Acupuncture for Weight Loss

Unconventional weight loss strategies are usually fads, but the ancient practice of acupuncture might help you. Here’s what you should know and do.

There are no large, controlled, randomized studies backing the concept of acupuncture as a treatment for weight loss.

Yet the antient practice, in which an acupuncturist typically inserts hair-thin needles under your skin, has gained considerable use for weight problems.

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There are two points in your ear traditionally associated with appetite.

One overview settled on seven studies with reasonably good design, concluding that ear acupuncture for weight loss reduces body fat, even without any exercise or diet program. The studies compared the use of acupuncture in patients with participants who received no treatment or sham treatment (in which the needles didn’t pierce the skin).

Receiving treatment for 12 weeks was more effective than shorter programs.

An earlier review looked at 18 randomized controlled studies of ear acupuncture for weight loss, although not big ones. Most of the volunteers were middle-aged Asian women.

The researchers concluded that ear acupuncture was linked to an average loss of about three pounds. Treatments that lasted longer than six weeks had the best results.

Acupuncture has helped children with obesity, according to a small study comparing waistlines in about 30 Korean children, after eight weeks of treatment against a control group.

Acupuncture doesn’t always require needles. In the Korean study, the acupuncturists applied seeds to the children’s ears on certain pressure points. A new method, which saves time and has helped with obesity, involves inserting absorbable threads into those pressure points.

If you’re considering needle acupuncture, you might ask about techniques with electricity, which may be more effective than needles alone for weight loss, according to another overview.

Having too much fat around your middle can be unhealthy even if you aren’t overweight as measured by your body mass index (BMI). In a small randomized controlled clinical trial of electroacupuncture, women with that extra waist fat lost some of it during only 10 sessions.

Weight loss science is buzzing with research linked to the microbiome, the bacteria that live on or in your body, usually in your guts. Bacteroidetes may be the bad guys, and one study found that acupuncture reduced their amount.

Forty-five overweight or obese women in Shanghai were randomly split into three groups, including a control group that had no treatment. The other two groups received 20 acupuncture treatments focused on the abdomen for a half-hour, every other day.

The pressure points were the same for both groups, but different doctors executed the test.

In the 30 women who received acupuncture, the average BMI dropped from close to 28 at the beginning to a bit over 25 (which is still considered overweight), while the control group didn’t change much.

The researchers also found favorable changes in the gut flora in the treated groups but not in the controls. Despite all the press about probiotics, there still aren’t reliable ways of changing your gut flora.

The first written account of acupuncture dates to 100 B.C. in China. The practice claims that stimulating specific pressure points prompts your body to release a flow of energy, called qi, which travels through meridians.

Yet that idea lost prestige in China. By the early 20^th century, doctors at the Chinese Imperial Medical Academy no longer studied acupuncture. Mao revived it as cheap healthcare solution for an underserved population.

In Western science, some people say that acupuncture needles stimulate nerves, sending signals to your brain to release beta-endorphins. Those are feel-good chemicals that lower pain thresholds and may reduce inflammation, which is associated with obesity.

Another theory claims that acupuncture changes cells in connective tissue around the pressure points in lasting ways.

But such explanations don’t address why needles in your ear would affect your appetite or your gut flora.

If you lose weight, your biggest challenge is preventing it from coming back, which weight-loss acupuncture studies don’t address.

You’ll still need to consume fewer calories long-term to lose weight. If acupuncture relaxes you and reduces pain and inflammation, those are huge plusses. You may find yourself less prone to overeating and interested in exercise.

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