Irritable bowel syndrom is unfortunately a really common problem, and it can be a really unpleasant one. “Around one in five Australians experiences the unpleasant symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) at some time. These include abdominal pain, bloating, mucus in the stools, and either diarrhoea, constipation or a mixture of both.”
Unfortunately this can have a heavy impact on your quality of life if you are suffering with IBS: “Irritable bowel syndrome is connected with impaired patient quality of life and high prevalence of depression“.
Evidence for acupuncture for IBS
Acupuncture is often used for a diverse range of conditions, and IBS is fortunate among them in that there have been quite a lot of studies done on the effectiveness of acupuncture. The quality of scientific evidence builds up via individual randomised controlled trials (RCTs), then systematic reviews which look at all the available trials, and meta-analyses, which may be able to pool the data from the available trials and re-analyse them, and then umbrella systematic reviews, which look at all of the systematic reviews that have been done. IBS acupuncture research has reached that top level of scrutiny, and the findings are encouraging.
A 2022 systematic review encouraged more research, and found that:
“In this meta-analysis of 31 randomized controlled trials, acupuncture or moxibustion were found to be beneficial for IBS symptom severity, abdominal pain and quality of life. The present study updated the synthesis of the current evidence and suggests that acupuncture or moxibustion could reduce symptom severity and abdominal pain, and improve quality of life with low to high certainty of evidence.”
In 2024 an umbrella systematic review said:
“In this umbrella systematic review, we found that the majority of studies supported a positive clinical effect of acupuncture and moxibustion in the treatment of IBS, but the methodological quality, reporting quality and evidence quality were low. More high-quality evidence is required to validate the conclusions.”
A team in 2025 did a systematic review specifically looking at quality of life for people with IBS, and concluded:
“The meta-analysis showed that acupuncture improves QoL [quality of life] and symptom severity in patients with IBS… However, more high-quality clinical trials are needed to provide stronger evidence…Fourteen studies involving 2,038 patients with IBS were evaluated. The results showed that acupuncture is beneficial in relieving symptom severity and improving QoL [quality of life] in patients with IBS compared to conventional therapy. Furthermore, from the analysis of the eight sub-classes of the IBS-[quality of life], acupuncture was found to be crucial for improving mood, reducing health concerns, and improving relationships and daily life in patients with IBS.”
Try acupuncture for your IBS
Everyone’s response to acupuncture is very individual, so the only way to know for sure whether acupuncture will help your IBS is to book in for treatment. Get in touch or book online if you would like to get started.
References
https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/conditionsandtreatments/irritable-bowel-syndrome-ibs
Kopczyńska M, Mokros Ł, Pietras T, Małecka-Panas E. Quality of life and depression in patients with irritable bowel syndrome. Prz Gastroenterol. 2018;13(2):102-108. doi: 10.5114/pg.2018.75819. Epub 2018 May 16. PMID: 30002768; PMCID: PMC6040097.
Yang Y, Rao K, Zhan K, Shen M, Zheng H, Qin S, Wu H, Bian Z, Huang S. Clinical evidence of acupuncture and moxibustion for irritable bowel syndrome: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Front Public Health. 2022 Nov 24;10:1022145. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2022.1022145. PMID: 36589968; PMCID: PMC9801330.
Yue-ying Ma, Zhou Hao, Zi-yi Chen, Yan-xi Shen, Hui-rong Liu, Huan-gan Wu, Chun-hui Bao, Acupuncture and moxibustion for irritable bowel syndrome: An umbrella systematic review, Journal of Integrative Medicine, Volume 22, Issue 1, 2024, Pages 22-31, ISSN 2095-4964, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joim.2023.12.001.
Zhou J, Lamichhane N, Xu Z, Wang J, Quynh VD, Huang J, et al. (2025) The effect of acupuncture on quality of life in patients with irritable bowel syndrome: A systematic review and meta-analysis. PLoS ONE 20(2): e0314678. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0314678