Acupuncture Treatment in Elderly People with Sarcopenia: Effects on the Strength and Inflammatory Mediators

Abstract

Introduction. Sarcopenia is defined as the progressive loss of skeletal muscle mass, associated with aging. A multidisciplinary approach has been increasingly prioritized in elderly care. A technique that has been widely used by the seniors is acupuncture. Objectives. To analyse the effects of acupuncture in muscle strength and in inflammatory markers of older people with sarcopenia. Methods. The sample was composed by 53 elderly people, aged over 60 years. Inclusion criteria were as follows: male and female seniors, sedentary and who were not under acupuncture treatment during the survey period. Assessment of body composition, handgrip strength, and functional test and IL-6, IL-10, and TNF-α cytokines analyses were performed. After verification of the physical examination, the subjects were divided into two groups (sarcopenic and nonsarcopenic). The first group was then randomized (by drawing lot) to be further divided into two subgroups: G1, composed of sarcopenic elderly people who received acupuncture intervention, and G2, composed of sarcopenic elderly people who did not receive intervention. The nonsarcopenic elderly people composed the group 3 (G3) and did not receive acupuncture intervention. ANOVA Split Plot was performed for intergroup comparison. For intragroup evaluation, ANOVA was conducted for repeated measures. For the delta values, ANCOVA was performed with the pretest as covariant. A p<0.05 significance level was adopted. Results. 26 older people concluded the collections. There was no statistically significant difference between the G1 group and the other ones regarding the assessed variables (muscle mass, muscle strength, functionality, and inflammatory markers). Conclusion. The results allow us to infer that it is possible that the conducted intervention protocol has not produced any significant effects in the studied population. UTN number: RBR-8df2h4.

Effect of Acupuncture on Functional Capacity in Patients Undergoing Hemodialysis: A Patient-Assessor Blinded Randomized Controlled Trial

“…Hu et al (2015) demonstrated the improvement of muscle atrophy in 5/6 nephrectomy rats by low-frequency electrical stimulation of an acupuncture point, due to increased protein metabolism and myogenesis [ 41 ]. Although these reports point to a positive effect of acupuncture, the study conducted by Soares Mendes Damasceno et al (2019) showed no statistically significant difference between acupuncture and non-acupuncture groups on muscle mass, muscle strength, functionality, and inflammatory markers in older people with sarcopenia [ 17 ]. Perhaps these discrepancies are due to the fact that each of the studies had a specific acupuncture treatment protocol for the clinical conditions under investigation with different types of acupuncture, duration, treatment frequency and control interventions, so it is not possible to compare the results.…”

“…Several studies have focused on the symptomatic treatment of other functional state. Damasceno et al (2019) analyzed the effect of manual acupuncture on muscle mass and inflammation markers in older adults with sarcopenia [ 17 ]; Zhou et al (2012) conducted a pilot study to determine the effect of unilateral manual acupuncture on selected acupoints on ankle dorsiflexion strength of both limbs on young men [ 18 ]; Wang et al (2020) evaluated whether three weekly acupuncture treatment sessions were superior to one weekly session for symptomatic outcomes in postprandial distress syndrome [ 19 ]; Lin et al(2020) assessed the symptomatic improvement in patients with knee osteoarthritis on three sessions per week of acupuncture compared to one session per week [ 20 ]. The evidence for the role of acupuncture treatment frequency is unclear, and there are currently no defined and accepted consensus criteria for treatment frequency [ 21 ].…”

Novel Insights into the Pathogenesis of Spinal Sarcopenia and Related Therapeutic Approaches: A Narrative Review

“…The counteraction of diabetes or chronic kidney disease-induced skeletal muscle atrophy by increasing IGF-1 has also been demonstrated in other mouse model studies [124,125]. However, one clinical trial evaluated the effects of acupuncture based on the muscle strength and inflammatory markers of IL-6, IL-10, and TNF-α cytokines in older adults with sarcopenia and observed that the intervention protocol did not result in significant differences in the evaluated population [126].…”

Traditional Chinese Medicine and Sarcopenia: A Systematic Review

“…These studies included samples with different diagnostic criteria. Namely, nine studies referred to the Asia working group for sarcopenia (Ren et al, 2016;Zhao et al, 2016;Zhu et al, 2016Zhu et al, , 2018Wen et al, 2018;Liang et al, 2019;Chen, 2020;Zhou et al, 2020;Chen et al, 2021); three studies used European working group for sarcopenia diagnostic criteria (Soares Mendes Damasceno et al, 2019;Fang et al, 2020;Morawin et al, 2021); six studies (Yan et al, 2007;Gong et al, 2011;Jing et al, 2011;Liu et al, 2016;Wang et al, 2016;Zhu et al, 2017) complied with Roubenoff 's view of sarcopenia (Rosenberg, 2011); two studies did not provide diagnostic criteria, but only described subjects as having been diagnosed with sarcopenia in the hospital (Yang and Chen, 2016;Liang et al, 2019); and one study used the 2011 ISCCWG (International Sarcopenia Consensus Conference Working Group) diagnostic criteria (Liu et al, 2020). There was a large difference in outcome indicators in the included studies, and there were many scales and no specific content and scoring criteria.…”

“…Imperfect diagnostic criteria led to uncertain additional risks in seven studies. Only one study (Soares Mendes Damasceno et al, 2019) specifically mentioned that the trial was single-blinded, but the lack of blinding was considered a relatively low risk factor for reducing the quality of the evidence. Overall, the low risk level accounted for about 53% of all risk levels assessed, and the uncertainty was about 46%, as shown in Table 3.…”