MONDAY, April 23 (HealthScout) -- If you wonder whether acupuncture is safe, you can relax, according to a review of medical literature from around the world.
　　Only nine studies have been published since 1956 detailing adverse reactions or problems with acupuncture, the ancient Asian needle therapy used to treat everything from dull pain to arthritis.

To determine how many acupuncture-related problems have been reported in the last half century, Dr. Edzard Ernst, a professor of complementary medicine at England's University of Exeter, and a colleague examined all available medical literature on the subject -- nine surveys in 10 articles, including five from Europe and four from the Far East.

"We analyzed these nine surveys and found there were relatively few adverse effects reported among one-quarter of a million subjects reviewed in those studies," Ernst says.

Anywhere from 1 percent to 45 percent of patients reported needle pain and 2 percent to 41 percent reported a little bleeding, Ernst says. While a few patients reported feeling faint, 86 percent said they had a deep sense of relaxation after treatment. Forty-one percent reported feeling tired after treatment. No study mentioned infection or transmission of disease.

From HealthScout