Sex differences in acupuncture effectiveness in animal models of Parkinson's disease: a systematic review

BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine

Research Article

Sook-Hyun Lee¹  Sabina Lim²  Peggy Bosch³  Maurits van den Noort⁴ 

[1] Department of Applied Korean Medicine, Graduate School, Kyung Hee University, Seoul, Republic of Korea;Department of Applied Korean Medicine, Graduate School, Kyung Hee University, Seoul, Republic of Korea;Research Group of Pain and Neuroscience, WHO Collaborating Center for Traditional Medicine, East–west Medical Research Institute, Kyung Hee University, Seoul, Republic of Korea;Department of Meridian & Acupoint, College of Korean Medicine, Kyung Hee University, 26 Kyungheedae-ro, Dongdaemun-gu, 130-70102447, Seoul, Republic of Korea;Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University, 6525 HR, Nijmegen, The Netherlands;Research Group of Pain and Neuroscience, WHO Collaborating Center for Traditional Medicine, East–west Medical Research Institute, Kyung Hee University, Seoul, Republic of Korea;

关键词: Electro-acupuncture;    Manual acupuncture;    Bee-venom acupuncture;    C57/BL6;    Acupuncture point;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12906-016-1405-5

 received in 2016-01-08, accepted in 2016-10-19,  发布年份 2016

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundMany animal experimental studies have been performed to investigate the efficacy of acupuncture in Parkinson’s disease (PD). Sex differences are a major issue in all diseases including PD. However, to our knowledge, there have been no reviews investigating sex differences on the effectiveness of acupuncture treatment for animal PD models. The current study aimed to summarize and analyze past studies in order to evaluate these possible differences.MethodEach of 7 databases (MEDLINE, EMBASE, the Cochrane Library, 3 Korean medical databases, and the China National Knowledge Infrastructure) was searched from its inception through March 2015 without language restrictions.ResultsWe included studies of the use of acupuncture treatment in animal models of PD. A total of 810 potentially relevant articles were identified, 57 of which met our inclusion criteria. C57/BL6 mice were used most frequently (42 %) in animal PD models. Most of the studies were carried out using only male animals (67 %); only 1 study (2 %) was performed using solely females. The further 31 % of the studies used a male/female mix or did not specify the sex.ConclusionsThe results of our review suggest that acupuncture is an effective treatment for animal PD models, but there is insufficient evidence to determine whether sex differences exist. Future studies of acupuncture treatment for PD should use female animal models because they reflect the physiological characteristics of both males and females to fully evaluate the effect and the safety of the treatment for each sex.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© The Author(s). 2016