Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2024 Sep 13;9(5):e1188.
doi: 10.1097/PR9.0000000000001188. eCollection 2024 Oct.

Recent advances in acupuncture for pain relief

Supranee Niruthisard  1 , Qiufu Ma  2 , Vitaly Napadow  3   4
Affiliations

Recent advances in acupuncture for pain relief

Supranee Niruthisard et al. Pain Rep. .

Abstract

Introduction: Acupuncture therapy has achieved global expansion and shown promise for health promotion and treatment of acute/chronic pain.

Objectives: To present an update on the existing evidence base for research and clinical practice supporting acupuncture analgesia.

Methods: This Clinical Update elaborates on the 2023 International Association for the Study of Pain Global Year for Integrative Pain Care "Factsheet Acupuncture for Pain Relief" and reviews best evidence and practice.

Results: Acupuncture is supported by a large research evidence base and growing utilization. Mechanisms of acupuncture analgesia include local physiological response at the needling site, suppression of nociceptive signaling at spinal and supraspinal levels, and peripheral/central release of endogenous opioids and other biochemical mediators. Acupuncture also produces pain relief by modulating specific brain networks, integral for sensory, affective, and cognitive processing, as demonstrated by neuroimaging research. Importantly, acupuncture does not just manage pain symptoms but may target the sources that drive pain, such as inflammation, partially by modulating autonomic pathways. Contextual factors are important for acupuncture analgesia, which is a complex multifaceted intervention. In clinical practice, historical records and many providers believe that acupuncture efficacy depends on specific acupoints used, the technique of needle placement and stimulation, and the person who delivers the procedure. Clinical research has supported the safety and effectiveness of acupuncture for various pain disorders, including acupuncture as a complementary/integrative therapy with other pain interventions.

Conclusion: Although the quality of supportive evidence is heterogeneous, acupuncture's potential cost-effectiveness and low risk profile under standardized techniques suggest consideration as a neuromodulatory and practical nonpharmacological pain therapy.

Keywords: Acupuncture; Inflammation; Integrative pain care; Nonpharmacological approach for pain; Pain management.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare. S.N. is professor of Anesthesiology at Faculty of Medicine, Chulalongkorn University, and King Chulalongkorn Memorial Hospital, a committee member of the Thai Sub-board of Anesthesiology in Pain Medicine since 2009, and an International Association for the Study of Pain councilor (2020–2026). She is also the past president of the Thai Association for the Study of Pain for 2 consecutive terms (2014–2018). She was trained as a medical acupuncturist in the training program of Traditional Chinese Medicine hosted by the Ministry of Public Health of Thailand and in collaboration with Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Sichuan, the People's Republic of China. V.N. is Professor of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, as well as Radiology, at Harvard Medical School. He is also the director of the Scott Schoen and Nancy Adams Discovery Center for Recovery from Chronic Pain at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital and the Center for Integrative Pain Neuroimaging (CiPNI) at the Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging at Massachusetts General Hospital. He has been a pain neuroimaging researcher for more than 20 years and has more than 250 publications in leading peer-reviewed scientific journals. He is past president of the Society for Acupuncture Research and serves on the board of the US Association for the Study of Pain (USASP) and in numerous conference, journal, and National Institute of Health review panels. Q.M. is professor of Neurobiology and the director of Bioelectronic Medicine at Westlake University, China. He has been studying the somatosensory system for nearly 3 decades, first on sensory neuron development, then on spinal circuit mapping, and more recently on the neuroanatomical basis of acupuncture in modulating inflammation and pain. He was professor of Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School before he moved to Westlake University in 2022.

References

    1. Ammon K, Cardini F, Daig U, Dragan S, Frei-Erb M, Hegyi G, Roberti di Sarsina P, Sørensen J, Ursoniu S, Weidenhammer W, Lewith G. Final report of CAMbrella work package 5—health technology assessment (HTA) and a map of CAM provision in the EU. CAMbrella—a pan-European research network for complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). CAMbrella project; https://phaidra.univie.ac.at/view/o:300096 (2013). Accessed July 6, 2024.
    1. Anzolin A, Isenburg K, Grahl A, Toppi J, Yucel M, Ellingsen DM, Gerber J, Ciaramidaro A, Astolfi L, Kaptchuk TJ, Napadow V. Patient-clinician brain response during clinical encounter and pain treatment. Annu Int Conf IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc 2020;2020:1512–5. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Bäumler P, Zhang W, Stübinger T, Irnich D. Acupuncture-related adverse events: systematic review and meta-analyses of prospective clinical studies. BMJ Open 2021;11:e045961. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Becker S, Blyth F, Gilron I, Zinboonyahgoon N. Factsheet on “What do we mean by integrative pain care?” The 2023 IASP Global Year for Integrative Pain Care. International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP), 2023.
    1. Bleck RR, Gold MA, Westhoff CL. Training hour requirements to provide acupuncture in the United States. Acupunct Med 2021;39:327–33. - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources