This blog is to share the latest research and development of acupuncture and raise the awareness of alternative treatments for your conditions, and is for information only.

Wednesday, 8 April 2015

Acupuncture helps reducing abdominal fat mass in men with obesity

Acupuncture both body electroacupuncture and auricular acupuncture significantly reduced abdominal fat mass of obese men as reported in the journal of Diabetes and Metabolic Disorders recently.

Abdominal obesity or beer belly also known clinically as central obesity is excessive abdominal fat around the stomach and abdomen. Abdominal obesity has a very negative impact on the health and is associated with risk of various conditions such as hypertension, dyslipidemia, heart disease, type-2 diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease and sexual dysfunction. Conventional treatments include pharmacotherapy, surgery, dietary restriction, physical exercise. Acupuncture has gained increasing attention from public for obese treatment.

Recently researchers in Iran performed a clinical study to compare the therapeutic effect of both body electroacupuncture and auricular acupuncture on the abdominal obesity. Eighty obese men with a BMI between 30-40 kg/m2 were recruited for the study. They were divided into four groups (n=20 each group), body acupuncture, auricular acupuncture and their corresponding sham control groups. Both body and auricular acupuncture were performed twice a week for a total of 6 weeks. Body mass index, Trunk fat mass, Waist circumference and hip circumference were all measured before the treatment and one day after the last treatment.

Both body acupuncture and auricular acupuncture had markedly reduced all parameters mentioned above compared with the sham control groups. Interestingly, body acupuncture is more effective in reducing waist circumference and auricular acupuncture is more effective in hip circumference reduction.

Authors suggest that body acupuncture and auricular acupuncture are efficient, simple and good alternative treatment for obesity, with little adverse effect.

Reference:
Darbandi M, Auricular or body acupuncture: which one is more effective in reducing abdominal fat mass in Iranian men with obesity: a randomized clinical trial. J Diabetes Metab Disord. 2014; 13: 92.   http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4261582/

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