| Simple obesity and overweight is defined as abnormal or excessive fat accumulation of unknown aetiology that presents a risk to health. Usually, it is accompanied by other symptoms of metabolic disorder. Obesity can occur for many reasons, the main two are unhealthy lifestyle habits and genetic inheritance. Being overweight or obese increases the risk of many diseases and health conditions, such as hypertension, coronary artery disease, diabetes mellitus and stroke. The therapy of simple obesity should focus on long-term control of body weight instead of decreasing the body weight rapidly in short term. Based on the principles of obesity prevention which are reducing weight without hyposthenia, diet without anorexia and diarrheal, acupuncture therapy provides effective impact on body weight reduction by adjusting appetite and balancing autonomic nerves. Therefore, the research of acupuncture therapy is valuated.Background: With rapid development of human society, the number of people who are living under high pressure and being anxiety is increased. Many people are experiencing overeating and lack of exercises. All of these factors form an unhealthy lifestyle. Using the theories of TCM as framework, unhealthy lifestyle causes stasis of the liver Qi and disharmony between the liver and the spleen, as a result of that, the Qi and blood of the body cannot circulate smoothly, then the fat will accumulate in the body gradually, and the blood-stasis syndrome will be occurred. Moreover, the blood of the obesity patients will become viscous, thicker and the blood flow will be slow and static. It shows that the relationship between obesity and blood-stasis is interrelated. In TCM theories, blood stasis can be treated by adjusting Qi and blood of the liver. Most acu-points of the liver meridian can help the Qi and blood circulate smoothly, induce diuresis to alleviate edema, regulate menses and alley pain. So, we suggest that choosing the acu-points of the liver meridian can treat obesity, can improve the patient's blood-stasis constitution, reduce body weight, adjust emotion, regulate menses, alley pain, and reduce the risk of diseases of the heart, brain and blood vessels.Objective: To evaluate the effect and probe into the mechanism of choosing the acu-points of the liver meridian to treat simple obesity with blood-stasis syndrome.Methods: 60 cases of simple obesity with blood-stasis syndrome were randomly divided into two groups—stomach meridian (SM) group and liver meridian (LM) group. Both groups accepted the most frequently-used acu-points in weight reduction, such as ZhongWan, TianShu, ZuSanLi and FengLong, and infared lamp irradiation on belly as a basic treatment. Additionally, SM group accepted the acu-points of stomach meridian, such as HuaRouMen, WaiLing, Suidao, LiangQiu, ShangJuXu, FengLong, and NeiTing; LM group accepted the acu-points of liver meridian, such as QiMen, ZhangMen, QuQuan, LiGou, TaiChong and Ganshu, Geshu. All these treatments were given 3 times (30 minutes per time) a week, and 5 weeks as one period of treatment. Two periods of treatment with a 7-day interval were given totally. The score of symptoms were marked and the indexes of obesity and hemorheology were measured before and after all the treatments.Results: Total effective rate of the LM group was 86. 7%, much higher than the GM group which was 63.3% (p<0.05). The effects of the LM group on weight reduction, improvement of BMI and hemorheology were superior to the GM group (p<0.05). And the alleviation of the symptoms in the LM group was more remarkable than the GM group (p<0. 01). But the waist-to-hip ratio of both groups had no statistic difference (p>0.05).Conclusions: Using the acu-points of the liver meridian has remarkable effects on treating simple obesity with blood-stasis syndrome. This treatment can improve the patient's blood-stasis constitution, reduce body weight, regulate menses and alley pain. Those effects are due to the liver meridian function of smoothing Qi and blood.
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