The Clinical Research Of Obesity Of Spleen Deficiency In Treatment With Needling And Box-moxibustion

Objective:This paper was to assess the effectiveness and safety of acupuncture combined with box-moxibustion for obesity of spleen deficiency, comparing with acupuncture treatment alone.Methods:Using randomised, controlled, single-blind design,60 participants diagnosed as obesity of spleen deficiency were equally randomly divided into intervention group and control group. The control group was given acupuncture alone, while the intervention group was treated with both acupuncture and box-moxibustion. All subjects were treated once a day and ten times as a session, which lasted three sessions. Then subjects were treated every other day, five times as a session and continued for three sessions. Totally participants received treatment of 45 times. The evaluation of BMI was the primary outcome, and the assessment of weight, waistline, hipline, waist hip ratio, spleen deficiency score as well as the ranking system of effectiveness were considered as secondary outcome. Continuous data were analysed by t test and dichotomous data measured by chi-square.Results:57 of 60 participants went through the whole course of study while 3 were dropped out. Comparing the intervention group and the control group, changes between pre-and after-treatment in BMI showed statistical significant (P< 0.05), which indicated the effectiveness of acupuncture combined with box-moxibustion is superior to that of acupuncture treatment alone. Secondary outcome measurements as body weight and spleen deficiency score were also improved much better in intervention group than that in control group, while the rest indexes as waistline, hipline and waist hip ratio showed no significant statistical differences between two groups (P>0.05). Comparing pre- and post-treatment within groups respectively, the improvement of both of the primary and secondary outcomes showed statistical significant (P<0.05), which manifest that both acupuncture and acupuncture combined with moxibustion were effective for obesity of spleen deficiency. In the experiment group,5 cases got clinically cured,12 markedly effective,11 effective and 1 ineffective, whose markedly effective rate was 58.6% and the total effective rate was 96.6%. In the controlled group, only 2 cases were clinically cured,10 markedly effective,13 effective and 3 ineffective, whose markedly effective rate was 42.9% and the total effective rate was 89.3%. However, there is no significant difference between two groups in terms of markedly effective rate and the total effective rate. Conclusion:Both acupuncture combined with box-moxibustion and acupuncture alone are effective for obesity of spleen deficiency, but the effectiveness of acupuncture plus box-moxibution was superior to that of acupuncture alone in the improvement of BMI, body weitht and spleen deficiency scores.