What Can Acupuncture and Herbal Medicine Help With?
The World Health Organization (WHO) has recognized that many diseases and disorders may be treatable with acupuncture. Many of these have been tested in controlled clinical trials and reported in recent literature.
1) Diseases, symptoms, or conditions for which acupuncture has been shown, through controlled trials, to effectively help with:
- Adverse reactions to radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy
- Allergic rhinitis (including hay fever)
- Biliary colic
- Depression (including depressive neurosis and depression
- following stroke)
- Dysentery, acute bacillary
- Dysmenorrhoea, primary
- Epigastralgia, acute (in peptic ulcer, acute and chronic
- gastritis, and gastrospasm)
- Facial pain (including craniomandibular disorders)
- Headache
- Hypertension, essential
- Hypotension, primary
- Induction of labour
- Knee pain
- Leukopenia
- Low back pain
- Malposition of fetus, correction of
- Morning sickness
- Nausea and vomiting
- Neck pain
- Pain in dentistry (including dental pain and temporomandibular dysfunction)
- Periarthritis of shoulder
- Postoperative pain
- Renal colic
- Rheumatoid arthritis
- Sciatica
- Sprain
- Stroke
- Tennis elbow
2) Diseases, symptoms or conditions for which the therapeutic effect of acupuncture has been shown but needs further research:
- Abdominal pain (in acute gastroenteritis or due to gastrointestinal spasm)
- Acne vulgaris
- Alcohol dependence and detoxification
- Bell’s palsy
- Bronchial asthma
- Cancer pain
- Cardiac neurosis
- Cholecystitis, chronic, with acute exacerbation
- Cholelithiasis
- Competition stress syndrome
- Craniocerebral injury, closed
- Diabetes mellitus, non-insulin-dependent
- Earache
- Epidemic haemorrhagic fever
- Epistaxis, simple (without generalized or local disease)
- Eye pain due to subconjunctival injection
- Female infertility
- Facial spasm
- Female urethral syndrome
3) Disease and disorders that may be treatable with acupuncture:
- Fibromyalgia and fasciitis
- Gastrokinetic disturbance
- Gouty arthritis
- Hepatitis B virus carrier status
- Herpes zoster
- Hyperlipaemia
- Hypo-ovarianism
- Insomnia
- Labour pain
- Lactation, deficiency
- Male sexual dysfunction, non-organic
- Ménière disease
- Neuralgia, post-herpetic
- Neurodermatitis
- Obesity
- Opium, cocaine and heroin dependence
- Osteoarthritis
- Pain due to endoscopic examination
- Pain in thromboangiitis obliterans
- Polycystic ovary syndrome (Stein–Leventhal syndrome)
- Postextubation in children
- Postoperative convalescence
- Premenstrual syndrome
- Prostatitis, chronic
- Pruritus
- Radicular and pseudoradicular pain syndrome
- Raynaud syndrome, primary
- Recurrent lower urinary-tract infection
- Reflex sympathetic dystrophy
- Retention of urine, traumatic
- Schizophrenia
- Sialism, drug-induced
- Sjögren syndrome
- Sore throat (including tonsillitis)
- Spine pain, acute
- Stiff neck
- Temporomandibular joint dysfunction
- Tietze syndrome
- Tobacco dependence
- Tourette syndrome
- Ulcerative colitis, chronic
- Urolithiasis
- Vascular dementia
- Whooping cough (pertussis)
4) Diseases, symptoms, or conditions for which there are only individual controlled trials reporting some therapeutic effects, but for which acupuncture is worth trying because treatment by conventional and other therapies is difficult:
- Chloasma
- Choroidopathy, central serous
- Colour blindness
- Deafness
- Hypophrenia
- Irritable colon syndrome
- Neuropathic bladder in spinal cord injury
- Pulmonary heart disease, chronic
- Small airway obstruction
5) Diseases, symptoms or conditions for which acupuncture may be tried provided the practitioner has special modern medical knowledge and adequate monitoring equipment:
- Breathlessness in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
- Coma
- Convulsions in infants
- Coronary heart disease (angina pectoris)
- Diarrhoea in infants and young children
- Encephalitis, viral, in children, late stage
- Paralysis, progressive bulbar and pseudobulbar
WHO 世界衛生組織《針灸臨床研究報告的回顧與分析》針灸治療病症的範圍及療效
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一、已通過臨床對照試驗，證明針灸或許是一種有效的治療方法的疾病、症狀有：
放療和/或化療的不良反應
過敏性鼻炎
膽絞痛
抑鬱症
急性細菌性痢疾
原發性痛經
急性胃脘痛
面部疼痛
頭痛
原發性高血壓
原發性低血壓
引產
膝關節疼痛
白細胞減少症
腰痛
胎位不正
妊娠嘔吐
噁心和嘔吐
頸部疼痛
口腔疼痛
肩周炎
術後疼痛
腎絞痛
類風濕關節炎
坐骨神經痛
扭傷
撞擊
網球肘
二、初步證明針灸或許有效，需進一步研究的疾病與症狀：
腹痛
尋常痤瘡
酒精依賴和解毒
貝爾氏麻痹（面癱）
支氣管哮喘
癌症疼痛
心臟神經官能症
慢性膽囊炎急性發作
膽石症
競爭壓力症候群
閉合性顱腦損傷
非胰島素依賴型糖尿病
耳痛
流行性出血熱
流鼻血
結膜下注射引起的眼痛
女性不孕
面肌痙攣
女性尿道綜合徵
纖維肌痛和筋膜炎
胃動力功能障礙
痛風性關節炎
B型肝炎病毒攜帶狀態
帶狀皰疹
高脂血症
卵巢功能減退
失眠
分娩痛
哺乳不足
非器質性男性性功能障礙
梅尼爾病
神經痛
神經性皮炎
肥胖
鴉片、古柯鹼和海洛因依賴
骨性關節炎
內視鏡檢查引起的疼痛
血栓閉塞性脈管炎疼痛
多囊卵巢綜合徵（斯坦-綜合徵）
兒童氣管撥管後
術後恢復期
經前期綜合徵
慢性攝護腺炎
瘙癢症
神經根疼痛和肌筋膜疼痛綜合徵
原發性雷諾氏綜合徵
下泌尿道復發性感染
交感神經營養不良
尿瀦留
精神分裂症
藥物性唾腺分泌過多
乾燥綜合徵
喉嚨痛（包括扁桃體炎）
急性脊椎疼痛
頸部僵硬
顳下頜關節功能障礙
肋軟骨炎
菸草依賴
抽動—穢語綜合徵
慢性潰瘍性結腸炎
尿路結石
血管性痴呆
百日咳
三、其它傳統療法難以奏效，且個別針灸臨床對照試驗報告或許有效，針灸值得一試：
黃褐斑
中心性漿液性脈絡膜病變
色盲
耳聾
弱智
腸易激綜合徵
脊髓損傷導致的神經性膀胱
慢性肺心病
小呼吸道阻塞
四、在現代醫學知識和監測設備下，可嘗試的疾病與症狀有：
呼吸困難的慢性阻塞性肺疾病
昏迷
嬰兒驚厥
冠心病心絞痛
嬰幼兒腹瀉
兒童病毒性腦炎後後遺症
漸進的和假性延髓麻痹
現在國內外使用針灸治療疾病情況，共16類包含461種病症的療效證實. 2019年世界衛生大會WHA，首度將中醫納入章節，未來中醫的疾病與診斷，就可依據ICD國際疾病分類進行系統歸類與編碼