Evidence Details for Zusanli
PMID Title Journal Year Abstract
28051128 Electroacupuncture treatment partly promotes the recovery time of postoperative ileus by activating the vagus nerve but not regulating local inflammation. Sci Rep. 2017 Jan 4;7:39801. doi: 10.1038/srep39801. 2017 Jan 4 Postoperative ileus (POI) after abdominal surgery significantly lowers the life quality of patients and increase hospital costs. However, few treatment strategies have successfully shortened the duration of POI. Electroacupuncture (EA) is a modern way of administering acupuncture and widely used in various gastrointestinal (GI) diseases in the world. Here, we studied the effect of EA on POI and its underlying mechanisms. Intestinal manipulation resulted in significant delays of GI transit, colonic transit and gastric emptying. Surgery also up-regulated c-fos in nucleus of the solitary tract (NTS) and induced inflammation response in the small intestine. Further, operation and inhale anesthesia inhibited NTS neuron excitation duration for the whole observation time. EA administered at ST36 indeed shortened the recovery time of GI and colonic transit, and significantly increased the gastric emptying. EA also significantly activated the NTS neurons after operation. However, there was no anti-inflammation effect of EA during the whole experiment. Finally, atropine blocked the regulatory effect of EA on GI function, when it was injected after surgery, but not before surgery. Thus, the regulatory effect of EA on POI was mainly mediated by exciting NTS neurons to improve the GI tract transit function but not by activating cholinergic anti-inflammatory pathway."

Evidence Sentence: Four stainless steel acupuncture needles 0.25 mm in diameter were inserted at a depth of 5 mm into the bilateral “Zusanli” (ST36, between the tibia and fibula 5 mm below the knee) acupoints and reference points (1 cm below ST 36).