Disease and Disorders that can be treated by Acupuncture

According National Institutes of Health (NIH), acupuncture is among the oldest healing practice in the world. In addition, the 2007 National Health Interview Survey, which included a comprehensive survey of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use by Americans, an estimated 3.1 million U.S. adults and 150,000 children had used acupuncture in the previous year. And its popularity has been growing each year. (Here is the NIH source: Acupuncture: An Introduction.)

However, many Americans are still not clear on what can be treated by acupuncture, and with all the information out there online, sometimes it is just hard to figure out who to trust. Yesterday, I came cross a report from World Health Organization (WHO) with title “Acupuncture: Review and Analysis of Reports on Controlled Clinical Trials”. Although it is a 87 pages report, the core parts that covers most of the information we care about are within the first 27 pages. If you have time, please take a look and you might learn something interesting. This report was done in Italy in 1996. Although it was almost 20 years ago, but with limited English reference for acupuncture or Traditional Chinese Medicine, it is still one of the better reference out there. Chapter 3, Disease and Disorders that can be treated by Acupuncture, is what most people care about, so let me share this chapter here.

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

• Adverse reactions to radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy
• Allergic rhinitis (including hay fever)
• Biliary colic
• Depression (including depressive neurosis and depression following stroke)
• Dysentery, acute bacillary
• Dysmenorrhoea, primary
• Epigastralgia, acute (in peptic ulcer, acute and chronic gastritis, and gastrospasm )
• Facial pain (including craniomandibular disorders)
• Headache
• Hypertension, essential
• Hypotension, primary
• Induction of labour
• Knee pain
• Leukopenia
• Low back pain
• Malposition of fetus, correction of
• Morning sickness
• Nausea and vomiting
• Neck pain
• Pain in dentistry (including dental p a in and temporomandibular dysfunction)
• Periarthritis of shoulder
• Postoperative pain
• Renal colic
• Rheumatoid arthritis
• Sciatica
• Sprain
• Stroke
• Tennis elbow

2. Diseases, symptoms or conditions for which the therapeutic effect of acupuncture has been shown but for which further proof is needed:

• Abdominal pain (in acute gastroenteriti s or due to gastrointestinal spasm )
• Acne vulgaris
• Alcohol dependence and detoxification
• Bell’s palsy
• Bronchial asthma
• Cancer pain
• Cardiac neurosis
• Cholecystitis, chronic, with acute exacerbation
• Cholelithiasis
• Competition stress syndrome
• Craniocerebral injury, closed
• Diabetes mellitus, non-insulin-dependent
• Earache
• Epidemic haemorrhagic fever
• Epistaxis, simple (without generalized or local disease)
• Eye pain due to subconjunctival injection
• Female infertility
• Facial spasm
• Female urethral syndrome
• Fibromyalgia and fasciitis
• Gastrokinetic disturbance
• Gouty arthritis
• Hepatitis B virus carrier status
• Herpes zoster (human ( alpha) herpesvirus 3)
• Hyperlipaemia
• Hypo-ovarianism
• Insomnia
• Labour pain
• Lactation, deficiency
• Male sexual dysfunction, non-organic
• Ménière disease
• Neuralgia, post-herpetic
• Neuroderm atitis
• Obesity
• Opium, cocaine and heroin dependence
• Osteoarthritis
• Pain due to endoscopic examination
• Pain in thromboangiitis obliterans
• Polycystic ovary syndrome (Stein – Leventhal syndrome)
• Postextubation in children
• Postoperative convalescence
• Premenstrual syndrome
• Prostatitis, chronic
• Pruritus
• Radicular and pseudoradicular pain syndrome
• Raynaud syndrome, primary
• Recurrent lower urinary-tract infection
• Reflex sympathetic dystrophy
• Retention of urine, traumatic
• Schizophrenia
• Sialism, drug-induced
• Sjögren syndrome
• Sore throat (including tonsillitis)
• Spine pain, acute
• Stiff neck
• Temporomandibular joint dysfunction
• Tietze syndrome
• Tobacco dependence
• Tourette syndrome
• Ulcerative colitis, chronic
• Urolithiasis
• Vascular dementia
• Whooping cough (pertussis)

 

3. Diseases, symptoms or conditions for which there are only individual controlled trials reporting some therapeutic effects, but for which acupuncture is worth trying because treatment by conventional and other therapies is difficult:

• Chloasma
• Choroidopathy, central serous
• Colour blindness
• Deafness
• Hypophrenia
• Irritable colon syndrome
• Neuropathic bladder in spinal cord injury
• Pulmonary heart disease, chronic
• Small airway obstruction

 

4. Diseases, symptoms or conditions for which acupuncture may be tried provided the practitioner has special modern medical knowledge and adequate monitoring equipment:

• Breathlessness in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
• Coma
• Convulsions in infants
• Coronary heart disease ( angina pectoris)
• Diarrhoea in infants and young children
• Encephalitis, viral, in children, late stage
• Paralysis, progressive bulbar and pseudobulbar

(Source: Acupuncture: Review and Analysis of Reports on Controlled Clinical Trials, World Health Organization, 1996, Italy)