With the development of medicine, more and more attention has been paid to the prevention of diseases and interventions in pre-morbid states by responding to diseases ahead of time. Traditional Chinese medicine has always attached importance to prevention and has a long history of the theory of treating untreated diseases. Acupuncture and moxibustion is an important part of Chinese medicine for the treatment of untreated diseases, with unique efficacy and non-toxic side effects. The purpose of this article is to analyze the application of acupuncture and moxibustion for treating untreated diseases in the past generations, summarize the clinical experience and mechanism of acupuncture and moxibustion for treating untreated diseases in the past 10 years, and promote its clinical application.
Ancient applications of acupuncture for treating untreated diseases.
The idea of acupuncture and moxibustion for treating untreated diseases was first proposed in Ling Shu ˙Reverse and Shun. Zhang Zhongjing said in “The Essentials of the Golden Horoscope”: “the right meridians, before the flow of the internal organs, that is, the medical treatment; limbs before feeling heavy stagnation, that is, to guide the spit na, acupuncture and moxibustion paste, do not make the nine orifices closed”, from the general point of view of the idea of using acupuncture for both disease and prevention of change.
Moxibustion is one of the main methods of disease prevention and health care promoted by ancient physicians. In the “Fan Dongyang Miscellaneous Diseases Formula”, Fan Wang of Jin Dynasty proposed “reverse moxibustion” to prevent cholera. Ge Hong proposed “moxibustion on the four corners of the patient’s bed with moxa, one strong each” to prevent malaria. In the Tang dynasty, Sun Simiao moxibustion points such as Baihui, Fengchi and Dazhi to prevent stroke, and also proposed that “whenever you enter Wu and Shu, often three or two places on the body moxibustion, do not make the sores temporarily recover, then the miasma temperature and malaria poison gas can not catch people”. In the Ming dynasty, Zhang Jinyue’s “Class Jing Tu Yi” said: “travel moxibustion San Li, healthy walking like flying”, and there is also a record of moxibustion Shen Que point with salt “three to five hundred strong, not only heal the disease, but also prolong the life”. Yang Jizhou in “acupuncture and moxibustion” to further emphasize the timing of moxibustion treatment when preventing stroke: “but before the stroke, a couple of months ago or two or four months ago, from time to time on the shins of the foot sore heavy numbness, a long time to solve, this will be a stroke of the wait, cheap and urgent moxibustion Sanli, the jade bone four each three strong”. The Qing Dynasty Zhang Lu in the “Zhang’s Medical General” proposed the summer month three volts with medicine paste lung Yu, the plaster Yu, Bai Lao and other points, can prevent the onset of asthma in winter.
Acupuncture has also been used in ancient times to treat untreated diseases. For example, the treatise on typhoid fever records: “sun disease, headache to more than seven days since healing, to line its meridian exhaustion; if you want to make re-menstrual, acupuncture foot Yangming, so that the meridian does not pass then healed”; the Tang dynasty Sun Simiao use acupuncture “ear artery” and ” In the Tang dynasty, Sun Simiao used the acupuncture points of “preauricular artery” and “Fengfu” to prevent stroke; in the Song dynasty, Wang Dizhong used the method of acupuncture and diarrhea “Fengmen” to prevent canker sores on the back.
Modern application of acupuncture for the treatment of untreated diseases.
1, acupuncture health care and its mechanism: health care acupuncture is widely used in health care and disease prevention, delay aging and conditioning of subhealth states. The purpose of acupuncture is not to prevent a specific disease, but to nourish the Yang, nourish the Yin and nourish the blood, in order to improve the overall regulation of the body. The main health care acupuncture points are Foot San Li, Guan Yuan, Qi Hai, Shen Que and so on. In addition to the common methods of acupuncture, warm acupuncture and moxibustion, acupuncture point paste and acupressure can also be used according to the patient’s physical condition and acceptance level.
Health care meridian points have multifaceted, multi-linked and multi-level adjustment effects on the body, which can make the nitric oxide (NO) and interleukin-2 (IL-2) content of peripheral blood tend to rise, improve the immunity of the body and increase the level of sex hormones, thus achieving benign adjustment, disease prevention and anti-aging effects.
2, acupuncture disease prevention and its mechanism
2.1 Acupuncture prevention of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases and its mechanism
2.1.1 Prevention of stroke: acupuncture points such as Feng Shi and Shu San Li can prevent stroke aura. To prevent recurrence of stroke, parieto-temporal anterior and posterior oblique lines can be used with Baihui, Fengchi, Huatuo Pinnacle and Foot Sanli, etc. The key to acupuncture against recurrence of stroke is to improve the clinical efficacy. The mechanism may be related to acupuncture improving the compensatory function of the lateral circulation of the brain, etc.
2.1.2 Prevention of migraine: acupuncture points such as Fengchi, Baihui, Shenting, Benshin, and Rate Valley can effectively improve the quality of life of migraine patients and reduce headache attacks. Identifying and acupuncturing the relevant acupoints for 3 months can also prevent the occurrence of migraine.
