Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Jul 21, 2015; 21(27): 8304-8313
Published online Jul 21, 2015. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v21.i27.8304
Acupuncture and regulation of gastrointestinal function
Hui Li, Tian He, Qian Xu, Zhe Li, Yan Liu, Fang Li, Bo-Feng Yang, Cun-Zhi Liu
Hui Li, Tian He, Qian Xu, Zhe Li, Cun-Zhi Liu, Acupuncture and Moxibustion Department, Beijing Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine Affiliated to Capital Medical University, Beijing 100010, China
Hui Li, Yan Liu, Fang Li, Bo-Feng Yang, Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Tianjin 300193, China
Author contributions: Li H wrote the initial draft and revised the manuscript; He T and Xu Q revised the initial manuscript; Li Z, Liu Y and Yang BF conducted the literature review; Li F edited the language; Liu CZ contributed to the overall focus and content and helped revise the paper; all authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 81222050 and No. 81303122; Beijing Natural Science Foundation, No. 7144215; Beijing Municipal Administration of Hospitals Clinical Medicine Development of Special Funding Support, No. ZYLX201412; financially supported by 973 Program under Grant, No. 2014CB543203.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All authors have no conflict of interest related to the manuscript.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Dr. Cun-Zhi Liu, Acupuncture and Moxibustion Department, Beijing Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine Affiliated to Capital Medical University, No. 23 Meishuguanhou Street, Dongcheng District, Beijing 100010, China. lcz623780@126.com
Telephone: +86-10-52176043 Fax: +86-10-52176813
Received: January 14, 2015
Peer-review started: January 16, 2015
First decision: March 10, 2015
Revised: March 26, 2015
Accepted: May 4, 2015
Article in press: May 4, 2015
Published online: July 21, 2015
Processing time: 188 Days and 16.5 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: Acupuncture has been used as an appropriate adjunctive treatment for gastrointestinal (GI) dysfunction diseases. However, the therapeutic effects and underlying mechanisms in treating GI dysfunction have not yet been established due to a lack of systematic and comprehensive review articles. This review clarifies the effects and underlying mechanisms of acupuncture on GI function from various perspectives including GI motility, visceral sensitivity, the GI barrier, and the brain-gut axis. In addition, the dual regulatory effects and the intensity-dependent nature of acupuncture on GI motility are discussed.