Is massage therapy genuinely effective?

Three pages on PainSci cite Oppel 2000: 1. Does Massage Therapy Work? 2. The Complete Guide to Low Back Pain 3. Massage Therapy Kinda, Sorta Works for Back Pain 

PainSci notes on Oppel 2000:

A strong critical response to Preyde, pointing out serious flaws that negate the seemingly positive results. Some of the same criticisms are also perfectly applicable to the much more influential 2011 trial of massage for back pain by Cherkin et al.

related content

• “A review of the evidence for the effectiveness, safety, and cost of acupuncture, massage therapy, and spinal manipulation for back pain,” Cherkin et al, Annals of Internal Medicine, 2003.

Oppel 2000 is about:

• “Effectiveness of massage therapy for subacute low-back pain,” Preyde, Canadian Medical Association Journal, 2000.

This page is part of the PainScience BIBLIOGRAPHY, which contains plain language summaries of thousands of scientific papers & others sources. It’s like a highly specialized blog. A few highlights:

• Common interventional procedures for chronic non-cancer spine pain: a systematic review and network meta-analysis of randomised trials. Wang 2025 BMJ.
• Gabapentinoids and Risk of Hip Fracture. Leung 2024 JAMA Netw Open.
• Classical Conditioning Fails to Elicit Allodynia in an Experimental Study with Healthy Humans. Madden 2017 Pain Med.
• Topical glyceryl trinitrate (GTN) and eccentric exercises in the treatment of mid-portion achilles tendinopathy (the NEAT trial): a randomised double-blind placebo-controlled trial. Kirwan 2024 Br J Sports Med.
• Placebo analgesia in physical and psychological interventions: Systematic review and meta-analysis of three-armed trials. Hohenschurz-Schmidt 2024 Eur J Pain.