two types of headache are clearly different, and most research investigates one or other type. In individual patients, however, it may be difficult to decide which type they have, and indeed some people may have both types together.

Acupuncture is widely used as a prevention for tensionheadaches, and generally involves a course of treatment sometimes with continuing top up appointments.

...continue reading

Millions of people who suffer from low back pain are to be given the right to ask for acupuncture on the NHS.

GPs will be told to offer their patients the traditional Chinese practice, as well as other treatments like osteopathy and chiropracty, as an alternative to conventional remedies like exercise….

Although some individual GPs currently refer patients for complementary treatments, the recommendation constitutes the first time the rationing body has encouraged its use. Its draft guidance says anyone whose pain persists for more than six weeks should be given a choice of several treatments, because the evidence about which works best is so uncertain…

Paul Robin, chairman of the Acupuncture Society, a professional body representing practitioners, said the therapy worked “fantastically well” in relieving back pain.

Read the full article and some of the controversy involved on the Telegraph website - NHS to promote acupuncture for back pain.

Scientists find acupuncture can help to relieve chronic back pain

The Times May 12, 2009, by Sam Lister, Health Editor.

Using acupuncture to treat chronic back pain is more effective than standard treatments alone, a leading scientific study has found.

Trials involving 638 back pain sufferers have suggested that acupuncture is successful in relieving discomfort, although how it works remains unclear. A “fake” version also produced results, indicating that belief in the therapy may have played a key role in its success.

In the project, known as Spine (stimulating points to investigate needling efficacy), patients were divided into groups to receive standard care alone, with one of two variants of genuine acupuncture or with a placebo.

...continue reading