Acupuncture helps ease polycystic ovary symptoms

Acupuncture can help ease symptoms in women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), a difficult-to-treat hormonal condition affecting about one in 10 women of childbearing age.

Women with PCOS have high levels of testosterone and other male hormones, cysts on their ovaries, irregular menstruation, and fertility problems, along with symptoms like excessive facial and body hair and acne. At present, PCOS treatments are focused on symptoms, and frequently involve hormones.

Researchers from Sweden based their study on the fact that polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is associated with high muscle sympathetic nerve activity. To explore whether reducing this activity, which has been linked to heart disease and a diabetes-like condition that is seen in women with PCOS, would help their symptoms or not, the researchers assigned 20 women with PCOS to receive acupuncture for 16 weeks; to do activity that would bring their pulse up to 120 beats per minute for 30 to 45 minutes, at least 3 days a week, for 16 weeks; or to a control group that received information on healthy diet and exercise but weren't instructed to change their habits.

Women in the acupuncture group received 14 treatments in all, with needles inserted at points in their abdomen and the back of their knees that delivered a low-frequency electrical charge.

After 16 weeks, sympathetic nervous system activity in the muscles was significantly lower in the acupuncture and the exercise groups compared to the control group. The exercisers lost weight, but the acupuncture group did not.

However, the acupuncture group did see a reduction in their waist size that didn't occur among the exercisers. The women who received acupuncture also had a reduction in menstrual irregularities and a drop in their testosterone levels, neither of which was seen in the exercise group.

The above findings indicate acupuncture as an effective and easy mode of treatment for women suffering from PCOS.