Recent development in acupuncture for Alzheimer’s disease

Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia in the elderly people and is associated with progressive loss of memory and cognitive function. Because the cause of Alzheimer’s is unclear there is no cure for the condition.

Acupuncture has been used to improve memory and cognitive function in China for a long time and got increasingly attention around the world due to its well tolerance and minor side effect. However, the mechanism of acupuncture and its effectiveness on Alzheimer’s is not clear due to lack of scientific studies. Here some recent development of acupuncture from both basic research and clinical studies are summarized.

Recent search reports showed that acupuncture stimulation at DU20 and BL23 acupoints 30 min a day for 18 days with a rest every 7 days improved learning and memory function in Alzheimer’s model compared with control. Biochemical studies revealed that acupuncture stimulation suppressed the apoptosis, a cell death process in the hippocampus region, a vulnerable brain area to Alzheimer’s. Acupuncture decreased apoptosis enhancing molecules and increased apoptosis resistant molecules in the Alzheimer’s model brain which was not seen in the control. In another study, scientists looked the changes in neuronal activity of different brain regions using functional brain imaging technique – positron emission tomography (PET). They found that acupuncture stimulation at ST36 acupoint showed greater activity in the brain regions such as hippocampus, amygdalae and temporal lobe that are linked with memory and cognitive function. However stimulation at a sham acupoint showed increased activity in different brain areas.

A clinical acupuncture study showed that the patients with Alzheimer’s were given acupuncture at GV24, GV20, GB20, GB12, CV17, CV12, CV6, SP10 and ST36 and the other acupoints depending on the symptoms and physical signs, once a day, 6 days a week and 4 weeks as a session for total 4 sessions. In the control group, donepezil, a acetycholinesterase inhibitor, was given for the same time period. The minimum mental state examination (MMSE), the activity of daily living scale (ADL), Alzheimer's disease assessment scale-cognition (ADAS-cog) and the digit span (DS) were monitored before treatment and assessed again after treatment. It was found that both acupuncture and drug treatment improved the MMSE, ADL and DS scores, decreased ADAS-cog scores compared with the scores recorded before treatment. The study showed that acupuncture treatment has the same effect as the drug treatment for patients with Alzheimer’s, without side-effects.

References:

Guo HD et al., Electroacupuncture Suppressed Neuronal Apoptosis and Improved Cognitive Impairment in the AD Model Rats Possibly via Downregulation of Notch Signaling Pathway. Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine Volume 2015, Article ID 393569, 9 pages.  http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ecam/2015/393569/

Lu Y et al., Brain areas involved in the acupuncture treatment of AD model rats: a PET study. BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine 2014, 14:178.   http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6882/14/178

Gu W et al., [Clinical observation of Alzheimer's disease treated with acupuncture]. Zhongguo Zhen Jiu. 2014 Dec;34(12):1156-60.  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25876339