A recent study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine revealed that chronic back pain can effectively be treated with acupuncture.
Patients who participated in the study responded well to alternative treatments to medicine, which involved the use of real and placebo acupuncture needles.
"Because of the lack of highly effective medical treatments for chronic low back pain, we were pleased to find that acupuncture-like treatments were helpful for persons suffering from chronic back pain. However, the finding that real acupuncture produced no greater benefit than simulated acupuncture raises important questions about acupuncture’s mechanisms of action," stated the principal author, Dr. Daniel Cherkin of the Group Health Center for Health Studies in Seattle.
This is why Dr. Cherkin recommends that further research be conducted to corroborate his conclusions.