Stimulation of Auricular Acupuncture Points in Weight Loss

Stimulation of auricular acupuncture points in weight loss Dean Richards, MBBS, MDMA is in private medical acupuncture practice, South Australia. John Marley MD, MBChB is Professor, Department of General Practice, The University of Adelaide, South Australia.

Objective - Many overweight people are aware that diets can help with weight loss but have difficulty in suppressing their appetite. Acupuncture stimulates the auricular branch of the vagal nerve and raises serotonin levels, both of which have been shown to increase tone in the smooth muscle of the stomach, thus suppressing appetite. The aim of this study was to determine the effectiveness of transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation of specific auricular acupuncture points on appetite suppression. Methods - Sixty overweight subjects, randomly divided into an active and a control group, used the AcuSlim device twice daily for four weeks. The active group attached the AcuSlim to the acupuncture ear points shenmen and stomach, whereas the control group attached the device to their thumb where there are no acupuncture points. The goal of a 2 kg weight loss was set and changes in appetite and weight were reported after four weeks. Results - Of those who responded, 95% of the active group noticed suppression of appetite, whereas none of the control group noticed such a change. None of the control group lost the required 2kg, with only 4 subjects losing any weight at all. Both the number of subjects who lost weight and the mean weight loss were significantly higher in the active group (p0.05), although both groups contained more women than men. T-tests revealed that there was no difference between the active and control groups in the number of diets that had previously been attempted by subjects (p>0.05). No significant difference in subjects' age, height, initial weight or body mass index (BMI) existed between the two groups (p>0.05). These characteristics are displayed in Table 1.

Table 1 Initial characteristics of subject in the control and active groups. Values are mean (SD) Control n=32 (%)

Active n=28 (%)

Age (years)

43.0 (13.6)

44.1 (11.7)

Height (cm)

161.7 (7.8)

162.8 (8.1)

Weight (kg)

84.5 (17.6)

87.3 (9.8)

Body mass index

31.7 (6.1)

33.0 (4.4)

Appetite change Of the 32 subjects in the control group 28 subjects noted no change in appetite (Table 2). Twenty-one subjects (95%) in the active group commented on their appetite, with 20 reporting a decrease in appetite. So a significantly higher number of subjects in the active group reported a decrease in appetite (p