Acupuncture Resulting in Immediate Bronchodilating Response in Asthma Patients

Abstract

There are some encouraging results in the English literature that show acupuncture resulting in an immediate improvement in pulmonary function, but there are also studies that have not demonstrated any benefit. We present 3 patients with persistent asthma who experienced immediate bronchodilatation after acupuncture without the use of any short-acting bronchodilator. After needle stimulation on selected acupoints, clinical symptoms such as dyspnea and wheezing improved. Pulmonary function test showed immediate improvement in forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1), more than 20% as compared with baseline FEV1. Pulmonary function returned to baseline within 4 hours after acupuncture in 2 patients. From our observations of these 3 asthma patients, acupuncture may improve clinical dyspnea symptoms and performance on pulmonary function tests. Further large-scale controlled studies should be conducted to determine the effectiveness of acupuncture in the treatment of asthma.

Use of serial analysis of gene expression to reveal the specific regulation of gene expression profile in asthmatic rats treated by acupuncture

“…The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has accepted the validity of acupuncture treatment [ 8 ] and recommended it as an adjunctive treatment in comprehensive management programs of addiction, stroke rehabilitation, and asthma, etc [ 5 , 9 ]. Acupuncture has traditionally been used to treat asthma in China and has been shown to be beneficial in acute asthma in short term [ 10 , 11 ]. However, well-designed scientific researches in this field are needed and encouraged, which are not only important for elucidating the mechanism, but also useful for exploring new pathways in a systematic manner.…”