How Acupuncture and Moxibustion Can Help People With Enlarged Prostate

Benign prostatic hyperplasia occurs to 50% of men over the age of 50 years old. Now with the high stress and unhealthy diet, the prostate enlargement influence men even in their forties. The urinary urgency and retention make men get up more than 2 times to go to the bathroom at night. The interrupted sleep can lead to depression, early onset of dementia, insomnia, and erectile dysfunction. Acupuncture and moxibustion have been used in China for 5 thousand years to help men strengthen their kidney and bladder function. The following study compared acupuncture along and acupuncture plus moxibustion in treating benign prostate hyperplasia.

Also Read: Prostate Enlargement Research

Dr. Pen YY et al. recruited 200 patients with benign prostate enlargement. They were randomized into acupuncture only group and acupuncture plus moxibustion groups. Each group has 100 cases. Acupuncture stimulation was applied on UB54 with triple filiform needles. The other main acupuncture points such as Pang-Shuidao (ST 28, one can beside ST 28), Pang-Guilai (ST 29, one can beside ST 29), Shenshu (BL 23), Sanyinjiao (SP 6), Guanyuan (CV 4), Zhongji (CV3), and some supplemented acupuncture points selected according to each person’s individual symptoms, were stimulated with filiform needles. The acupuncture plus moxibustion group was also treated with bird-pecking moxibustion on UB54 and moxa stick-segments attached to needles for other acupuncture points. Two groups were treated for 30 min 3 times a week. Patients were evaluated before and after the treatment. International Prostate Symptom Score of the two groups was significantly decreased compared with pre-treatment in the same group (P<0.01). Acupuncture alone group had 23% and acupuncture with moxibustion had 42% of patients achieving remarkable improvement of the urinary problems; Interestingly 26% of acupuncture group has no improvement whiles only 11% of acupuncture plus moxibustion group has not the improvement of the urination symptoms. The effective rates were 74% for acupuncture only group and 89% for acupuncture plus moxibustion.

In conclusion, if the acupuncturist can teach the patients to do moxibustion at home every day and get acupuncture treatment twice or three times a week for 12 to 24 weeks. The effective rate for treating prostate enlargement related symptoms is much higher than just getting acupuncture treatment once a week. Furthermore, patients can achieve the stronger erection and deeper sleep when all the urination problems are gone.