Objectives
Hydrotherapy is a commonly used treatment modality to manage various conditions including diabetes in the Naturopathy system of medicine. The objective of the current scoping review is to find the effectiveness of hydrotherapy on plasma blood glucose levels in type 2 diabetes.
Content
Arksey and O’Malley’s five-stage framework was adopted for this scoping review. The studies which used hydrotherapy intervention for the management of diabetes or the effect of hydrotherapy on plasma glucose levels were considered eligible. PubMed/MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane library, and Google scholar were searched for English- language published articles till December 20, 2022. The following Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) and keyword search terms were used (“diabetes” OR “type 2 diabetes” OR “diabetes mellitus” OR “plasma glucose level”) AND (“hydrotherapy” OR “water therapy” OR “balneotherapy”). Two investigators independently assessed the studies for inclusion. Review articles, abstracts, and articles including the aquatic exercises as interventions were excluded.
Summary
In total, six studies met the inclusion criteria. Out of six, two studies used hot therapies, two studies cold therapy, and the remaining two used both hot and cold as interventions. The study results showed that hydrotherapy can be used as an effective intervention tool for blood glucose levels in patients with type 2 diabetes.
Outlook
Integrating hydrotherapy treatments alongside conventional management can reduce blood glucose levels and thus reduce diabetes-related complications.
Pain is a primitive human instinct that alerts the body’s defense mechanism to prevent damage. Hydrotherapy is the most common modality of treatment used for pain management in naturopathy. This review aims to scientifically evaluate the analgesic effects of hydrotherapy used for pain management. A thorough literature search from inception (1 January 1946) until 16 March 2022 was performed with electronic databases such as Scopus, Embase, PubMed/MEDLINE using the keywords “Hydrotherapy” OR “Balneotherapy” AND “Pain” OR “Analgesic effect.” Seven articles were identified in total. The available evidence suggests hydrotherapy to have significant analgesic effects, attributed to the physical and thermal properties of water.
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