Acupuncture: Effectiveness and Safety
by National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health · National Institutes of Health (NCCIH)
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.
More resources on Acupuncture Basics
Acupuncture for the Prevention of Episodic Migraine (Cochrane Review)
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.
Acupuncture for Pain Relief (IASP Fact Sheet)
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.
Acupuncture (StatPearls Clinical Reference)
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.