Abdominal acupuncture, in the form most trials test, is a system devised by Bo Zhiyun that treats conditions anywhere in the body by needling a small set of points around the navel, each to a depth set in advance. Papers call it Bo’s abdominal acupuncture, often shortened to BAA. It differs from needling abdominal points as part of an ordinary body prescription, and reviews do not always keep the two apart. This page sets out what its proponents say it rests on, the points and depths trials prescribe, how it differs from body acupuncture, and what systematic reviews of its trials report.
Where the method came from
A 2021 review by Zhan and colleagues dates the method to the 1960s, when Bo built it from the theory of the internal organs (zang-fu), channel theory, and what Chinese sources call the Shenque regulatory system, after CV08 (Shenque), the point at the navel. A 2025 case report by Yang and colleagues, with Bo as a co-corresponding author, sets out that theory: the umbilical cord fed the fetus, the channels that carried qi and blood to it are held to remain after birth, and Bo describes a system in the superficial layer of the abdominal wall that acts on the whole body. Points related to each part of the body lie on the abdomen, and joined up they form what the report calls the divine turtle, an outline centred on the navel that is said to mirror the body’s own shape.
The theory assigns each depth a target. A 2022 trial by Zhan and colleagues states the rule it followed: shallow needling acts on the muscles and bones, medium needling on the channels and collaterals, and deep needling on the internal organs.
One prediction of the turtle map has been tested in the laboratory. In a 2021 study, Valeriani and colleagues needled the abdominal area the map assigns to the right wrist in 13 healthy volunteers and recorded the brain’s response to laser heat stimuli. The response fell for both wrists but not for the right foot, and pain ratings fell for the right wrist only. The authors read the pattern as the work of a segmental mechanism in the spinal cord.
The points and their depths
A prescription combines a fixed core with points chosen for the condition. A 2015 insomnia trial by Jiao and colleagues gives the basic formula as four points on the midline, CV12 (Zhongwan), CV10 (Xiawan), CV06 (Qihai) and CV04 (Guanyuan), with KD17 (Shangqu), ST24 (Huaroumen), ST26 (Wailing) and an extra point, Pinggan, on both sides. The 2022 trial, of shoulder pain after stroke, used most of the same points with two extra points it codes AB1 and AB2, which AcuiQ’s catalogue does not hold. Both the 2021 review and the 2025 case report say the points are located with a ruler. The table gives the depths two trials prescribed; the 2017 trial is a neck pain trial by Ho and colleagues, described below.
| Point | 2022 shoulder trial | 2017 neck trial |
|---|---|---|
CV12, CV04 | Deep, 20–30 mm | Deep, 20–35 mm, to the surface of the abdominal muscle |
CV10, CV06 | Deep, 20–30 mm | Not used |
ST24 | Medium, 10–15 mm | Medium, 10–20 mm, into the fat under the skin |
ST26 | Medium, 10–15 mm | Not used |
KD17 | Shallow, 5 mm, affected side only | Shallow, 5 mm |
| AB1, AB2 | Shallow, 5 mm | Not used |
Both trials put every needle just under the skin first, waited three to five minutes, took each one to its depth, and then adjusted the depths according to how much the patient’s pain had eased. The needles stayed in for 30 minutes. In the 2017 trial, manipulation was light, with only minimal twirling.
How it differs from body acupuncture
The 2021 review, the 2022 trial and the 2025 case report all state that the method does not seek deqi, the aching, numbness or heaviness that body acupuncture usually aims for, and that patients feel little or no pain; Needling and deqi explains the sensation. The 2021 review adds that the formulas and operation are standardised, which its authors expect to make the treatment more consistent between practitioners. The 2017 trial describes the method as a microsystem, a map of the whole body on one region, the same idea that underlies Ear acupuncture and many schools of Scalp acupuncture. The 2026 constipation review draws the contrast this way: body acupuncture uses points on the 14 main channels across the whole body, while Bo’s method works on the abdomen alone.
A 2016 review by Wen and colleagues (in Chinese) found 97 randomised trials of Bo’s method against body acupuncture; 80.4% reported it more effective, notably for lumbar disc herniation, cervical spondylosis, inflammation of the shoulder joint and cervical vertigo but not for simple obesity, and most trials lacked adequate reporting. The 2015 insomnia trial, which assigned 54 patients to combinations of body, ear and abdominal needling, found all three eased symptoms and the body and ear protocols more than the abdominal one.
