Acupuncture aids inflammatory bowel disease by acting as a immune modulator

Inflammatory bowel disease is a chronic inflammatory disease with a high prevalence and canceration rate. The immune disorder is one of the recognized mechanisms.

Acupuncture is widely used to treat patients with inflammatory bowel disease. In recent years, an increasing number of studies have proven the effectiveness of acupuncture in the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease, and some progress has been made in the mechanism. In this paper, we reviewed the studies related to acupuncture for inflammatory bowel disease and focused on the immunomodulatory mechanism.

We found that acupuncture could regulate the innate and adaptive immunity of inflammatory bowel disease patients in many ways. Acupuncture exerts innate immunomodulatory effects by regulating intestinal epithelial barrier, toll-like receptors, NLRP3 inflammasomes, oxidative stress, and endoplasmic reticulum stress and exerts adaptive immunomodulation by regulating the balance of Th17/Treg and Th1/Th2 cells. In addition, acupuncture can also regulate intestinal flora.

Reference: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35075366/

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About Attilio

Doctor of Chinese medicine, acupuncture expert and author of My Fertility Guide and My Pregnancy Guide.

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