• Tingwei Quan, Qi Su, Yu Luo, Xin Su, Qiuxuan Chen, Jingjun Yang, and Hongzhen Tang.
• Department of Acupuncture and Tuina, Guangxi University of Chinese Medicine, Nanning, Guangxi Province, China.
• Medicine (Baltimore). 2023 Oct 6; 102 (40): e34943e34943.

BackgroundAlthough increasing evidence has revealed the efficacy of acupuncture in obesity/overweight, actual improvement in metabolism in children and adolescents is unclear. Therefore, we conducted a meta-analysis to evaluate this correlation.MethodsA comprehensive search was conducted using multiple databases, including Medline, Cochrane, Embase, Web of Science, Chinese Biomedical Literature Database, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Chinese Scientific Journal Database, and Wan-fang Data, to identify relevant randomized controlled trials published before February 1, 2023. General information and data for the descriptive and quantitative analyses were extracted.ResultsFifteen randomized controlled trials of 1288 obese/overweight children and teenagers were included. All the trials were conducted in China and South Korea. Regarding quality assessment, no other significant risk of bias was found. The acupuncture groups were more likely to have improved metabolic indicators of obesity/overweight than the control groups, in terms of body mass index (standardized mean difference [SMD] = -0.45, 95% confidence interval [CI]: -0.69 to -0.21, I2 = 71.4%), body weight (SMD = -0.48, 95% CI: -0.92 to -0.05, I2 = 84.9%), and serum leptin (SMD = -0.34, 95% CI: -0.58 to -0.10, I2 = 91.8%). The subgroup analysis showed that for body mass index, the results were consistent regardless of the intervention duration, body acupuncture or auricular acupuncture combined with other interventions.ConclusionOur results suggest that acupuncture is effective in improving metabolic outcomes of obese/overweight children and adolescents. Owing to the limited number of trials included in this study, the results should be interpreted with caution.Copyright © 2023 the Author(s). Published by Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc.

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