Although acupuncture was introduced to Europe as long ago as the early seventeenth century, scepticism about its effectiveness continues to exist in countries where modern Western medicine is the foundation of health care, especially in those where acupuncture has not yet been widely practised.

Huge databases of research remain largely inaccessible outside the Far East and some western commentators question its credibility, even though acupuncture has been studied, tested and refined for centuries in the East.

                       "The wider world asks us to provide evidence"                 

Traditional acupuncture's greatest strength is that it treats each patient individually. It focuses on all factors that contribute to disease, not just presenting symptoms. Consequently, traditional acupuncture does not neatly fit into the prevalent research protocols that have been developed in response to symptom-based treatments.

As new western research begins to provide quantifiable evidence of traditional acupunctures efficacy and cost-effectiveness the body of evidence available internationally is growing rapidly.

For more information on conditions that have been researched  look at the British Acupuncture Council research-fact-sheets by clicking on the following link

http://www.acupuncture.org.uk/research-fact-sheets.html