Many studies in recent years have shown that acupuncture is more effective than conventional treatments for lower back pain, though some researchers concluded that it's just a placebo effect - no more effective than sham acupuncture which doesn't penetrate the skin or places the needles in random points. I admit the existence of placebo effect, but the question is, to what extent it works? Can it work as well as real acupuncture does? In some studies, acupuncture was delivered for quite a long term before the effect was assessed - for example over six weeks in one study. The proficient acupuncturists would know that for lower back pain (actually for other pain as well) acupuncture often works very quickly (within 1-3 sessions), but no one seems to have compared real and sham acupuncture about how fast they work. Therefore I'm not sure about the quality of acupuncture treatment in those studies, and I don't think the conclusion that acupuncture is no more effective than placebo is convincing. To learn more about modern research about acupuncture for lower back pain, please use the next links:
http://www.umm.edu/news/releases/back_pain.htmhttp://www.webmd.com/back-pain/news/20070924/study-acupuncture-eases-low-back-pain
