Last year JAMA (Formerly the Archives of Internal Medicine) reported on a huge meta-analysis of acupuncture studies. This review was led by Andrew Vickers. Ph.D., a researcher at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. The researchers looked at data from 29 different randomized controlled trials of acupuncture for chronic pain (total of 17,922 patients) analyzed the results, and concluded that acupuncture was better at relieving pain than no treatment or a sham procedure.

In a phone interview with Bloomberg.com, Vickers stated, “We thought for a long time that the reason why acupuncture worked was just because people believed it work. We now know that the effect of acupuncture goes above and beyond the placebo effect. Acupuncture is a reasonable option for chronic pain.”