"You look great!!" I said to one of my colleagues whom I had not seen in a few weeks. "I feel great!! I've lost 15 lb, stopped my night-time trips to the fridge, and my energy level is way up." "What's your secret?" I asked.
My colleague went on to explain that she is seeing an acupuncturist once every 6 weeks. "Of course, I've changed my eating habits, probably the direct cause of the weight loss. But somehow with the acupuncture, it was easier. I can't really explain it, but I'm a believer!!" she said. News of the positive relationship between acupuncture and weight loss has spread quickly among my peers. At least 4 other colleagues are using acupuncture to deal with weight loss and have got positive results. And the believers continue to accumulate!!
Acupuncture is widely used in Eastern countries as an adjunct intervention for obesity. In China, for example, obesity is predicted to be the leading cause of morbidity in the next 15 years. The Western, sedentary lifestyle and fast-food diet is becoming more widespread in China. Fewer Chinese people walk, ride bikes, and consume the low-fat, vegetable-rich diet characteristic of the Chinese culture. Increasingly, the Chinese are turning to acupuncture as a key health strategy in the fight against obesity.
The use of acupuncture for a variety of conditions makes sense in China where it has been a staple intervention in the toolbox of traditional healers for thousands of years. Acupuncture is based on the premise that the body is an energy field and illness and disorder result when this energy field is blocked. Acupuncture treatments are based on the acupuncturist's assessment of the patient's general state of health, patterns of overeating, mood states, existing digestive disorders, and other imbalances that help determine which acupuncture points to stimulate during the course of treatment.
Diet and exercise are also integral to the regimen. My colleague feasted on tomatoes and cucumbers for 3 days during the initial phase of acupuncture treatment and then resumed a normal diet. Many of her usual cravings disappeared, and she claims to have had a better sense of satiety. Most of all, her heightened energy level enabled her to exercise more regularly. Acupuncture is believed by some to increase the production of endorphins, natural opiates that produce a state of calm and relaxation that leads to greater control of appetite and eating.
Research on the effectiveness of acupuncture as a weight loss intervention is difficult to interpret. Reviews of research studies reveal that acupuncture results are more positive in countries in which the intervention is part of the fabric of the culture, for example, in China, Japan, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.1 To date, there are no large-sample, randomized clinical trials to offer more objective evidence on acupuncture's efficacy. For those believers in my office building, it is working perhaps because they have invested in producing a result or they are now more aware and in control of their eating behavior. Whatever the reason for acupuncture's efficacy, its relative noninvasiveness and nonpharmacological nature positions it well as an important intervention in the reduction of obesity, one of the nation's most serious and costly health problems.
Gloria F. Donnelly, PhD, RN, FAAN
Editor-in-Chief
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