---
title: Does acupuncture help PMS and what side effects does it cause?
description: Acupuncture might help PMS symptoms compared to medications, but the studies have too many design problems to be confident.
url: https://niyora.com/research/papers/efficacy-of-acupuncture-in-management-of-premenstrual-syndrome-a-systematic-2010/
---

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- Does acupuncture help PMS and what side effects does it cause?

Systematic review, 2010

# Does acupuncture help PMS and what side effects does it cause?

Acupuncture might help PMS symptoms compared to medications, but the studies have too many design problems to be confident.

 Early or limited evidence

Women with PMS (from 9 randomised controlled trials)

## What they did

Searched electronic databases in English, Korean, Japanese and Chinese up to January 2009 for randomised controlled trials comparing acupuncture with control for PMS. Systematically reviewed 9 studies and assessed quality using Cochrane criteria.

## What they found

Four studies reported significant reduction in PMS symptoms with acupuncture compared to medications. Two studies reported improvements in symptoms within acupuncture and herbal medication groups compared to their own baseline. Only 2 of 9 RCTs reported details of random sequence generation and allocation concealment. Only 2 RCTs reported acupuncture adverse events, including one case of a small subcutaneous haematoma.

## What it means for you

Acupuncture may help PMS, but we cannot be confident because most studies had major problems with how they were done, including unclear random sequence generation, allocation concealment, blinding and outcome measurement.

9

Studies reviewed

4

Showed improvement vs medication

1

Case of subcutaneous haematoma reported

## About the study

Original title Efficacy of acupuncture in management of premenstrual syndrome: a systematic review Authors Cho SH, Kim J Journal Complementary therapies in medicine Year 2010 Study design Systematic review What was tested Acupuncture Read the paper [doi.org/10.1016/j.ctim.2009.12.001](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ctim.2009.12.001)

## Topics

[Premenstrual syndrome (PMS)](https://niyora.com/research/topics/condition-pms/)[Other herbal medicine](https://niyora.com/research/topics/treatment-herbal-other/)[Acupuncture and acupressure](https://niyora.com/research/topics/treatment-acupuncture/)

Research tells you what helps on average. Niyora helps on the day it hits.

Calm down, see it another way, and decide what to say, with a PMS and PMDD app built by a doctor.

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