Weight Loss & Acupuncture

Whether you are cutting calories for health reasons or to fit into a special dress, many patients at my clinics, Boston Chinese Acupuncture and Boca Raton Acupuncture Clinic, ask if acupuncture can help them lose weight on top of resolving their other medical conditions.  Over the years, I have developed 4 complimentary tools to help my patients lose weight and keep it off: weight loss acupuncture, ear needles, Chinese herbs, and nutritional advice.

Although researchers are still figuring out the specific mechanisms of acupuncture, ear needles, and Chinese herbs on weight loss, some preliminary results suggest that these treatments can increase metabolism and decrease your cravings for sweets. One study published in 2014 by a group of Chinese scientists found that electrical acupuncture can induce weight loss in rats potentially by increasing their level of norepinephrine, which helps you feel more energized. When people feel energized rather than lethargic, they tend not only to exercise more but also to eat less junk food.

Electrical acupuncture on the belly area

Furthermore, electrical acupuncture can increase muscle tone and tighten sagging skin.  Thus, after you have lost weight, your body will be firmer rather than having droopy, stretched out skin.  Increased muscle tone can also help your body burn the calories you consume more effectively, rather than converting the energy rapidly into fat to be stored.

In order to speed up the weight loss process and save you time and money, we sometimes combine traditional full body acupuncture with ear needles.  These tiny, intradermal needles are taped to the acupuncture points on your ear that reduce appetite and cravings.  Because they are left on continuously for several days until they fall out, ear needles can help amplify and lengthen the effect of acupuncture treatments.  They can also be used alone if time and money are an issue, although the effect will be slower than combining acupuncture with ear needles.



Of course, no magical treatment will work if your diet is not healthy.  Sometimes, we are not aware that some of our dietary habits can result in weight gain.  I help patients understand the effects of their dietary choices on their health and help them formulate plans to follow to ensure that the weight stays off after all their hard work.

To learn more about weight loss acupuncture in Boca Raton, FL, visit our website at http://bocaacupuncture.org.  For service in Boston, MA, please visit http://bostonchineseacupuncture.org.

Hypothalamus and Menopause Weight Gain

The hypothalamus contains several groups of nerve cells, which has the ability to impact emotions, regulate body temperature, and control thirst, the feeling of fullness and salt cravings (when sodium levels are too high within the body, the hypothalamus sends a signal to drink fluids). Body weight is controlled by the hypothalamus through modifying our metabolism. The activities of the hypothalamus are influenced by stress, light, steroids, insulin, pleasant food smells, and invading microorganisms. This explains why we tend to overeat when we are stressed out, when the daylight time becomes shortened and when we smell something good.
Hypothalamus Controls Appetite. When menopause comes, the imbalance of the estrogen, progesterone, GABA, serotonin and dopamine profoundly influences the neuronal activity of the hypothalamus, which can cause women to be more emotional, to crave for sweets and salty food, and to have insomnia, hot flushes and night sweats. Many women told me that they cannot stop eating even though they know they are not supposed to eat too much of a certain kind of food. In this scenario, if they eat the wrong kind of food such as cookies and ice cream or drink too much coffee, their stomachs will not receive the full sensation; they can keep eating until they damage the majority of their nerves and blood vessels. We have trillions of neurons and blood vessels; if we destroy 60% of them, our body can still compensate. Once the majority of the nerves and blood vessels are damaged, it is too late to change. When we consume sugary stuff, our rewarding center lightens up, our body releases a lot of dopamine and we feel happier for a moment. The problem is that our body's function is not improved by eating junk food. We have to continue eating those rewarding foods to maintain our happiness. If we use healthy ways, such as physical exercise, taking herbs or having acupuncture treatments to produce more dopamine, we have to make an effort to initiate them. On the other hand, if we just put a piece of chocolate into our mouth, we do not need a strong will to do that, but our blood vessels and nerves are going to be damaged without our seeing them until one day our brain cannot remember our family member's name and the dementia becomes irreversible. The simple sugar is even worse than alcohol or tobacco because you can eat the sugar any time with any amount without getting drunk or being punished. On the other hand you can only drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes at certain times and places. A positive side is that when people eat sugary stuff, they become more friendly and sociable at the moment. Why can most men eat one piece of chocolate, then stop, while women have to eat ten pieces? Because women's estrogen levels fluctuate each month from 10 to 100 while men do not have these big hormone changes unless they are alcoholics or drug addicts.