Latest from the NIH on Acupuncture

During a seminar held on Saturday, April 29 on managing chronic pain and finding alternatives to opioids for the use of pain, Dr. Wendy Weber of the NIH's National Center for Complementary & Integrative Health discussed a review that was released earlier this year about the effectiveness of different integrative medicine modalities for the use of chronic pain. More specifically, the study conducted by the NIH was a review of 105 randomized controlled trials, including more than 16,000 participants, from 1988 to March, 2016. This study concluded that a variety of complementary health approaches may help manage pain. In particular, acupuncture and yoga were found to be the most effective treatment for chronic back pain while acupuncture and tai chi were found to be the most effective for osteoarthritis. In particular, acupuncture seemed well-equipped to dealing with osteoarthritis of the knee. Not only did the NIH come out saying that research was showing the effectiveness of acupuncture for chronic pain and as useful for substituting for the typically-prescribed pain medications, but that members of Veteran's Affairs also noted their wide-spread use of acupuncture. In particular, Michael Knep, PhD. said that at the D.C. VA, tailored, group acupuncture sessions were among some of the most popular services offered to veterans. For more information about the release, you may go to:

If you would like more information about the actual study, you can go to: http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(16)30317-2/fulltext