Acupuncture Improves Diabetic Gastroparesis

By Diane Fennell "Needleless" acupuncture can provide relief for people dealing with diabetic gastroparesis, according to new research recently presented at the 2013 Digestive Disease Week meeting in Orlando, Florida. As many as 50% of people with diabetes will develop gastroparesis. Gastroparesis, most commonly caused by damage to the nerve fibers that control the movements of the stomach, is a condition in which the stomach's ability to move food into the small intestine is reduced. This slow stomach emptying results in a variety of symptoms, including nausea, vomiting, feelings of fullness after eating, a lack of appetite, discomfort in the upper abdomen, and bloating. Various medicines, gastric electrical stimulation, Botox injections, and intravenous nutrition are among the treatments currently available. To determine whether stimulating acupuncture points on the skin via electrical stimulation (rather than needles) could control symptoms in people with diabetic gastroparesis, researchers enrolled 12 people — four men and eight women, with an average age of 51 — in an eight-week study. Participants were randomly assigned to receive either four weeks of electrical stimulation of gastrointestinal-specific acupuncture points via watch-sized stimulators or four weeks of a sham (inactive) treatment. At the end of this period, the participants were switched to the alternate treatment for the remaining four weeks of the study. "Active" treatments involved pla...
Source: Diabetes Self-Management - Category: Diabetes Authors: Source Type: blogs