Experts have clashed over whether the benefits of acupuncture justify performing the procedure.
A new analysis says that acupuncture has "small" pain-killing effects and is not "clinically relevant".
Danish researchers analysed some thirteen acupuncture trials involving some 3,000 patients for the study, reported on-line by the British Medical Journal.
Recent studies have suggested that fake acupuncture may be nearly as effective as the real thing. The Danish researchers say reports on fake acupuncture – in which the correct acupuncture points are not used – show mixed results.
Asbjørn Hrobjartsson, of the Nordic Cochrane Centre, Copenhagen, Denmark, writes: "Our findings also question both the traditional foundation of acupuncture and the prevailing theory that acupuncture has important effect on pain in general."
But writing in the same journal, members of the British Medical Acupuncture Society, argue that acupuncture may be "clinically relevant" for conditions with limited effective treatments.
Dr Adrian White and Dr Mike Cummings write: "Although the overall effect of acupuncture in relation to usual care is not large, it may be clinically relevant for musculoskeletal conditions, particularly in view of the limited treatment options, and acupuncture’s safety record and patient preference."
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