How Acupuncture Can Help with Ulcerative Colitis
Acupuncture offers several potential benefits to ulcerative colitis patients, including:
Reduced inflammation
Better gut-brain axis regulation
Reduced intestinal permeability
Improved anxiety and depression symptoms
Helping with UC drug tolerance
Here’s a closer look at how acupuncture can serve as a viable adjunct therapy to help mitigate UC symptoms and improve quality of life for patients
Acupuncture Improves Inflammatory Markers in UC Patients
Many of acupuncture’s effects on the body are system wide. For example, research shows that acupuncture can reduce the presence of inflammatory markers, including cytokines generated by the immune system. Others include tumor necrosis factor alpha and interleukin 12.
A 2020 animal study published in Nature confirmed that acupuncture treatment could downregulate inflammation. In the study, researchers targeted various acupuncture points while noting how each subject responded to an induced cytokine storm. The research team found acupuncture points that reduced the presence of these markers, suggesting the practice could mitigate the disease-related impact of inflammation, including the inflammation partly responsible for inflammatory bowel disease.
Acupuncture Can Modulate Communication Between the Brain and Enteric Nervous System
Acupuncture’s most immediate effect is stimulating the nervous system, as treatment innervates local and distal nerves. In effect, acupuncturists have a direct pathway to the patient’s nervous system.
Acupuncture’s effects on the nervous system have been well studied and these studies consistently arrive at the same conclusion – acupuncture can be used to maintain homeostasis between the brain and other organs. This includes the enteric nervous system, or the “gut brain” located in GI organs. There is strong evidence that acupuncture stimulates the vagal nerve, which is connected to the enteric nervous system and is responsible for regulating some GI processes.
In patients with inflammatory bowel diseases, dysfunctional communication on the gut-brain axis is believed to worsen UC and other inflammatory GI conditions.
By facilitating better nerve signaling between the gut and brain, acupuncture may reduce the impact of some UC symptoms, such as abdominal pain.
Acupuncture Can Protect the Intestinal Barrier
A major characteristic of ulcerative colitis is damage or changes to the intestinal barrier. In UC patients, this damage may extend through the epithelial, vascular and mucosal layers, resulting in increased intestinal permeability.
Increased intestinal permeability may allow the gut’s microbiota, or lumen, to interact with intestinal tissues in a way that triggers inflammation and lesions.
Acupuncture treatment, though, may fortify the intestinal barrier through a series of complex molecular pathways. For example, a 2023 study published in Scientific Reports found that electroacupuncture used with certain acupuncture points (ST36 most importantly) could do the following:
- Improve intestinal and colonic lesions
- Enhance the intestinal mucosal layer
- Fortify junctions (or connections) between epithelial cells
- Boost mesenteric blood flow
Together, these effects may decrease intestinal permeability by improving the way critical tissues – mucosal, vascular and epithelial – maintain a balanced gut environment.
In addition, studies show that acupuncture therapies may improve the gut’s microbiota, or “good bacteria.” A 2023 study published in Frontiers in Pharmacology demonstrated this. In this study, the research team considered 80 patients with functional constipation and used rRNA sequencing to analyze gut flora before and after acupuncture treatment.
The researchers found that, following acupuncture, patients had more diverse microflora. Further, patients had a higher proportion of beneficial bacteria like g_Lactobacillus and a lower proportion of pathogenic bacteria like g_Pseudomonas. By improving the ratio of healthy gut bacteria to pathogenic bacteria, acupuncture may improve communication between gut and brain, and boost the gut’s ability to resist pathogenic inflammation.
Acupuncture Can Soothe Anxiety and Depression
Acupuncture has been used in Chinese medicine for centuries to treat the symptoms of anxiety and depression. As stress can worsen inflammatory bowel diseases like Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, it is important for patients to keep inflammation in check. That’s difficult, as the IBD patient population experiences anxiety and depression at a much higher rate, with up to 30 percent of patients have one or both diagnoses.
Acupuncture therapy is a known stress reliever. Multiple studies have shown that acupuncture needles stimulate the release of endorphins into the blood, which are the body’s feel-good chemicals that reduce pain, improve overall well-being, and reduce the stress response. Treatment also stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system, the part of the nervous system responsible for triggering the relaxation response.
In addition to its physiological effects, the treatment process itself is calming. Acupuncture is typically administered in a quiet room. The practitioner handles each needle with care and the patient is given time to rest while the needles work. For many UC patients, every acupuncture session is a chance to recharge and destress, an anti-stress edge that can help patients maintain a healthy mindset relative to their condition.
Acupuncture Can Also Reduce the Impact of Medication Side Effects
Western medications for ulcerative colitis can be effective in many patients, but they are also associated with some uncomfortable side effects, including:
- Headaches
- Nausea
- Diarrhea
- Joint pain
- Rash
- Fever
Those are the most common side effects, but some drug classes like corticosteroids can cause a variety of serious side effects such as high blood pressure, seizures, liver inflammation, hepatitis and more.
For some patients, the adverse effects associated with UC drugs can make treatment compliance a challenge. However, acupuncture can help these patients remain on their regimen by minimizing the discomfort, pain, and GI symptoms that may accompany certain UC drugs. In this way, acupuncture can serve in an adjunct role for patients already on western medication.
Acupuncture is Becoming a Top Support Therapy for Ulcerative Colitis
Acupuncture treatments are generally well tolerated by most people and can provide several health benefits – for ulcerative colitis patients and many others.
To get optimal results, though, it’s highly recommended that patients work with an experienced acupuncturist who is also board certified in Western medicine. If your practitioner is certified in both Western and Chinese medicine, they will be able to provide a wider range of treatment options for your ulcerative colitis. They’ll also be able to combine those treatments for optimal results.