Simple obesity is a disease in which the intake of calories in the body is much greater than the consumption and utilization, resulting in the accumulation of too much fat in the body and thus leading to excess weight. With the improvement of people’s standard of living, the incidence of obesity disease is obviously increasing trend, weight loss has become a popular topic of preventive health care. Simple obesity body exists in many aspects such as sugar, lipid, water and salt, energy metabolic abnormalities and neurological and endocrine regulation abnormalities. In addition, there are certain important organs, functions and cell ultrastructure abnormalities. In the past decade or so, traditional medical methods such as Chinese medicine, Chinese herbal medicine, acupuncture, auricular acupuncture, qigong and massage have made more achievements in the treatment of obesity, which has attracted great attention from scholars at home and abroad. Among the many methods, acupuncture treatment for obesity has the advantages of being simple, effective and long-lasting, with no toxic side effects, and is welcomed by the majority of obese people. Through the effects of neuromodulation, hormone regulation and cell regulation, acupuncture adjusts the imbalance of the obese body in a multi-polar and multi-linked manner, reverses metabolic abnormalities, reduces energy intake, increases energy consumption, and achieves weight loss effects, while also improving the functions of important organs such as digestion, cardiovascular and kidney. Clinical experimental research Clinical research shows that acupuncture adjusts the dysregulated plant nerve function of obese patients is an important role link of acupuncture for weight loss. The endocrine function of obese patients is disordered, and acupuncture can adjust the abnormal endocrine function of the obese organism. Acupuncture can adjust the digestive and absorption functions of obese patients by influencing the secretion of active substances such as histamine (HA), 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) and prostaglandin E2 (PGE2). Acupuncture can improve the low energy metabolism level of obese patients and promote energy expenditure. Acupuncture can improve the abnormal glucose metabolism of obese patients by correcting insulin resistance. Acupuncture can also adjust abnormal lipid metabolism, and it is believed that acupuncture may achieve the adjustment effect on abnormal lipid metabolism by lowering insulin (INS) level and raising adrenaline (Ad), adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH), and cortisol (CS) level. Acupuncture not only has a good effect on weight loss, but also improves the patient’s water-electrolyte metabolism through neurohumoral regulation. Acupuncture can reverse the imbalance of thromboxane A2 and prostacyclin (PGI2) regulatory system. Lowering the waist-to-hip ratio and increasing the serum high-density lipoprotein (HDL) level are both beneficial to the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular disease. Acupuncture weight loss was accompanied by improvement in renal function. The weight loss effect of acupuncture was accompanied by a significant increase in cAMP and cAMP/cGMP in patients. This suggests that acupuncture regulates metabolism at the cellular level through its effect on the level of the second messenger cAMP. Animal experimental study The animal model of obesity is the most common type of simple obesity. The animal model of simple obesity can be obtained by feeding SD weaned male rats with high-fat obesogenic diet for 3 months, and the obesity rate reached 56.8%. This animal model is consistent with the clinical and pathological characteristics of human simple obesity. The effect of acupuncture on the central nuclei of obese rats showed that acupuncture could inhibit the hyperactivity of the lateral hypothalamic area (hunger center, LHA), thus inhibiting feeding. Acupuncture can excite the ventral medial hypothalamic nucleus (satiety center, VNH), thus enhancing the inhibition of LHA and affecting feeding. Acupuncture may indirectly control the feeding center and inhibit feeding by increasing the function of the suture nucleus in the obese body and promoting the release of 5-HT [5]. Acupuncture has a benign adjustment effect on both striatum and amygdala in obese organisms. Acupuncture can improve the level of insulin receptor number and affinity in insulin-resistant obese rats and correct insulin resistance, and it is one of the important links to achieve weight loss by acupuncture. Acupuncture can improve cell differentiation in the ultrastructure of brown adipose tissue (BAT) of obese rats. This effect may be achieved by enhancing sympathetic nerve function, and the increased differentiation of BAT cells increases the thermogenic capacity of the tissue, thus increasing the body’s energy expenditure. The study showed that the body weight, Lee’s index, body fat and serum leptin and insulin (INS) levels were significantly higher in obese rats than in normal rats, while hypothalamic leptin and INS levels and leptin receptor (OB-R) gene expression levels were significantly lower than in normal rats. In the same time, the serum leptin and INS of obese rats decreased significantly while the hypothalamic leptin and INS levels and OB-R gene expression level increased significantly. It is suggested that the benign adjustment of central and peripheral leptin and INS levels by acupuncture and the promotion of hypothalamic OB-R gene expression may be important cellular and molecular mechanisms of acupuncture for weight loss [9]. Clinical overview of acupuncture for weight loss According to TCM, under the action of internal and external factors, the dysfunction of the internal organs leads to the congestion of water and dampness, phlegm and fat in the body and obesity occurs. The disease is localized in the spleen and kidney, and also in the heart, liver and lung. The disease is mostly based on the deficiency of the spleen and kidney, water-damp phlegm and stagnation as the standard, the stomach heat and gas stagnation through it, the three jiao qi-chemistry irregularities along with the line, deficiency and reality, cold and heat, yin and yang, thus forming a vicious circle, causing the condition to be constantly serious. According to Chinese medicine’s understanding of the etiology and pathogenesis of obesity, the clinical efficiency of acupuncture for weight loss is 60%-85%. The main treatment methods of acupuncture for weight loss are auricular acupuncture, body acupuncture and combination of auricular acupuncture and body acupuncture, etc. In addition, the use of moxibustion alone is rarely reported and mostly used in combination with body acupuncture. In addition, other treatments are occasionally reported, but not as conventional clinical treatment. Many studies have shown that while acupuncture achieves its weight loss effect, patients with hyperlipidemia, hypertension, coronary heart disease, hyperglycemia, edema and other comorbidities are also improved to varying degrees, and the effect is benign two-way adjustment, making them normal. There are many reports on the diagnosis and treatment of obesity disease, and the classification varies from 3 to 4 types, to more than 10 types. However, there is a lack of uniform diagnostic criteria for each type. Although the detailed identification and typing are more targeted and helpful to improve the therapeutic effect, it is not easy to master and promote. A better approach is to establish the causes, pathogenesis, and treatment methods of the common types based on the basic principles of diagnosis and treatment in TCM, so as to lay a solid foundation for further improving the clinical efficacy of acupuncture and moxibustion for weight loss.