Acupuncture for Adults with Diarrhea-Predominant Irritable Bowel Syndrome or Functional Diarrhea: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Jianbo Guo, Xiaoxiao Xing, Jiani Wu, Hui Zhang, Yongen Yun, Zongshi Qin, and Qingyong He · Neural Plasticity · 2020 November 23

DOI 10.1155/2020/8892184

Objective

To evaluate the clinical effectiveness and safety of acupuncture therapy in the treatment of diarrhea-predominant irritable bowel syndrome (IBS-D) or functional diarrhea (FD) in adults

Conclusions

Acupuncture treatment can improve the clinical effectiveness of IBS-D or FD, with great safety. It significantly reduces the pain levels, inflammations, and decreases the recurrence rate. It also reported that 60% of patients have stopped taking the medication due to improvements in symptoms. It has overall improved the quality of life for IBS patients.

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Insights

Acupuncture treatment can improve the clinical effectiveness of diarrhea-predominant irritable bowel syndrome or functional diarrhea.

In this systematic review and meta-analysis, the effectiveness and safety of 31 acupuncture concerned studies for patients with IBS-D or FD were evaluated. We found that acupuncture can significantly reduce the number of stools per week in IBS-D or FD patients, improve patients’ overall symptoms, improve the total effective rate, decrease the recurrence rate, and reduce the pain level of patients. Based on the results, we believe that acupuncture can improve the quality of life of patients with IBS-D or FD. Although the number of adverse events in the acupuncture group was similar to that in the control group, the majority of adverse events in the acupuncture group were subcutaneous hemorrhage. With such slight adverse events, we have observed that acceptance among patients has not been reduced. Moreover, the withdrawal rate of patients in the acupuncture group was still slightly lower than that in the control group.