2.2 Prevention of respiratory diseases by acupuncture and its mechanism
2.2.1 Prevention of bronchitis: acupuncture points of San Fu, such as Ding Yan, Lung Yu and Tan Zhong, have good near- and long-term effects on chronic bronchitis and can effectively improve the body’s immune function and prevent acute attacks.
2.2.2 Prevention of colds: moxibustion of the feet can enhance the immunity of the body and effectively prevent colds.
3. Acupuncture prevents gynecological diseases and its mechanism
3.1 Prevention of perimenopausal syndrome: Body acupuncture points of Taixi, Guan Yuan and Sanyinjiao, and ear points of Heart, Liver, Spleen, Kidney, Shen Men and Endocrine can significantly improve patients’ clinical symptoms and reduce Kupperman index score. After treatment, patients’ serum estradiol, follicle stimulating hormone and luteinizing hormone levels are better than before treatment.
3.2 Prevention of postmenopausal osteoporosis Reverse moxibustion of bilateral foot San Li and San Yin Jiao can make the lumbar spine bone density and serum estradiol, which are on a declining trend, increase to some extent.
4. Acupuncture to prevent complications, side effects and their mechanisms
4.1 Prevention of myocardial injury caused by cardiac surgery Continuous electro-acupuncture at the Neiguan, Lijiu, and Yunmen points for 5 d before heart valve replacement can reduce the injury caused by cardiac ischemia-reperfusion, which may be related to the involvement of β-adrenergic receptors in mediating the protective effect of electro-acupuncture pretreatment on myocardial ischemia.
4.2 Prevention of postoperative abdominal distension after cesarean section Acupuncture of Tianshu, Hand Sanli and Foot Sanli within 6 h after cesarean section was effective in preventing postoperative abdominal distension, and the time of exhaustion was earlier and the postoperative recovery time was shorter.
4.3 Prevention of postoperative urinary retention Postoperative and postpartum acupuncture points such as Hegu, Sanyinjiao, Yinlingquan and Qihai can well prevent the occurrence of urinary retention.
4.4 Prevention of postoperative nausea and vomiting Clinical studies and systematic evaluations have shown that preoperative and intraoperative acupuncture at the Neiguan point reduces the incidence of postoperative nausea and vomiting. The mechanism may be related to the fact that electroacupuncture at Neiguan can reduce the intermittent main power of the gastric electrogram.
4.5 Prevention of surgical anesthesia side effects Intradermal needle embedding at bladder meridian points can effectively reduce postoperative pain after abdominal surgery, reduce the use of anesthetic drugs and alleviate the sympathetic adrenal system symptoms often seen after surgery.
4.6 Prevention of phlebitis complicated by infusionWarm moxibustion of the foot three li and the puncture point locally can promote local blood circulation, improve tissue hypoxia, and reduce the production of inflammatory substances, thus reducing the occurrence of phlebitis.
4.7 Prevention of hospital infection Warm acupuncture and moxibustion at Guan Yuan and Foot San Li points can reduce the chance of hospital infection in patients hospitalized with cerebrovascular disease.
Commentary and outlook
With the improvement of people’s health awareness, acupuncture and moxibustion for treating untreated diseases is gradually accepted by people all over the world for its advantages of simplicity, effectiveness, and cheapness. The scope of acupuncture and moxibustion health care applications has been expanding from the traditional strengthening of the body to the improvement of the quality of life, such as smoking cessation, beauty, and fatigue elimination. Non-invasive and painful methods such as moxibustion and acupuncture point application have become more popular. There are still some problems in the research on acupuncture for untreated diseases: domestic clinical studies generally have small sample sizes and lack of rigorously designed randomized controlled trials; mechanism studies are relatively weak; the prevention of some difficult diseases by acupuncture has yet to be further developed. Happily, some scholars have already thought about the difficult problem of acupuncture to prevent and treat tissue fibrosis. Research on acupuncture for the treatment of untreated diseases, the author believes that it can be appropriately strengthened from the following aspects.
① For diseases with more certain effect of acupuncture prevention, further collate ancient literature and combine with modern clinical experience to develop a standardized acupuncture prevention protocol, and then carry out large sample, multicenter, randomized controlled clinical trials to provide more reliable clinical evidence.
②Strengthen the clinical and mechanistic research on acupuncture prevention of difficult diseases such as tumor and tissue fibrosis.
③strengthen the research on the amount of acupuncture stimulation and the timing of intervention.
④Use modern science and technology to study the mechanism of acupuncture and moxibustion for disease prevention from the perspective of molecular biology and genomics to reveal its intrinsic laws. In conclusion, we should make full use of the advantage that acupuncture therapy mainly lies in the overall adjustment, and promote the application of acupuncture for treating the untreated diseases to meet the new requirements of people for health.