Acupuncture and regulation of gastrointestinal function

Table 1 Effect of acupuncture on gastric and colonic motility

Organ	Subjects	Methods	Findings	Ref.
Stomach	Normal mice	EA at ST-36	ST-36-gastric motility ↑	[48]
		EA at CV-12	CV-12-gastric motility ↓
	Rats with gastric mucosal damage	EA at acupoints in	Gastric motility ↑	[22]
		Foot-Yangming Meridian
	Normal mice	EA at CV-12	Gastric motility ↓	[29]
	Normal rats	EA at ST-36	Gastric motility ↑	[30]
	Dogs with impaired gastric motility induced by RD	EA at ST-36	Gastric motility ↑	[18]
	Healthy human	Manual acupuncture at	Normogastria ↓	[32]
		both PC-6 and ST-36	Bradygastria ↑
Colon	Conscious dogs	Manual acupuncture at acupoints in large intestine meridian or ST-25, BL-25, GV-1	Only GV-1-colonic motility ↓	[37]
	Conscious rats	EA at ST-36	Colonic motility ↑	[50]
	Rats with stress	EA at ST-36	Colonic motility ↓	[35]

↑, increase; ↓, decrease. EA: Electro-acupuncture; ST-36: Zusanli; CV-12: Zhongwan; PC-6: Neiguan; RD: Rectal distension; GV-1: Changqiang; ST-25: Tianshu; BL-25: Dachangshu.