title: [Survey of clinical and experimental researches on mechanisms of acupuncture treatment of bronchial asthma].
abstract: In the present paper, the authors review the development of experimental and clinical studies on acupuncture treatment of bronchial asthma in recent 10 years. Regarding clinical studies, results showed that acupuncture could (1) regulate cardiac-pulmonary function; and (2) adjust immune state and relieve inflammatory reactions in bronchial asthma patients. Animal experiments showed that acupuncture could function in (1) improving pulmonary function; (2) reducing accumulation of the peripheral eosinophile granulocytes (EOS), relieving the infiltration of inflammatory cells in the air-passage mucosa and promoting the apoptosis of EOS in the lung and air-passages; (3) down-regulating the expression of air-passage remodeling-related protein insulin growth factor-1; (4) suppressing the secretion of tumor necrosis factor and endothelin; (5) attenuating allergic reaction; (6) regulating neuroendocrine activity; and (7) modulating intracellular second messenger activities. However, rigorous clinical study design is not enough, so that the reliability of the results is limited. In spite of many indicators of animal experiments have been selected, but their correlations are not in close association, resulting in poor complementation and mutual identification of the acquired findings. For this reason, its clinical efficacies need to be researched further according to principles of evidence-based medicine.
authors.affiliation: Department of Acu-moxibustion, Dongzhimen Hospital Affiliated to Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, Beijing 100007, China. tancheng206@126.com
authors.forename: Cheng
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Tan
authors.forename: Ji-ping
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.forename: Chang
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Zhang
mesh_terms: D015670:Acupuncture Therapy; D056151:Airway Remodeling; D000818:Animals; D001249:Asthma / Q000276:immunology / Q000628:therapy*; D000242:Cyclic AMP / Q000502:physiology; D004804:Eosinophils / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D009569:Nitric Oxide / Q000502:physiology
chemical_list: D009569:Nitric Oxide; D000242:Cyclic AMP