On Acupuncture

The World Health Organisation recommends acupuncture for the following diseases, conditions or symptoms. Acupuncture has been proven to effectively treat– through controlled trials–:

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• 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 

    pain and temporomandibular

    dysfunction)

• Periarthritis of shoulder

• Postoperative pain

• Renal colic

• Rheumatoid arthritis

• Sciatica

• Sprain

• Stroke

• Tennis elbow

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The World Health Organisation recommends acupuncture because its therapeutic effect has been shown—although further proof is needed—to the following diseases, symptoms and conditions:

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• Abdominal pain (in acute gastroenteritis 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 hemorrhagic fever

• Epistaxis, simple (without generalised 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) herpes virus 3)

• Hyperlipaemia

• Hypo-ovarianism

• Insomnia

• Labour pain

• Lactation, deficiency

• Male sexual dysfunction, non-organic

• Ménière disease

• Neuralgia, post-herpetic

• Neurodermatitis

• 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)

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The World Health Organisation recommends acupuncture for the following diseases, symptoms or conditions when treatment by conventional and other therapies is difficult. Individual controlled trials report some therapeutic effects.  

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• Chloasma

• Choroidopathy, central serous

• Colour blindness

• Deafness

• Hypophrenia

• Irritable colon syndrome

• Neuropathic bladder due to spinal cord injury

• Pulmonary heart disease, chronic

• Small airway obstruction