Abstract

Objectives : Recently the number of obesity population has grown, the idea recognizing obesity as an obvious disease which needs medical treatments has increased too. Obesity has become a rising and serious issue of public health in many developed countries. In this study, analyzing 15 recent Chinese research papers written about obesity treatment, we tried to understand the recent trend in obesity treatment in China; and examine the special features and curative rates of their treatment. Methods : We searched recent research papers which was related to obesity. Search pool includes 9198 papers on 5 Chinese journal, 2302 papers on zhongyizazhi(中醫雜誌), 1826 papers on zhongsiyijehezazhi(中西醫結合雜紙), 2389 papers on xinzhongyi(新中醫), 1069 papers on shanghaizhongyiyazazhi(上海中醫藥雜紙), 1612 papers on zhejiangzhongyizazhi(淅江中醫藥雜). First, we searched with the term '肥'. Among the search results, we selected the papers containing the term '肥滿' or ', and excluded the other papers which had no direct relation to obesity.(e.g., ' '肥厚性' etc.) In this way, 21 papers were selected, 18 papers satisfied our study object. Among them we adopted 15 clinical papers for our study, excluding 3 experimental papers. Results : Acupuncture therapy; the rate of excellent curative effect ranges from 9.4% to 77.8%, that of curative effect from 68.7% to 94.3%. Herbal therapy; the rate of excellent curative effect ranges from 6.5% to 52.3%, that of curative effect from 72% to 93.8%. Combined method; the rate of excellent curative effect is 44.8%, that of curative effect 83.5%. Conclusions : These results provides evidence that acupuncture therapy is the most effective among acupuncture therapy, herbal therapy and combined method in treatment of obesity. In addition, acupuncture therapy that uses a small number of acupoints and strong stimulation is more effective than any other therapies.

Keywords

• Obesity;
• Acupuncture;
• Herb medication;
• Cinese medicine