---
title: Acupuncture Basics
description: Acupuncture is a key component of traditional Chinese medicine involving the insertion of thin needles into specific body points. You will understand the anatomical and energetic theories behind the practice, its common applications, and what to expect during treatment.
category: health-medicine
subcategory: alternative-and-holistic
difficulty: beginner, intermediate, advanced
url: /subject/acupuncture-basics
---

# Acupuncture Basics

Acupuncture is a key component of traditional Chinese medicine involving the insertion of thin needles into specific body points. You will understand the anatomical and energetic theories behind the practice, its common applications, and what to expect during treatment.

## Available Resources

3 Websites • 3 Papers

## Papers

### 1. Acupuncture for the Prevention of Episodic Migraine (Cochrane Review)

**Author:** Klaus Linde, Gianni Allais, Benno Brinkhaus, et al.

Cochrane's synthesis of 22 randomized trials in nearly 5,000 migraine patients, comparing acupuncture against routine care, sham needling, and prophylactic drugs, with GRADE certainty ratings per comparison and a plain-language summary.

**Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free

**Link:** https://www.cochrane.org/evidence/CD001218_acupuncture-preventing-migraine-attacks

**Tags:** acupuncture, migraine-prevention, systematic-review, sham-controlled-trials, evidence-based-medicine

### 2. Acupuncture for Chronic Pain: Update of an Individual Patient Data Meta-Analysis

**Author:** Andrew J. Vickers et al., Acupuncture Trialists' Collaboration

Individual patient data meta-analysis pooling 39 randomised trials and 20,827 patients across musculoskeletal pain, osteoarthritis, headache and shoulder pain, reporting effect sizes against sham and no-acupuncture controls and persistence of benefit at twelve months.

**Difficulty:** Advanced | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free

**Link:** https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5927830/

**Tags:** acupuncture, meta-analysis, chronic-pain, clinical-evidence, randomized-trials

### 3. WHO Standard Acupuncture Point Locations in the Western Pacific Region

**Author:** WHO Regional Office for the Western Pacific

Consensus standard from eleven WHO expert meetings fixing the anatomical location of all 361 classical acupuncture points, plus the proportional bone-measurement and surface-landmark methods used to locate them. Free 249-page PDF.

**Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free

**Link:** https://iris.who.int/handle/10665/353407

**Tags:** acupuncture, acupuncture-points, who-standards, anatomy, clinical-reference

## Websites

### 1. Acupuncture for Pain Relief (IASP Fact Sheet)

**Author:** Qiufu Ma, Suprannee Niruthisard, Vitaly Napadow

Short briefing from the main international pain-research body weighing trial results against sham controls, summarizing what basic science shows about needle stimulation of somatosensory afferents and endogenous opioid release, and naming where the evidence remains unsettled.

**Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free

**Link:** https://www.iasp-pain.org/resources/fact-sheets/acupuncture-for-pain-relief/

**Tags:** acupuncture, pain-management, sham-controlled-trials, endogenous-opioids, pain-neuroscience

### 2. Acupuncture (StatPearls Clinical Reference)

**Author:** Michele Van Hal, Alexander M. Dydyk, Michael S. Green

Peer-reviewed clinical chapter covering meridian and acupoint anatomy as practitioners describe it, needling technique and session structure, indications, the few real contraindications, complications, and how sham-controlled trial results should be read.

**Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free

**Link:** https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK532287/

**Tags:** acupuncture, traditional-chinese-medicine, acupoints, clinical-evidence, patient-safety

### 3. Acupuncture: Effectiveness and Safety

**Author:** National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health

NIH's condition-by-condition survey of what trials show acupuncture does and does not do, alongside proposed nervous-system mechanisms, the placebo contribution, adverse-event data, and FDA needle regulation. Every claim links to the underlying review.

**Difficulty:** Beginner | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free

**Link:** https://www.nccih.nih.gov/health/acupuncture-effectiveness-and-safety

**Tags:** acupuncture, evidence-based-medicine, clinical-trials, placebo-effect, patient-safety

---

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