Acupuncture is best way to treat back pain, study finds

The ancient Chinese practice of acupuncture works better than anything modern medicine has devised for the treatment of back pain, scientists have concluded.

In trials among 1,100 patients with chronic lower back pain which had lasted for an average of eight years, almost half (47 per cent) of those who received acupuncture showed significant improvement – compared with barely a quarter (27 per cent) of those given conventional treatment. The effects lasted for at least six months, long after the treatment was completed.

The study was conducted by researchers from the University of Regensberg, in the spa town of Bad Abbach in Germany, who randomly allocated patients to receive ten 30-minute sessions of sham acupuncture, real acupuncture or conventional treatment.