Combination therapy efficacy of catgut embedding acupuncture and diet intervention on interleukin-6 levels and body mass index in obese patients

Obesity is a major health problem worldwide, affecting more than 500 million adults with an additional 1.5 billion adults classified as overweight. Acupuncture has been recognized as an adjunctive therapy for obesity, and recent evidence suggests its potential to reduce the inflammatory response in adipose tissue, a condition believed to be responsible for obesity-related health problems. Interleukin-6 (IL-6) has been proposed as an important mediator of the inflammatory response in adipose tissue, but the number of studies addressing the issue is still limited. A double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial was conducted with36 obese patients currently receiving dietary intervention. The patients were randomly allocated into the catgut embedding acupuncture group with diet intervention or the sham (placebo) embedding acupuncture group with diet intervention. Catgut embedding therapy was given twice at CV12 Zhongwan, ST25 Tianshu, CV6 Qihai, and SP6 Sanyinjiao acupoints with two week intervals between procedures. The study endpoints were the IL-6 levels in the blood plasma and body mass index (BMI), measured before and after the intervention. We observed a reduction in the IL-6 levels (mean reduction 0.13 pg/mL, 95% CI: 0.03-0.23) and BMI (mean reduction 0.66, 95% CI 0.43-0.88) in the accupuncture group. The average difference in mean reduction of BMI between the accupuncture and sham groups was 0.34 (95% CI: 0.17-0.52). No difference was found in mean IL-6 reduction between the two groups (95% CI: -0.17 to 0.06). The results suggest that acupoint catgut embedding therapy may help reduce IL-6 levels and BMI in obese patients receiving dietary intervention.