Moxibustion combined with characteristic lifestyle intervention of Traditional Chinese Medicine in the treatment of abdominal obesity

Abstract

Background: Abdominal obesity occurs when excessive visceral and subcutaneous fat is built up around the abdomen and stomach, which negatively impacts human health. Moxibustion, arose from Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), has been widely applied in the treatment of abdominal obesity. Several studies have shown the positive effects of moxibustion in prevention and treatment of endocrine issues and excess body weight. In this context, our study aims to examine the safety and efficacy of the combination of moxibustion and characteristic lifestyle intervention of TCM in the treatment of abdominal obesity. Methods/design: This study will be a multicenter, randomized, controlled trial conducted from September 2020 to January 2022 that includes 150 participants who have abdominal obesity and meet the eligibility criteria. The participants will be randomly divided into 3 groups in a 2:2:1 allocation ratio. The intervention group will receive moxibustion combined with characteristic lifestyle intervention of TCM; the other group will receive moxibustion combined with lifestyle intervention; the control group will receive lifestyle intervention only. Eight-week moxibustion sessions will be provided to participants assigned to the 2 intervention groups. The characteristic lifestyle intervention of TCM will also last 8 weeks, whereas the lifestyle intervention will last 12 weeks including 8-week treatment period, 4-week follow-up period. The primary outcome is the waist circumference measured by a tape measure. The secondary outcomes include obesity-related indicators, serum biochemical indexs, blood pressure, conversion score of physical symptoms, and measurement of the scale. Adverse events will be recorded during the treatment and follow-up period. Discussion: The results are expected to provide clinical evidence for the application of the combination of moxibustion and characteristic lifestyle intervention of TCM in patients with abdominal obesity. Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT04501198, Registered on 9 June 2020.

Optimizing Photoacoustic Measurement of Lymphatic Drainage of Cerebrospinal Fluid in Pigmented Mice for Microgravity Experiments

“…The second study also includes a control non-HU mouse; however, the QBB tracer was injected into the right subconjunctiva. The mouse was imaged using 15 wavelengths, a combination of the 11 and 4 wavelength sets, at nine different time points (2,15,30,45,60,75,90,105, and 120 mins.). Many timepoints were recorded due to factors such as using 15 wavelengths and imaging 45 different transverse positions of the head to neck region with a 0.5mm step size in stage positioning (taken with an image slice thickness of approximately 800µm and ).…”

“…Sensitivity error metrics such as peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) and mean squared error (MSE) are utilized in this project. In addition, structural similarity metric (SSIM) can also be used to assess the perceived image quality [75].…”

“…As an important quantitative assessment to the perceived quality of an image, SSIM focuses on the difference between the images rather than measuring error sensitivity [75]. In equation ( 15), SSIM is calculated as:…”

“…Where 𝜇 𝑥 , 𝜇 𝑦 are the local means, 𝜎 𝑥 , 𝜎 𝑦 are the standard deviations and 𝜎 𝑥𝑦 is the crosscovariance for the entire image 𝑥, 𝑦. 𝐶 1 𝑎𝑛𝑑𝐶 2 are constants added to avoid instability during division due to weak denominator [75]. Average SSIM values were also calculated using MATLAB (2018b) and averaged among 3 images of varying positions of the neck region over the same time 60-minute time point.…”

Effects of Du Meridian Moxibustion Combined with Mild Moxibustion on Female Pelvic Floor Myofascial Pain Syndrome: A Retrospective Cohort Study

“…The conception vessel is of great significance to pelvic floor muscles. Moxibustion is a form of treatment derived from TCM, which is widely applied to clinical practice [ 14 ]. Burning of moxa on the governor vessel pulse was involved in moxibustion treatment.…”