Insulin resistance (IR) is a common pathophysiological basis of many chronic diseases, such as obesity, type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, cerebral vascular disease, cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases, etc. Acupuncture therapy has been demonstrated to have a positive role in reducing IR level in clinical practice. In the present paper, we summarized development of researches on the mechanism of acupuncture therapy underlying improvement of IR in recent 10 years from 1) regulating expression of hypothalamic phosphatidylinositol-3-kinase (PI3K)-p85 and PI3K-P110 proteins in obesity rats; 2) regulating the levels of some related proteins of insulin target tissues (liver and skeletal muscle), such as insulin receptor substrate-1 (IRS)-1 and -2, glucose transporter mRNAs and proteins, sterol regulatory element-binding protein 1 (SREBP-1) and fatty acid synthetase proteins; 3) suppressing inflammatory reaction of liver tissue and down-regulating serum adiponectin in T2DM rats; 4) raising the activity of superoxide dismutase (SOD) and reducing the levels of reactive oxygen species, and malondialdehyde (MDA) contents of quadriceps femoris in spontaneous IR rats; and 5) attenuating structural injury of pancreas islet and apoptosis of pancreatic β cells in diabetes rats.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To observe the effect of electroacupuncture(EA) of "Fenglong" (ST 40) and "Sanyinjiao" (SP 6) on lipid metabolic disorder, insulin resistance (IR) and expression of sterol regulatory element blinding protein-1 (SREBP-1) c and fatty acid synthase (FAS) proteins in the liver tissue in hyperlipidemia rats with IR, so as to reveal its mechanisms underlying improvement of IR.
Methods: Forty male SD rats were randomly divided into blank control, model, medication and EA groups (=8 in each group). The IR model was established by feeding the rat with high-fat diet.
Objective: To analyze the characteristics and rules of acupoint selection for acupuncture treatment of insulin resistance.
Methods: Data collections were conducted by searching references on acupuncture treatment of insulin resistance in PubMed, CNKI, VIP data base from 1991 to 2016, and acupuncture prescription data base for acupuncture treatment of insulin resistance was established. Data mining was applied to analyze the characteristics and rules of acupoint selection.