Effect of acupressure at Sanyinjiao on albuminuria in patients with early diabetic nephropathy: A single-blind, randomized, controlled preliminary study

Abstract

Background: Elevated urinary albumin excretion is a clinical manifestation of early-stage diabetic nephropathy (DN).

Purpose: To investigate effect of acupressure at Sanyinjiao on albuminuria in patients with early DN.

Methods: Total included 53 patients with DN and albuminuria; 21 were assigned to the sham group without acupressure, and 32 were assigned to the experimental group with acupressure at Sanyinjiao (SP6) for 8weeks. The experimental group was divided into experiment A (acupressure <45 days) and experiment B (acupressure ≥45 days). The primary outcome measure was the urine albuminuria/creatinine ratio (UACR) or logarithmic transformed urine microalbumin creatinine ratio (log-UACR) changes, and the secondary outcome measures were the estimated glomerular filtration rate and hemoglobin A1c.

Results: The difference in UACR and log-UACR before and after the study was higher in the experiment B group than in the experiment A and sham groups.

Conclusion: Acupressure at Sanyinjiao for 8 weeks may reduce albuminuria in patients with DN. However, this study was a preliminary design.

Keywords: Acupressure; Albuminuria; Diabetic nephropathy; Sanyinjiao.