The journal of American society of acupuncturists

Item

Title

The journal of American society of acupuncturists

Description

JASA (2020) Kyong;Feng, Hong;Bowe-Shulman, Maximin;Grissmer; Buckley;Stone.

issn

2377-3723

Date

Language

English

Author(s)

Abstract

The incidence of autoimmune disease in the United States has been significant for the past 20 years. In 1996, it was estimated that more than 8.5 million people were diagnosed with at least one of the 24 most common autoimmune diseases. The National Institutes of Health reported in 2005 that U.S. prevalence for all autoimmune diseases was between 14.7 and 23.5 million. This trend has serious implications, including the future physical, psychosocial, and financial toll of these illnesses. In recent years, acupuncture has been more widely utilized in the U.S. as a complementary medicine, especially for treating painful conditions. However, there is a lack of available quality studies showing the efficacy of acupuncture in treating autoimmune disease.
This paper is a review of the current research of the effectiveness of acupuncture in treatment of four autoimmune diseases: Rheumatoid Arthritis, Multiple Sclerosis, Systemic Lupus Erythematosus, and Inflammatory Bowel Disease. A total of 15 research articles published in the last 20 years were reviewed. The results show some evidence of the effectiveness and clinical implications of acupuncture for treating these four auto-immune diseases. However, this review also suggests that further research is warranted concerning higher quality clinical trials that apply a standardized reporting system, specific outcome measurements, and treatment protocols based on the patient population, including females with autoimmune diseases, and different disease characteristics.

volume

7

issue

4

page start

5

page end

48

Item sets