The impact of acupuncture combined with acupoint catgut embedding on simple obesity: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Obesity is a widespread chronic metabolic disease that significantly impairs quality of life. Studies have demonstrated the efficacy of both acupuncture and acupoint catgut embedding (ACE) in the management of obesity. However, the superiority of acupuncture combined with ACE over acupuncture alone remains a subject of controversy. This study aims to elucidate this controversy and provide robust clinical evidence. METHODS: A comprehensive search of relevant literature from the initiation to July 2022 was carried out in 8 databases (PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane database, Web of Science, CBM Database, CNKI, Wan-fang Database, and VIP Database). We included randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that investigated the treatment of simple obesity using acupuncture paired with ACE, with acupuncture alone as the control group. The pooled outcomes included body mass index (BMI), body weight (BW), %BF, waist circumference (WC), hip circumferences (HC), waist-to-hip ratio (WHR), therapeutic effective rate (TER), and adverse events. Two independent reviewers performed screening (using EndNote X9) and quality assessment (using the Cochrane Risk of Bias tool) for the included studies. with the software RevMan 5.3 was used to perform pooling of effect sizes. The certainty of the evidence was assessed using the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE). RESULTS: A total of 20 trials involving 15 datasets (1616 participants) were included. The findings demonstrated significant improvements in outcome measures when acupuncture was combined with ACE, compared with acupuncture alone (BMI: MD = −1.49 kg/m(2), 95% confidence interval [CI] = −1.93 to −1.04, P < .01; BW: MD = −2.38, 95% CI = −3.86 to −0.89, P < .01; %BF: MD = −2.19, 95% CI = −3.23 to −1.15, P < .01; WC: MD = −2.01, 95% CI = −3.66 to −0.35, P < .05; HC: MD = −0.83, 95% CI = −1.64 to −0.02, P < .05; WHR: MD = −0.02, 95% CI = −0.03 to −0.01, P < .01; TER: OR = 2.68, 95% CI = 1.93–3.74, P < .01). Adverse effects were reported in 4 studies. CONCLUSION SUBSECTIONS: The results of this meta-analysis indicate that acupuncture combined with ACE is superior to acupuncture alone in the treatment of obesity, which is supported by the subgroup analysis. The assessment of efficacy may have been influenced by variations in study quality, potentially amplifying the observed effects. RCTs with larger sample sizes and improved methodological quality are needed to enhance the validity of the findings.