Psychological conditions such as depression and anxiety may also be suitable for treatment. Certain urinary and neurological conditions also have been shown to respond. There are probably several mechanisms of action of acupuncture. Acupuncture alters body chemicals, including stimulating natural painkillers. Acupuncture sensations affect nerves and cause beneficial reflex responses, and possibly repatterning of the nervous system.
Acupuncture affects the body's natural electromagnetic fields.
Some skeptics will concede that acupuncture can decrease pain because it has been shown to increase the body's natural opiates, but they deny that acupuncture can have any effect in other conditions such as asthma, irritable bowel, cardiac disease, and other areas where benefit has been shown. Research shows though, that the body's natural opiates have targets for activity not only in the pain modulating area of the central nervous system, but also on peripheral nerve, the lung, the vascular bed, the gut, white blood cells, and numerous other tissues. So even if the only effect of acupuncture is to increase natural opiate activity, the potential for widespread systemic effects is present. And acupuncture stimulates many more body chemicals in addition to the endogenous opiate system. Acupuncture is NOT a placebo.