Can Acupuncture Help You Lose Weight?

If you’re OK with the whole needle thing, ear acupuncture could be a great way to slim down, according to a new Korean study published in the journal Acupuncture in Medicine.

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For this study, researchers wanted to not only test out the effectiveness of ear acupuncture in general in boosting weight loss, but also see which kind works best. They looked at two types of ear acupuncture: The first uses just one needle, which is placed in your ear's "hunger point"—the point linked to appetite. The other kind uses five needles, which are placed in five different key points of your ear: one called the Shen Men, as well as those that are thought to be linked to the stomach, spleen, endocrine, and hunger.

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Researchers looked at 91 overweight Koreans, giving some the “five point” treatment and others the “single point” treatment. Then, all participants were asked to keep a restricted diet and not do any additional exercise.

After four weeks, those in the five-point group showed a 6.1 percent reduction in BMI, while the one-point group showed a 5.7 percent reduction. So it looks like both methods may help boost weight-loss efforts—but that the five-needle technique may be slightly better if you’re interested in trying the technique.

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