Sex differences in acupuncture effectiveness in animal models of Parkinson's disease: a systematic review.
BACKGROUND
Many animal experimental studies have been performed to investigate the efficacy of acupuncture in Parkinson's disease (PD). Sex differences are a major issue in all diseases including PD. However, to our knowledge, there have been no reviews investigating sex differences on the effectiveness of acupuncture treatment for animal PD models. The current study aimed to summarize and analyze past studies in order to evaluate these possible differences.


METHODS
Each of 7 databases (MEDLINE, EMBASE, the Cochrane Library, 3 Korean medical databases, and the China National Knowledge Infrastructure) was searched from its inception through March 2015 without language restrictions.


RESULTS
We included studies of the use of acupuncture treatment in animal models of PD. A total of 810 potentially relevant articles were identified, 57 of which met our inclusion criteria. C57/BL6 mice were used most frequently (42 %) in animal PD models. Most of the studies were carried out using only male animals (67 %); only 1 study (2 %) was performed using solely females. The further 31 % of the studies used a male/female mix or did not specify the sex.


CONCLUSIONS
The results of our review suggest that acupuncture is an effective treatment for animal PD models, but there is insufficient evidence to determine whether sex differences exist. Future studies of acupuncture treatment for PD should use female animal models because they reflect the physiological characteristics of both males and females to fully evaluate the effect and the safety of the treatment for each sex.
Department of Applied Korean Medicine, Graduate School, Kyung Hee University, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
Sook-Hyun
SH
Lee
Research Group of Pain and Neuroscience, WHO Collaborating Center for Traditional Medicine, East-west Medical Research Institute, Kyung Hee University, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
Maurits
M
van den Noort
Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University, 6525 HR, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Peggy
P
Bosch
Department of Applied Korean Medicine, Graduate School, Kyung Hee University, Seoul, Republic of Korea. lims@khu.ac.kr.|Research Group of Pain and Neuroscience, WHO Collaborating Center for Traditional Medicine, East-west Medical Research Institute, Kyung Hee University, Seoul, Republic of Korea. lims@khu.ac.kr.|Department of Meridian & Acupoint, College of Korean Medicine, Kyung Hee University, 26 Kyungheedae-ro, Dongdaemun-gu, Seoul, 130-70102447, Republic of Korea. lims@khu.ac.kr.
Sabina
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0509-6681
S
Lim
D015670:Acupuncture Therapy; D000818:Animals; D016208:Databases, Factual; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D005260:Female; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL; D010300:Parkinson Disease / Q000628:therapy*; D051381:Rats; D012737:Sex Factors; D016896:Treatment Outcome
Acupuncture point; Bee-venom acupuncture; C57/BL6; Electro-acupuncture; Manual acupuncture