Acupuncture: A novel remedial contrivance for obesity (วิธีการใหม่ในการรักษาโรคอ้วนด้วยวิธีฝังเข็ม)

Abstract

Obesity is one of the metabolic syndromes involving vital systems. The global approach towards obesity also includes acupuncture- a Chinese medicinal therapy. Though acupuncture is being implicated for obesity management, it hasn’t been fully appraised. This review paper was aimed to evaluate the description and studies on acupuncture usage in obesity and critical analysis of the same. To achieve this aim, literature search was used as the methodology of the review. Acupuncture acts by releasing serotonin, beta-endorphin and enkaphaline. Studies showed that acupuncture was effective in treating obesity and induce weight loss. However, acupuncture was not used alone as a treatment arm in studies, showing its effectiveness as adjunctive therapy. Some studies revealed no significant difference in using acupuncture or diet and exercise. The available studies were also of poor quality; this actually opens debate on effectiveness of acupuncture. In future well-planned clinical trial for efficacy of acupuncture in obesity is a pressing need.