Concept of Anti-Inflammatory Acupuncture and Its Prospectsfor Clinical Application
In the past 20 years,with the discovery of the inflammatory reflex and in-depth research on the neuromodulation mech-anism of the immune response,acupuncture therapy,which is mainly characterized by nerve stimulation,has also received more clinical or experimental evidence,indicating that it does have local or systemic anti-inflammatory effects and the understanding of its mecha-nism has also reached the cellular level.This article first reviewed the significance of redundant neuromodulation of inflammation in maintaining life homeostasisand how acupuncture exerted anti-inflammatory effects from acupoints to target organs.It then proposed the concept of"anti-inflammatory acupuncture(AIA)",which included at least three layers of connotation.First,at the beginning of disease or injury,acupuncture can prevent or reduce inflammation caused by pathogenic infection or tissue damage.Second,when in-flammation has occurred or even developed to a severe stage,timely intervention with acupuncture can relieve or reduce inflammatory symptoms and even save lives.Third,in a state of chronic inflammation,acupuncture helps to break the proinflammation-anti-inflam-matory balance(para-inflammation state),moving towards the direction of alleviating inflammation,which is especially suitable for chronic and geriatric diseases that are in a low-grade inflammatory state.This article then introduced the general principles of AIA prescription,including the relative specificity of acupoint action,the optimal stimulation tools or methods,and the selection of appropri-ate stimulation amounts.This article lastly discussed four major clinical application prospects of AIA:inflammatory pain,infectious in-flammation,inflammatory diseases and inflammation-related diseases.It is proposed that AIA will help to solve many inflammatory problems that are still very difficult in modern medicine,andfurther drive the development of global acupuncture medicine.
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