What is Acupuncture?
Acupuncture is a traditional Chinese treatment that involves the insertion of fine needles at specific body points called energy pathways. Stimulation of these points releases endorphins (the body’s natural feel-good hormones), stimulate the nerves, increase blood circulation and boost metabolism. This can create a calming effect that helps the body produce more energy, counteracts the effect of excessive eating and supports weight loss from many different angles.
How acupuncture helps weight loss?
The most important ways by which acupuncture results in weight loss include stimulation of metabolism to burn more fat, counteracting the effect of excessive eating and regulating your digestion, insulin production, and hormones. It can help lose more weight when combined with other traditional methods of weight loss, such as calorie-restriction, supplementation, and exercise.
From the perspective of Chinese Medicine, the idea that acupuncture helps weight loss is that the metabolism gets affected when your major digestive organs such as stomach, intestines, gall bladder and pancreas are not functioning well. Your body needs a lot of energy to properly digest and absorb nutrients in the foods, which is not a big deal if your metabolism is performing at 100 percent. However, lowering of energy and slowing down of the metabolism due to personal, dietary or environmental reasons can push your body into what acupuncture specialists called “low power mode. This makes it harder to burn fat and drop pounds. Specific acupuncture points on the energy pathways are like “little on-off switches” for various systems that regulate your body systems. Turning them on through acupuncture revs the flow of energy, increase circulation of blood and improve your ability to digest and absorb food. The body utilizes this extra energy to burn more calories and fat that further leads to loss of weight.
Another interesting way by which acupuncture helps you shed those extra pounds is the suppression of hunger. Hunger is a sign that indicates you are low in energy. Restoration of energy levels through stimulation of acupuncture points helps stabilize the hunger hormones and therefore curb the cravings for food.
Recent studies and clinical trials have also evaluated the relationship between weight loss and acupuncture. Their findings support the benefits of acupuncture, especially when you already on a low-fat diet. According to a study published in Australian Family Physician, 90% of the participants who undergo acupuncture sessions for one and half month reported a lower appetite, better energy flow, and significant weight loss. The study author concluded that these effects can be due to the production of serotonin, a mood-boosting hormone that has been linked to stimulating metabolism and suppress appetite.
The Takeaway
Acupuncture has been used for centuries to treat several body conditions including digestive issues and problems related to metabolism. Recent studies also suggest the positive effects of acupuncture-related to the suppression of appetite and improved fat burning that leads to weight loss. However, most of them demonstrated that the weight loss benefits of acupuncture are more robust when combined with other traditional weight loss methods.