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Acupuncture and Moxibustion as an Evidence-based Therapy for Cancer pp 19–50Cite as

The Mechanistic Studies of Acupuncture and Moxibustion

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Part of the book series: Evidence-based Anticancer Complementary and Alternative Medicine ((ACAM,volume 3))

Abstract

Many preclinical and clinical studies have demonstrated that acupuncture results in multiple biological responses. Manual acupuncture (MA) and electroacupuncture are capable of triggering a chain of events that can be understood through controlled experiments. The best-known mechanism is via endogenous opiates and their receptors. Different kinds of endogenous opiates, such as b-endorphin, enkephalin, endomorphin and dynorphin, reportedly act as frequency-dependent factors in electroacupuncture. While low-frequency electroacupuncture (2 Hz) accelerates the release of b-endorphin and enkephalin in the central nervous system (CNS), high-frequency electroacupuncture (100 Hz) accelerates the release of dynorphin. Notably, some researchers have found that there are different responses to acupuncture in normal and hyperalgesic animal models. Importantly, the frequency-dependent phenomenon may not be apparent in hyperalgesic animals. Serotonin is thought to have a role in acupuncture analgesia, with evidence suggesting that serotonin and its related descending inhibitory pathway regulate a hyperalgesic effect through the enkephalin interneurons located in the spinal cord. This chapter discusses the mechanisms of acupuncture analgesia and the mechanism of acupuncture in inflammation, insomnia, nausea and vomiting and drug addiction. It also discusses some mechanistic studies of acupuncture conducted by our research group. Recent mechanistic studies of moxibustion are also summarized.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Ms. Iona MacDonald for her help in proofreading the English of the manuscript and to Ms. Ya-Ting Wu and Ms. Rong-Wei Wong for their assistance in collating the literatures.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Chinese Medicine, China Medical University, Taichung, Taiwan

    Jaung-Geng Lin

  2. Graduate Institute of Acupuncture Science, China Medical University, Taichung, Taiwan

    Yi-Hung Chen

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Correspondence to Jaung-Geng Lin or Yi-Hung Chen .

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  1. Dept. Clinical Oncology, Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Gascoigne Road 30, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR

    William C.S. Cho

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Lin, JG., Chen, YH. (2012). The Mechanistic Studies of Acupuncture and Moxibustion. In: Cho, W. (eds) Acupuncture and Moxibustion as an Evidence-based Therapy for Cancer. Evidence-based Anticancer Complementary and Alternative Medicine, vol 3. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4833-0_2

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