Effect of Warm-Needling Acupuncture in Overweight and Obese Adults: Protocol for a Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Abstract

Background: Overweight and obesity are chronic metabolic diseases characterized by abnormal or excessive fat accumulation that presents a risk to health. Warm-needling acupuncture (WNA), which combines the characteristics of acupuncture and moxibustion, has been commonly used to manage obesity with reasonable weight control in recent years. Therefore, our objective is to systematically appraise the efficacy and safety of WNA for overweight and obesity.Methods: Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), MEDLINE (via PubMed), Excerpt Medica Database (EMBASE), ALT HealthWatch, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), Allied and Complementary Medicine Database (AMED), the Chinese Biomedical Literature Database (CBM), Wanfang Data, and grey literature (trial registries, conference proceedings and academic degree dissertations) will be searched for the identification of articles. All randomized controlled trials (RCTs) involving WNA independently or as an adjunct to other active therapies, compared with the same therapies alone, will be included. The principal outcome will be the difference in BMI from baseline to the end of studies. Secondary outcomes include the change of weight, waist circumference, percentage of body fat, serum lipid before and after treatment. The severity and incidence of adverse events will be measured as the safety assessment. Study selection, data extraction, and assessment of risk of bias will be performed independently by two reviewers. A third reviewer will resolve and determine disagreements. The Review Manager software (V.5.3.5) and Stata software (V.14.0) will be used for data synthesis. Furthermore, the quality of the evidence for the results will be described according to the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation system (GRADE) with GRADEprofiler software (V.3.6.1).Discussion: This is the first systematic review to evaluate the effect of WNA in the management of obesity. This program will provide a high-quality synthesis of the current evidence to identify whether WNA is an effective therapeutic approach for overweight and obesity.Systematic review registration: PROSPERO CRD42019146380.