Acupuncture exerts its anti-inflammatory effects partly thru stimulation of the vagus nerve

Although acupuncture has been around for thousands of years and has shown to be an effective form of treatment for a number of ailments other than pain, its mode of action is mostly unknown.  I tell patients that the needles help to open up the meridian and restore the correct flow of qi to the organs.  Qi is a vital life force, and as it is restored, the thinking and evidence goes, the body starts to heal.

 

Acupuncture is a really sophisticated and complex form of medicine.  Studies have shown that acupuncture can regulates steroid hormones to reduce effects of stress, and that these hormones are regulated differently depending on the area that is measured:  some areas are up regulated while others are down regulated as the same molecule such as the stress hormone cortisol has different effects on different organs.

My ebook, “Immunological correlates of Acupuncture“, available to download on this site, looks at the biochemical changes that occur due to stimulation of a number of points known to help with immune function and known to have anti-inflammatory properties.  Other correlates were looked at in this study.  Autonomic nervous system (ANS) is thought to be a mediator of acupuncture’s effects as it connects external somatosensory inputs with internal organ responses thru its extensive neural networks.

To study the role of the vagus nerve in mediating acupunctures, they first obtained baseline controls.  LPS or lipopolysaccharide is a component of the cell wall of bacteria and is commonly used in the labs around the world to induce tumor necrosis factor (TNF-a), an inflammatory molecule, when injected into an animal.  Researchers looked at this inflammatory marker in the blood of control non-LPS injected mice (negative controls), with LPS (positive controls) , and with LPS and acupuncture, and found that acupuncture stimulation at certain points will cause the TNF-a levels to return to normal after its induction with LPS.  Then they cut the vagus nerve to see what happens.  LPS and acupuncture group now showed the same level of TNF-a production as the non acupuncture stimulated LPS injected animals.  Based on this they surmised that acupunctures anti-inflammatory effects are mediated thru the autonomic nervous system by the vagus nerve, which innervates many organs.