Guide to Acupuncture, pt. 5

The U.S. National Institute of Health Consensus Statement on Acupuncture

In 1997 the N.I.H published a Consensus Statement on the use and effectiveness of acupuncture for a variety of Conditions Treated. The following is an excerpt:

"Acupuncture as a therapeutic intervention is widely practiced in the United States. While there have been many studies of its potential usefulness, many of these studies provide equivocal results because of design, sample size, and other factors. The issue is further complicated by inherent difficulties in the use of appropriate controls, such as placebos and sham acupuncture groups. However, promising results have emerged, for example, showing efficacy of acupuncture in adult post-operative and chemotherapy nausea and vomiting and in post-operative dental pain. There are other situations such as addiction, stroke rehabilitation, headache, menstrual cramps, tennis elbow, fibromyalgia, myofacial pain, osteoarthritis, low back pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, and asthma where acupuncture may be useful as an adjunct treatment or an acceptable alternative or be included in a comprehensive management program. Further research is likely to uncover additional areas where acupuncture interventions will be useful."

Source: NIH, Acupuncture, Nov. 3-5, 1997, Vol. 15, No. 5. You can read the complete statement from the National Institute of Health on the NIH website.

Find out more about acupuncture and oriental medicine in our
Guide to Acupuncture:

  1. History of Acupuncture
  2. Qi: An Introduction
  3. Oriental Medicine: An Answer to Imbalances
  4. Chinese and Western Medicine: a Discussion of Yin and Yang
  5. U.S. National Institute of Health Consensus Statement on Acupuncture
  6. Statement from the World Health Organization

We also have an overview of our acupuncture services, and more about our individual practitioners: Derek Kirkham, Lindsey Lawson, and Karen Hayes.