Potential Benefits of Acupuncture and Herbs for Obesity-Related Chronic Inflammation by Adipokines

Table 2

The summary of acupuncture studies on the changes of metabolic index (clinical research studies).

Study design	Intervention (n)	Comparison (n)	Acupoints	Period	Total sessions	Results	References
RCT	Manual acupuncture (57)	No treatment (23)	LI4, LI11, ST21, ST25, ST36, ST40, ST44, SP6, SP15, PC6, LR3, CV4, and CV12	For 30 min, twice weekly for a month	6	TNF-a↓, IL-6↓, hsCRP↓ total cholesterol↓, triglyceride↓, and fasting blood glucose↓	Ismail et al. [76]
RCT	Manual acupuncture (20)	Sham acupuncture (20)	LI4, HT7, ST36, ST44, and SP6	2 sessions of 20 min/week	10	leptin↓, insulin↓, body weight↓, ghrelin↑, and CCK↑	Güçel et al. [77]
RCT	Electroacupuncture, 15 Hz, 10 mA (19)	Metformin monotherapy (20)	ST25, SP15, ST28, CV4, and CV12	For 30 min on every other day over 3 weeks	10	leptin↓, resistin↓, GLP-1↓, adiponectin↑, serotonin↑, body weight↓, body mass index (BMI)↓, fasting blood sugar (FBS)↓, HOMA index↓, FFAs↓, triglyceride↓, LDL↓, and HDL↑	Firouzjaei et al. [78]
RCT	Catgut embedding acupuncture (18)	Sham (placebo) embedding acupuncture (18)	CV6, CV12, ST25, and SP6	2 weeks interval between procedures	2	IL-6↓, serum glucose↓, total cholesterol↓, FFAs↓, triglyceride↓, LDL↓, and HDL↑	Tjan et al. [79]