Electroacupuncture improved diabetic stomach paralysis by activating a nerve pathway from a leg acupuncture point through the spinal cord and brainstem to the vagus nerve.
Researchers created diabetic stomach paralysis in rats using a diabetes-inducing injection followed by a high-sugar, high-fat diet. They applied electroacupuncture at a leg acupuncture point and compared its effects with medicines that enhanced or blocked acetylcholine-producing activity, as well as surgical interruption of the vagus nerve below the diaphragm. They assessed body weight, blood glucose, stomach emptying, stomach electrical rhythms, imaging-based gastric movement, tissue structure, signalling proteins, and gastrointestinal hormones across the acupuncture-point region, lower spinal cord, brainstem, and stomach.
Electroacupuncture improved stomach emptying, normalized stomach electrical activity, reduced inflammation in stomach muscle, and restored proteins associated with smooth muscle function and gastric pacemaker cells. The treatment activated acetylcholine-related signalling at the stimulation site, lower spinal cord, and brainstem, which altered digestive hormone regulation and supported vagus-nerve signalling to the stomach. Cutting the vagus nerve removed these benefits, indicating that the vagus nerve is essential for the treatment’s restoration of stomach motility.
