Effectiveness and safety of acupuncture combined with hot compress in the treatment of obese adolescents with insulin resistance: A protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis

In recent years, the incidence of obesity patients has become younger and younger, and adolescents are gradually becoming one of the groups with a high incidence of obesity. Although several systematic reviews and clinical trials suggest that acupuncture and warm compresses may be effective in the treatment of obesity, the effectiveness and safety of acupuncture combined with warm compresses in the treatment of obesity insulin resistance (IR) in adolescents have not been systematically reviewed. METHODS: The search language of this study is Chinese and English, and the data of Medline, PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Web of Science, China Biomedical Literature Database, Central Controlled Trial Registration Center, and China Scientific Journal Database were searched for this study respectively, from the date of creation of the above data to December 2022. Randomized controlled trials of acupuncture combined with warm compresses in adolescents with obese IR were included in this review. Main outcome measures were body mass index, waist circumference, hip circumference, waist-hip ratio, fasting blood glucose, glycosylated hemoglobin, IR index, body fat content, blood lipid level and blood pressure, etc. In addition, we manually retrieved other resources, including reference lists of identified publications, conference articles and gray literature. RESULTS: This study will provide more clinical treatment ideas and options for adolescent obese IR patients. CONCLUSION: The purpose of this study is to summarize and evaluate the efficacy and safety of acupuncture combined with hot compress in treating obesity IR in adolescents from clinical trials.