The researchers conducted a large study in order to test the effectiveness of acupuncture or needle therapy in back pain. According to the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), acupuncture is one of the oldest, most commonly used medical procedures in the world.

Acupuncture became popular in the United States after New York Times reporter James Reston waxed eloquent about the procedure. He wrote that Chinese doctors had eased his post-surgical pain by using needles.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the use of acupuncture needles in 1996. Even before this the procedure had gained immense popularity in the United States. According to the NIH Consensus Statement on Acupuncture, there have been many studies conducted to judge the effectiveness of acupuncture in various disease states.

According to the NCCAM, acupuncture "has shown promise in adult postoperative and chemotherapy nausea and vomiting and in postoperative dental pain." In conditions like addiction, stroke rehabilitation, headache, menstrual cramps, tennis elbow, fibromyalgia, myofascial pain, osteoarthritis, low-back pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, and asthma, acupuncture may prove to be a useful secondary treatment, the center says.

Now a large study finds that acupuncture may in fact beat conventional treatment procedures in easing low back pain. The study by researchers at the Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany, says that even sham or fake acupuncture provided relief from back pain.

Involving 1,162 adults, the study was the largest to test the safety and efficacy of acupuncture in handling low back pain. The German Acupuncture Trials were conducted in 340 outpatient practices. All patients were suffering from low back pain for at least eight years.

The patients were randomly assigned to receive either true or fake acupuncture or conventional therapy, which included a combination of drugs, physical therapy and exercise. The acupuncture sessions typically lasted for 10 to 30 minutes with the fake group receiving acupuncture where needles were poked at non-acupuncture points.

Reporting in the September 24 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, the researchers said:
* 47.6 percent of patients in the verum or true acupuncture group had responded to the treatment
* 44.2 percent of patients in the fake acupuncture group had also responded
* Only 27.4 percent of patients in the traditional therapy group reported easing of back pain.

The researchers used the Von Korff Chronic Pain Grade Scale to judge the success of the therapies. A score of 33 percent in three pain-related features was considered to be a success.

"Acupuncture constitutes a strong alternative to multimodal conventional therapy," the authors wrote. "Acupuncture gives physicians a promising and effective treatment option for chronic low-back pain, with few adverse effects or contraindications."

Lead author Dr. Michael Haake of the University of Regensburg, Bad Abbach added that there might be "a common underlying mechanism that may act on pain generation, transmission of pain signals or processing of pain signals by the central nervous system and that is stronger than the action mechanism of conventional (drug and exercise) therapy."

According to the National Institutes of Health, it is believed that there are 12 main meridians and 8 secondary meridians and that there are more than 2,000 acupuncture points on the human body that connect with them. However the mechanism through which acupuncture works is as yet unclear.

It is thought that the needles in some way stimulate the body’s nervous and immune systems. Thus it might help regulate the pain-killing biochemicals such as endorphins.

The acupuncture technique that has been most studied scientifically involves penetrating the skin with thin, solid, metallic needles that are manipulated by the hands or by electrical stimulation, the NIH revealed. Even though the procedure might look dangerous, it is in fact very mild, which may explain why many people are turning to it.

According to the 2002 National Health Interview Survey, -an estimated 8.2 million U.S. adults had ever used acupuncture, and an estimated 2.1 million U.S. adults had used acupuncture in the previous year.

As can be gauged from the above, acupuncture is gaining popularity in the United States as a reliable treatment method. Back pain is regarded as the second most common reason why people consult their doctor. In this regard the emergence of acupuncture as a treatment alternative is welcome. However many more studies like the one above may be needed to prove its effectiveness.