Acupuncture and Weight Loss: How Chinese Medicine Helps the Overweight and Obese

Chinese Medicine considers obesity as a physiological and/or pathological disorder due to the imbalance of Yin and Yang function in the body. An understanding of yin and yang energy balance must be considered.

In the case of obesity, it is an excess of yin energy (energy intake in terms of excess high caloric food) which overpowers the yang (energy expenditure through activity or movement). Once the yang energy becomes weak, digestion and metabolism are compromised due to lack of yang energy.

Here the yin is important in nourishing the yang, but excess intake of yin energy upsets the yin-yang ratio that is needed to maintain stable weight. This disruption leads to excess weight being put on.

Fatty food or food in high sugar content is not the only cause for obesity. A lack of exercise, impaired metabolism or emotional factors can also be the cause of your obesity.

Excess yin energy that is unused is automatically stored and converted into fat in the body. Initially, excessive fat tissue is a state called "dampness retention" . Long term retention of this dampness can easily turn into a new complex state of "dampness and internal heat". This further impairs metabolism and causes inflammation. Excess yin energy can also transform into a state of "accumulated phlegm".

The acupuncturist or Chinese medicine doctor seeks to restore the balance of yin and yang. A complete and thorough investigation of your physical, emotional and mental state should be conducted; then a prescription is given to reflect the most appropriate single or combination therapy for you. Rarely would the same treatment be repeated for another patient.

A holistic medicine that involves a complete system of medicine, Chinese Medicine is very much an “individual’s” medicine. With us, treatment of weight loss includes acupuncture, herbs, and food therapy, breathing exercises, musculo-skeletal exercises and meditation such as Chi Kung (Qi Gong). These therapies can be performed singularly or in concert with one another.

My clinical experience with acupuncture and weight loss is this: obesity is not the only result of dietary disorders, but many other disorders resulting from obesity act as a catalyst to the promotion of obesity itself.

With dietary disorders, an undesirable positive feed-back mechanism begins. This creates an increase in the incidence of obesity as well as an increase in dietary disorders. For example, the TCM pathological condition of “excess phlegm” the substance that results from dietary disorders such as excess fried and greasy foods, accumulates in the body when excessive amounts of greasy and fried foods are consumed.

Dampness retention and Accumulated phlegm, in my experience, are the leading diagnoses. They can both lead to fire in the Stomach, a pattern in TCM which is manifested through the symptom of unsatisfied hunger. This in turn leads to increased obesity.

Now keep in mind that dampness and phlegm are not the only pathologies in acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine for weight loss and obesity. A TCM doctor will need to do a full diagnosis and assessment of your health before treatment can begin.

If you would like to start a course of treatment, please telephone our clinic on 9796 2388 or email us through this contact-us form

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Dr Pier Tsui-Po Acupuncture and Chinese Herbal Medicine Clinic
Berwick Specialist Suites,
Level 1, Suite 8, 50 Kangan Drive, Berwick 3806,
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Telephone: 9796 2388