Can acupuncture help reduce knee osteoarthritis pain?

A recent randomized clinical trial looked at acupuncture for people with knee osteoarthritis and found some encouraging results.

After 4 weeks of treatment (12 acupuncture sessions), participants receiving true acupuncture experienced a meaningful reduction in pain. The researchers also found changes in functional connectivity between areas of the brain involved in pain processing, including the prefrontal cortex and thalamus.

Interestingly, the study compared three groups: true acupuncture, non-penetrating sham acupuncture, and a waiting-list group. The acupuncture group had the highest clinical response rate.

The researchers suggest these findings may help explain how acupuncture can influence both the experience and processing of chronic pain.

That said, this was a relatively small study, and the results were measured after only four weeks. More research is needed to understand how long the benefits last and how acupuncture compares with other established treatments for knee osteoarthritis.

📚 Source:
Wei X-Y, Wang Z-Y, Shi G-X, et al. Effect of acupuncture treatment for patients with knee osteoarthritis on brain fluctuation amplitude and functional connectivity: a randomized three-armed fMRI study. BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies. 2025;25:244. {“fallbackMarkdown”:”(PubMed)”,”reference”:{“matched_text”:””,”prefix”:null,”start_idx”:1806,”end_idx”:1825,”safe_urls”:[“https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40634927/”,”https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40634927/?utm_source=chatgpt.com”],”refs”:[],”alt”:”(PubMed)”,”prompt_text”:null,”type”:”grouped_webpages”,”fallback_items”:null,”error”:null,”status”:”done”,”items”:[{“title”:”Effect of acupuncture treatment for patients with knee osteoarthritis on brain fluctuation amplitude and functional connectivity: a randomized three-armed fMRI study – PubMed”,”url”:”https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40634927/?utm_source=chatgpt.com”,”attribution”:”PubMed”,”pub_date”:1752019200,”snippet”:””,”attribution_segments”:null,”supporting_websites”:[],”refs”:[{“turn_index”:0,”ref_type”:”search”,”ref_index”:0}],”hue”:null,”attributions”:null}],”style”:null},”showLoginRequiredCard”:false}

The full research paper is available open access under a Creative Commons license. {“fallbackMarkdown”:”(PubMed Central (PMC))”,”reference”:{“matched_text”:””,”prefix”:null,”start_idx”:1910,”end_idx”:1929,”safe_urls”:[“https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12239255/”,”https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12239255/?utm_source=chatgpt.com”],”refs”:[],”alt”:”(PubMed Central (PMC))”,”prompt_text”:null,”type”:”grouped_webpages”,”fallback_items”:null,”error”:null,”status”:”done”,”items”:[{“title”:”Effect of acupuncture treatment for patients with knee osteoarthritis on brain fluctuation amplitude and functional connectivity: a randomized three-armed fMRI study – PMC”,”url”:”https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12239255/?utm_source=chatgpt.com”,”attribution”:”PubMed Central (PMC)”,”pub_date”:1752019200,”snippet”:””,”attribution_segments”:null,”supporting_websites”:[],”refs”:[{“turn_index”:0,”ref_type”:”search”,”ref_index”:1}],”hue”:null,”attributions”:null}],”style”:null},”showLoginRequiredCard”:false}