Syndrome Differentiation and Treatment Regularity in Traditional Chinese Medicine for Type 2 Diabetes: A Text Mining Analysis

ObjectiveThe goal of this study was to systematically summarize and categorize the syndrome differentiation, medication rules, and acupoint therapy in the domestic traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) literature on type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), such that guidelines and new insights can be provided for future practitioners and researchers.MethodsTaking randomized controlled trials (RCTs) on the treatment of T2DM in TCM as the research theme, we searched for full-text literature in three major clinical databases, including CNKI, Wan Fang, and VIP, published between 1990 and 2020. We then conducted frequency statistics, cluster analysis, association rules extraction, and topic modeling based on a corpus of medical academic words extracted from 3,654 research articles.ResultsThe TCM syndrome types, subjective symptoms, objective indicators, Chinese herbal medicine, acupuncture points, and TCM prescriptions for T2DM were compiled based on invigorating the kidney and Qi, nourishing Yin, and strengthening the spleen. Most TCM syndrome differentiation for T2DM was identified as “Zhongxiao” (the lesion in the spleen and stomach) and “Xiaxiao” (the lesion in the kidney) deficiency syndromes, and most medications and acupoint therapies were focused on the “Spleen Channel” and “Kidney Channel.” However, stagnation of liver Qi was mentioned less when compared with other syndromes, which did not have symptomatic medicines.ConclusionThis study provides an in-depth perspective for the TCM syndrome differentiation, medication rules, and acupoint therapy for T2DM and provides practitioners and researchers with valuable information about the current status and frontier trends of TCM research on T2DM in terms of both diagnosis and treatment.

Improvement in impaired ocular accommodation by parietal acupoint therapy to relieve neck stiffness: a case report

ObjectivesNeck stiffness could lead to impaired ocular accommodation. We report two cases that visual function was improved by relieving neck stiffness.Case presentation(Case 1) A 34-year-old female complained of neck stiffness and visual problems after computer work. She was treated by parietal acupoint therapy (PAPT), which is a new scalp micro-acupuncture system. The evaluation of accommodative micro-fluctuations (the Fk-map) showed that increased bilateral ciliary muscle tension in the middle to near distance was relieved bilaterally, accompanied by relief of neck stiffness after treatment. (Case 2) A 43-year-old female complained of a visual problem with pressure pain on the bilateral posterior cervical muscles. Performing with PAPT improved impaired ciliary muscle tension noticeably with relief of neck stiffness after treatment.ConclusionsThis is the first report on the improvement of impaired ocular accommodation with treating neck stiffness by using PAPT.

Acupoint Therapy on Diabetes Mellitus and Its Common Chronic Complications: A Review of Its Mechanisms

Acupoint therapy is one of the therapeutic means in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) concerning acupoints and meridians, including manual acupuncture, electroacupuncture, moxibustion, external application, acupoint injection, and catgut embedding. In the treatment of diabetes and its common chronic complications, acupoint therapy has proved to have specific curative effect and notable advantages. Single or combined with western medicine, it has superior efficacy and less side effects than western medicine alone. Studying its mechanism can provide experimental basis for clinical treatment. Relevant researches in the recent 5 years mainly focused on the mechanism of electroacupuncture, point injection, catgut embedding, etc. in the treatment of diabetes and common diabetic complications such as neuropathy, nephropathy, and hepatopathy. The possible theories involve the regulation of nerve conduction, signal pathways, hormone level, protein expression, oxidative stress level, structure restoration, etc. The most studied acupoints are Zusanli (ST36), Shenshu (BL23), Sanyinjiao (SP6), Yishu (EX-B3), and Zhongwan (CV12). However, most of the studies have been based on diabetes model rats rather than clinical trials. Moreover, the mechanism of acupoint therapy treating other chronic complications like diabetic retinopathy and that of other effective methods like pressing ear with beans, auricular points plaster therapy, and external application remain unclear. Therefore, this aspect still awaits further research.