Acupuncture has been continuously and widely used as a primary medical modality for over 2,500 years in the most populous civilization on earth (China and its sphere of East Asian cultural influence). As such, acupuncture has both broad and deep clinical experience. Ancient and modern acupuncture texts and collective clinical experience include differential diagnosis and treatment protocols for the full spectrum of illnesses and injuries known to humankind. However, here in the West, we are primarily concerned with evidence-based medical treatment. In recent years, acupuncture has become the subject of over 1,000 published clinical trials, accessible in databases such as PubMed and the National Library of Medicine.

In 1997, the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) issued a consensus report that concluded "The data in support of acupuncture are as strong as those for many accepted Western Medical therapies…There is sufficient evidence of acupuncture's value to expand its use into conventional medicine and to encourage further studies of its physiology and clinical value." (NIH 1997)

The World Health Organization (WHO) also issued a report in 1996 on the efficacy of acupuncture, based on review of an extensive database of clinical trials. Click here for a list of diseases, symptoms, or conditions for which acupuncture has been proved, through controlled trials, to be an effective treatment by the WHO and NIH.