women’s health acupuncture - the research

Research in 2019 suggests acupuncture is effective in treating PMS, and may perform better than NSAID’s for period pain.  This built on 2018 reviews showing benefit for endometriosis pain, period pain and PMS.  Previous trials have demonstrated help with hormone imbalance, stress, anxiety, sleep, weight problems, irregular periods, PCOS, vaginal pain, thyroid problems, cancer support, chemotherapy side effects, hot flushes and perimenopause .   

Hormone balance is affected by both diet and stress.  Combining acupuncture and nutritional therapy offers a gentle way of balancing hormones, regulating periods and benefiting health and fertility.  Several studies show reduction of menopausal hot flushes with acupuncture, and diet advice is always included to enhance the effect of acupuncture treatment. 

Not all clinical trials demonstrate benefit from acupuncture but some of the positive results are listed here.

acupuncture for hormone balance and weight

  • acupuncture may help weight loss by regulating hormones in overweight people (Gucel et al. 2012)

acupuncture for painful periods (dysmenorrhea)

  • review studies

    • 17 randomised controlled trials (RCT) showed acupuncture performed better than NSAIDs in dysmenorrhea (Luo et al. 2019)

    • 60 RCT suggests that acupuncture is more effective than NSAIDs (Woo et al. 2018)

    • 10 studies show improvement in dysmenorrhea with acupuncture treatment (Smith et al. 2011)

  • small study shows acupuncture is as effective as NSAID's in treating dysmenorrhea (Kiran et al. 2013)

acupuncture for endometriosis pain

  • a meta-analysis of complementary therapies for endometriosis pain shows that acupuncture was the only therapy making a significant difference (Mira et al. 2018)

  • cross-over study showing that 10 acupuncture treatments significantly reduced pain intensity in endometriosis (Rubi-Klein et al. 2010)

  • small study indicating acupuncture may be effective for endometriosis pain relief in young women (Wayne et al. 2008)

acupuncture for premenstrual syndrome (PMS) 

  • review studies

    • 15 trials show acupuncture to be effective in treating PMS (Zhang et al. 2019)

    • Cochrane review of 5 studies concludes that acupuncture and acupressure may improve physical and psychological symptoms of PMS but more research is needed  (Armour et al. 2018)

    • 19 acupuncture and herbal studies showed a 50% improvement in PMS and premenstrual mood disorder (Jang et al. 2014)

    • 10 RCTs show acupuncture treatment was superior to control groups in reducing PMS symptoms (Kim et al. 2011)

  • small study showing improvement of PMS symptoms with acupuncture (Anil et al. 2012)

acupuncture for vulvodynia and vaginal pain

  • the first RCT of  acupuncture treatment of vulvodynia shows reduction in pain and improved sexual function in women with vaginal pain (Schlaeger et al. 2015)