Acupuncture is recognized by the World Health Organization as an effective treatment modality.

Acupuncture, zhēn jiu, (针灸, needle therapy) is a technique of inserting and manipulating needles into "acupuncture points” on the body to move qi (气) in the patient's body to restore its balance. It will restore health, well-being and is particularly good at treating pain .Disease is understood as a loss of homeostasis among the several systems of function, and treatment of disease is attempted by modifying the activity of one or more systems of function through the activity of needles, pressure, heat, etc. on sensitive parts of the body of small volume traditionally called "acupuncture points" in English, or "xue" (穴, cavities) in Chinese. This is referred to as treating "patterns of disharmony".