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 Leptin, Weight Loss, and Acupuncture
By Dr. Li Zheng
Leptin is derived from the Greek word 'leptos' meaning thin. Leptin is one
of the key hormones involved in hunger, metabolism, and how fats and
carbohydrates get stored and utilized. Leptin tells your hypothalamus that
you have eaten enough and need to start burning fat. The hypothalamus is
the control center of the brain for fullness and fat storage. The rate of
production of leptin directly correlates with weight loss or weight gain.
Women have significantly higher circulating leptin than men.
Leptin resistance is very similar to insulin resistance. With insulin
resistance, chronic elevated levels of insulin make your muscle and fat
cells more resistant to the action of insulin. Chronic elevated leptin
levels decreases the hypothalamus sensitivity to leptin. If your body
produces too much fat by chronically drinking soda and/or eating too much
ice cream, the long term elevated leptin will desensitize your
hypothalamus. As a result, your hypothalamus will not respond to
leptin signaling and you tend to eat too much.
The following two scientific research studies show that s acupuncture has a
bi-directional adjustment of leptin levels. The first one shows that if
rats gained weight within a short period of time before they develop
resistance to leptin, acupuncture can help increase leptin and its
receptor levels to suppress food intake and burn more fat. The second experiment shows that if obese people have already developed leptin
resistance due to chronic high levels of leptin, acupuncture can help
lower leptin levels and make the hypothalamus more sensitive to leptin stimulation, which may be associated with resensitizing leptin receptors.
Scientist Bai CY, et al. observed the effects of electroacupuncture (EA) on
leptin and leptin receptor mRNA expression in the hypothalamus of rats with
nonalcoholic fatty livers in 2010. Male rats were randomly divided into a
control group, a model group, and an electrical stimulation group. The model
group was established by feeding the animals with a high fat diet for 8
weeks. Electrical stimulation was applied to unilateral ST 40 and ST 36,
once daily for 4 weeks. After the treatments, the serum triglycerides and total cholesterol levels increased significantly in the model group. While serum triglyceride and total
cholesterol levels in electrical acupuncture group were reduced
considerably. Electrical stimulation can lower serum triglyceride and total
cholesterol levels in rats with fatty liver, which is closely related to
its effects in up-regulating the expression of hypothalamic leptin and
leptin receptor mRNA. This may explain how the increased leptin and leptin
receptor levels can help rats lose unhealthy fat induced artificially.
Luo HL and Li RH did human research to show how electrical acupuncture can
optimize the level of leptin and help humans lose weight. Sixty simple
obesity patients with elevated leptin levels were randomly divided into a
control, manual acupuncture, and electrical acupuncture groups with 20 cases
in each group. Liangqiu (ST 34), Xuehai (SP 10), Gongsun (SP 4), Neiting
(ST 44), Tianshu (ST 25) and Fujie (SP 14) were punctured respectively once
every other day for 27 times altogether. After the treatment, 5.0%, 85.0%
and 95.0% of the control, manual and electrical acupuncture groups
respectively lost weight. The therapeutic effects of both manual and
electrical acupuncture groups were significantly higher than that of
control group. Furthermore, serum leptin levels in both manual and
electrical groups decreased significantly and the effects on the electrical
acupuncture groups were markedly better than those of manual acupuncture
and control groups. No significant changes were found in leptin levels in
the control group. Both electrical acupuncture and manual acupuncture can
effectively lower blood leptin levels in simple obesity patients by
resensitizing the hypothalamus, contributing to reduced food intake and
increased metabolism. The effect of electrical acupuncture is significantly
superior to that of manual acupuncture in the treatment of simple obesity.
Dr. Li Zheng
Graduate of Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, Ph.D. in neuroscience
at the Medical College of Ohio. Professor and clinical supervisor of New
England School of Acupuncture. Researcher in the Dept. of Anesthesia in
Massachusetts General Hospital. Website: www.acumagic.org.
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