Scientific evidence supporting acupuncture has grown significantly between 2017 and 2022, in both quantity and quality. German authors assessed 862 systematic reviews and meta-analyses covering 184 medical conditions. They found strong evidence for a positive effect for acupuncture, in ten conditions: chronic pain, lower back pain, osteoarthritis of the knee, postoperative nausea and vomiting, migraine, tension headache, cancer-related fatigue, menopausal symptoms, chronic prostatitis/pelvic pain, and as an adjunct to female fertility treatment.
A further 82 conditions showed evidence suggesting potential benefits. Another 86 had insufficient or unclear data, and 6 showed no benefit.
Compared with earlier reviews covering 2005 to 2017, the authors point out a clear trend towards more favourable and higher-quality evidence. The lack of consistently high-quality primary trials suggests the need for future studies to follow rigorous reporting standards. They close their paper with a comprehensive discussion: there are potentially so far 92 medical conditions for which acupuncture may offer positive effects; placebo-controlled clinical trials, mainly using sham acupuncture, are now considered problematic since sham acupuncture is not an inert intervention, thus leading to an underestimate of the effect size of true acupuncture; acupuncture is considered safe when carried out by well-trained and qualified practitioners.
(The state of evidence in acupuncture: A review of metaanalyses & systematic reviews of acupuncture evidence (update 2017-2022). Complementary Therapies in Medicine, May 2025.)