What reviews and trials report
| Review | Condition | Trials, participants | Comparison | What it found |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zhan 2021 | Motor recovery after stroke | 21 trials, 1,473 | Bo’s method added to rehabilitation, drugs, body acupuncture or other care, against that care alone | Scores on the Fugl-Meyer scale of motor function 9.53 points higher and better daily-living scores; the authors ask for caution because of the trials’ weak methods. |
| Su 2021 | Depression after stroke | 10 trials, 708 | Abdominal acupuncture added to other therapies, against conventional therapies | Hamilton depression scores 2.34 points lower. |
| Wulam 2026 | Constipation after stroke | 12 trials, 943 | Manual or electrical abdominal acupuncture added to conventional therapy, against that therapy alone | Higher response rates; evidence rated very low to moderate in quality, and a trial sequential analysis could not confirm the effect. |
| Wang 2011 | Cervical spondylosis | 8 trials, 909 | Routine acupuncture, electroacupuncture or traction | No sufficient evidence that abdominal acupuncture is better than any of them. |
| Fang 2026 | Primary insomnia | 80 trials, 7,791; 2 of abdominal acupuncture | Network of medication, sham and other acupuncture methods | Abdominal acupuncture ranked high for sleep-quality scores (SUCRA 86%), though no acupuncture method differed significantly from another. |
| Chen 2022 | Overweight and obesity | 38 reviews, 2 of abdominal acupuncture | Overview of reviews | Evidence for abdominal acupuncture insufficient; one review, of a single trial against a sham, reported a lower body mass index in women. |
The 2017 trial by Ho and colleagues in Hong Kong used a sham. It randomised 154 adults with neck pain to Bo’s method or to blunt needles that touched the skin without piercing it, at non-points 1 cun from the real ones, for six sessions over two weeks, with patients and assessors blinded. Neck pain disability scores improved more with real needling, by 5.75 points at two weeks and 8.65 points at six. The 2022 trial added Bo’s method to rehabilitation in 50 patients with shoulder-hand syndrome after stroke, and pain scores fell by 3.68 points out of 10 against 1.92 with rehabilitation alone.
AcuiQ’s pages for neck pain, insomnia and stroke list the protocols individual studies prescribed, each with its citation.
Reported adverse events
In the 2021 stroke review, two of the 21 trials reported events related to the method, mostly bruising under the skin. In the 2017 neck trial, 11 of the 77 patients needled had a passing bruise where a needle went in, and neither group had a serious event. Four of the trials in the 2026 constipation review recorded adverse events and none reported any, which its authors say leaves safety hard to judge.
Abdominal needling has a hazard of its own. A 2026 case report by Zheng and colleagues describes a 71-year-old man with a blocked bowel and a large hernia of the abdominal wall who had been needled on the abdomen and limbs, at points including ST25 (Tianshu) and CV12; surgeons found four perforations of his small intestine, which they attribute to the needles. The authors explain that a needle at a standard depth can pass through the abdominal wall once a hernia has removed the muscle and fascia that normally cover the bowel, and advise that in such patients abdominal needling be approached with extreme caution or treated as contraindicated. The report does not say whether the needling followed Bo’s system.
What the reviews cannot settle
All 21 trials in the stroke review were run in China and published in Chinese, and all 12 in the constipation review were run in China. Most reviews add abdominal acupuncture to another treatment and compare the result with that treatment alone, so what they measure includes the extra sessions as well as the needles; the stroke review excluded sham-controlled trials outright. Sham acupuncture sets out why that matters. Against body acupuncture, the trials Wen and colleagues found were mostly too poorly reported to judge, and the 54-patient trial above favoured body needling.
The name also covers more than one method. The constipation review pooled electroacupuncture at abdominal points with Bo’s manual technique, and one of the two abdominal trials in the 2026 insomnia review used a different school, Sun’s abdominal acupuncture. A review of “abdominal acupuncture” may therefore not be a review of Bo’s method. Protocols for reviews of abdominal acupuncture in knee osteoarthritis, insomnia and Parkinson’s disease were published in 2021 and 2022.