"Should Acupuncture-Related Therapies Be Considered in Prediabetes Control?" That's the title of a new meta-analysis of 31 randomized, controlled trials involving 3,000-plus patients; results of the analysis, published in the July/August issue of Holistic Nursing Practice, offers evidence that acupuncturists can help mitigate the evolving epidemic of type 2 diabetes.
All participants had been diagnosed with prediabetes: impaired fasting glucose, impaired glucose tolerance or both. Acupuncture therapy included acupuncture, auricular acupuncture, acupoint catgut embedding, acupressure, moxibustion, acupoint application, or combined therapies (acupuncture plus other acupuncture therapy).
Note: The review authors did not include several studies involving combination acupuncture / herbal medicine interventions because "the drug effect of Chinese herbs could have [had] a large impact on the results."
Control groups received usual care (exercise, diet, and lifestyle modifications) and/or conventional medical care (antidiabetic drugs) or sham acupuncture, depending on the study. All studies compared glucose blood levels at baseline and following intervention: fasting plasma glucose (FPG), two-hour plasma glucose (2hPG), hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c), etc.
Acupuncture therapy type, frequency, duration and acupoint locations varied by study; the most common points used were St 36, BL 20, BL 23, SP 6 and BL 21 (not necessarily in combination). St 25, BL 18 and EX-B3 were used together in a fourth of the studies.
"[Acupuncture therapy] improved the glycemic control of prediabetes in comparison with participants undergoing usual care and/or conventional medicine or sham intervention. ... significantly [reducing] not only the levels of FPG, 2hPG, and HbA1c, but also the incidence of prediabetes." The acupuncture and ACE subgroups were particularly impressive, as was acupuncture therapy alone or plus usual care vs. usual care alone.
Chronic pain afflicts over 20% of the adult population. Sadly, most MDs have essentially no education in treating pain, beyond offering a few toxic medications. Then they tend to steer people with pain away from those health practitioners who are trained. This puts the acupuncture community on the front lines for addressing this epidemic.
When the body is going through a stressful event, the sympathetic system is activated. This activation will help the body with a life-threatening situation. If this state is activated for prolonged periods of time, it starts to consume energy. These traumatic events that generate stressors in the autonomic nervous system (ANS) will eventually become internalized.
| Digital Exclusive
One of the things that makes acupuncture so difficult to measure is that the medicine actually does contain some esoteric aspects. There have been numerous studies that demonstrate the neurochemical reasoning behind why acupuncture points stimulate the autonomic nervous system to enact change However, not all the benefits of TCM can easily be measured by randomized, controlled trials. But does that make them fundamentally and definitively untrue?
| Digital Exclusive