Experimental Study on Mild Moxibustion for the Treatment of Osteoporosis in Aged Rats

Abstract

Objective: To study the therapeutic effect of mild moxibustion on aged rats with osteoporosis. Methods: Forty Wistar rats were randomly divided into four groups: moxibustion group, estrogen group, model group and blank group, and make the models of rats’ osteoporosis. Moxibustion group and estrogen group were treated with mild moxibustion and estrogen respectively. After four weeks, serum alkaline phosphatase (ALP) and bone mineral density (BMD) were measured. Results: Compared with the blank group (82.21±13.45,0.282±0.016), the content of serum alkaline phosphatase in the model group (112.29±10.88,0.203±0.017) increased and the BMD decreased. Compared with the model group, serum alkaline phosphatase levels of moxibustion group (102.22±13.45, 0.255±0.018) and estrogen group (100.69±11.62, 0.262±0.022) were decreased while bone mineral density were increased, and moxibustion group changed more significantly. Conclusion: mild health moxibustion and estrogen have certain effects on the treatment of osteoporosis, and the former’s effect is slightly better than the latter. In addition moxibustion is a natural therapy. Improving osteoporosis in many ways, mild health moxibustion is recommended clinically as a replacement therapy for estrogen in dealing with osteoporosis.