ReviewDiabetology & metabolic syndrome2025
Evidence mapping the role of acupuncture in diabetes-related obesity: A systematic review and quality assessment.
Review in Diabetology & metabolic syndrome, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Electroacupuncture enables semaglutide dose sparing in type 2 diabetes by boosting drug concentration and suppressing β-cell apoptosis.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2026Article
- Effectiveness and safety of acupoint catgut embedding for patients with mild psoriasis and overweight: study protocol of a multicenter double-blind randomized controlled trial.Frontiers in medicine · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundAcupuncture and moxibustion have played a greater role in the treatment of diabetes-related obesity. We used evidence map to analyze the current status of clinical research on acupuncture intervention for diabetes-related obesity and reveal the characteristics of evidence distribution and research problems in this field.
methodsWe searched seven databases from the establishment of the library to December 2024. The clinical literature, including randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and non-RCTs, on acupuncture for the treatment of diabetes-related obesity was included, and the basic information and characteristics of the clinical research were extracted. A descriptive analysis was made of the frequency of the information included, while the quality of the articles was evaluated.
results104 papers were included, 100 in Chinese and 4 in English. The overall trend of the number of publications was upward, reaching a peak in 2014. The patients were predominantly type 2 diabetes mellitus combined with overweight or obesity. The most commonly used intervention was manual acupuncture, and the high-frequency acupoints included Zhongwan (RN12) (n = 69), Tianshu (ST25) (n = 54), Zusanli (ST36) (n = 64). Outcome indicators focused on fasting blood glucose (FBG) (n = 86), Body Mass Index (BMI) (n = 71), Triglycerides (TG) (n = 58). The methodology of the included literature and the overall results of the report evaluation are low due to the lack of blinding and the incomplete content of the detailed report.
conclusionsAcupuncture may demonstrate potential in the treatment of diabetes-related obesity; however, the existing clinical evidence is mainly from China and is limited by low methodological and reporting quality. There is an urgent need to conduct more high-quality, large-sample randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in the future and to strictly follow the clinical trial reporting norms in order to provide more reliable basis for evidence-based medicine.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.