Clinical Trials Prove Auricular Acupuncture Can Help People Lose Weight

What if you could melt away the pounds, burn fat, and lessen your BMI or body mass index by merely activating a few acupuncture points on your ear? According to a published study in the British Medical Journal, that process of losing weight is possible and that simple.

While people have been performing auricular acupuncture for thousands of years, this research is of certain interest due to the fact that scientists may have pinpointed the exact mechanisms for weight loss.

Healing with Auricular Acupuncture

Ear acupuncture or auricular acupuncture works by stimulating some of the pressure points on the auricle to treat certain mental and physical maladies. Being an alternative form of treatment, auricular acupuncture is frequently utilized to address more than a hundred fifty conditions including the problems of obesity, mood disorders, and pain. In resolving nicotine and smoking addictions, its rate of success is about 75 to 80 percent. It has a similar high chance of success when it comes to weight loss.

Sixty years ago, after discovering that the back pain of a patient got cured when his ear got burned accidentally, French doctor and acupuncturist Paul Nogier published a chart of auricular acupuncture points he named Nogier’s map. He also published an ear map of Traditional Chinese Medicine, which is still used today by modern acupressure practitioners and acupuncturists to activate pressure points in the outer ear. These healers use ear magnets, pellets, lasers, and manual stimulation to stimulate acupoints.

Your Auricle: A Great Way to Lose Weight

When it comes to losing weight, auricular acupuncture in Overland Park is clearly the way to go as gleaned by Korean researchers who proved whether constant stimulation of five acupoints was much better than constant stimulation of just one acupoint. They classified 90 obese individuals, who had a BMI of 24 and above into three groups:

Thirty of those individuals were given the Five-point treatment – This involved sticking acupuncture needles 2 mm deep into five points: the endocrine, hunger, stomach, spleen and shenmen points. For a week, the needles remained in the points using a surgical tape. A week after the same treatment was administered this time on the other ear which was continued alternately on each ear for eight weeks.

Thirty people were treated with the one-point therapy: one acupuncture needle was inserted in the hunger acupoint. The needle remained in place for a week and then relocated to the other ear a week after. Two weeks after treatment shifted to the other ear and so on and so forth for eight weeks.

Thirty people were treated with fake acupuncture: Upon insertion researchers removed immediately the needles while telling the subjects that the needles remained stuck in their ears with a surgical tape.

The subjects from each group followed a therapeutic diet and not a weight loss diet. During the eight weeks they were in treatment, they were advised to not do any exercise than normal.

At the onset, middle, and end phase of the trial, the subjects’ blood pressure, body fat, waist circumference, weight, and BMI were measured. Four weeks after, the outcomes were compelling and clear in favor of auricular acupuncture:

1. A 6.1 percent decrease in BMI for subjects given the Five -point treatment.

2. Subjects who were treated with the one-point therapy experienced a 5.7 percent decrease.

3. The group treated with sham acupuncture did not show a decrease in their weight, body fat, or BMI.

4. There was a decrease in body fat and waist circumference in the group given the Five-point treatment.

Regardless of type of treatment, the blood pressure of all the subjects remained the same.

At the end of the trial, the researchers stated: “In the short term, one-needle treatment at the hunger point and the five-needle acupuncture therapy widely used in clinics in Korea seemed to work well in lowering body weight.”

People can use auricular acupuncture without the need for needles. They can also heal themselves using just a gentle touch of their fingertips.