Abstract
The effects of acupuncture on osteoarthritis (OA) pathogenesis have been demonstrated in vitro and in animal models. However, the potential for acupuncture to mediate protective effects on obese-induced OA has not been examined. Here, we investigated the effects of different acupuncture patterns on OA pathogenesis in high-fat diet- (HFD-) induced obese rats. After 12-week diet-induced obesity, obese rats were treated with three acupuncture protocols for 2 weeks, including ST36, GB34, and ST36+GB34. The results showed that the three acupuncture protocols both prevented obesity-induced cartilage matrix degradation and MMP expression and mitigated obesity-induced systemic and local inflammation but had different regulatory effects on lipid metabolism and gut microbiota disorder of obese-induced OA rats. Furthermore, the three acupuncture protocols increased the microbial diversity and altered the structure of community of feces in obese rats. We found that ST36 and GB34 could inhibit proinflammatory shift in the gut microbiome with an increase in the ratio of Bacteroidetes/Firmicutes and promote the recovery of relative abundance of Clostridium, Akkermansia, Butyricimonas, and Lactococcus. Although both ST36 and GB34 had an anti-inflammatory effect on serum inflammatory mediators, only the acupuncture protocol with both ST36 and GB34 could effectively inhibit LPS-mediated joint inflammation in obesity rats. Therefore, relieving obesity-related chronic inflammation, lipid metabolism disorder, and gut microbiota disorder may be an important mechanism for acupuncture with ST36 and GB34 to promote OA recovery.
Highlights
Osteoarthritis (OA) is a common chronic disorder of the joints, characterized by progressive loss of articular cartilage, osteophytes, and synovitis
To model the pathological process of the knee osteoarthritis (KOA) of obesity in humans, rats were fed with high-fat diet (HFD) for 12 weeks to induce obesity, and the body weight of high-fat diet- (HFD-)fed rats was overweight compared with chow-fed rats (Figure 1(a))
We found that electroacupuncture treatments of ST36, GB34, and ST36+GB34 could not reduce the body weight of obesity rats (Figure 1(b)) and the amount of food intake but attenuated lipid metabolic disorders induced by HFD
Summary
Osteoarthritis (OA) is a common chronic disorder of the joints, characterized by progressive loss of articular cartilage, osteophytes, and synovitis. In OA pathogenesis, obesity is regarded as a risk factor for the onset and increased rate of progression of metabolic OA in joints [1]. High systemic ox-LDL can promote VEGF release to induce the secretion of cartilage-destructive factors, such as catabolic enzymes MMP-1, MMP-3, and MMP-13 and proinflammatory mediators IL-1β, IL-6, and TNF-α [13,14,15]. These proinflammatory mediators induce damage to cartilage, synovium, and subchondral bone by upregulating catabolic enzymes to degrade ECM [8]
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