Oxidative stress is associated with a variety of disease pathologies, it may lead to mitochondrial dysfunction, damage of impaired DNA repairment, cell damage or apoptosis. Acupuncture and moxibustion therapy has been proved to have a role in reducing oxidative stress in organisms under pathological conditions. In the present paper, we collected literatures in both English and Chinese from domestic and foreign databases on the mechanisms of acupuncture and moxibustion underlying amelioration of oxidative stress over the past 5 years, and analyzed the link between acupuncture-moxibustion intervention and redox biology from four aspects： 1) regulation of the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS), 2) affecting antioxidant enzyme-related pathways to reduce ROS, 3) repairing proteins, lipids and DNAs attacked by ROS, and 4) inhibiting downstream apoptosis or autophagy of ROS pathway. By summarizing and prospecting such antioxidant mechanisms, this paper may provide some basis and ideas for in-depth mechanism research on acupuncture and moxibustion to improve oxidative stress and related diseases.
氧化应激与多种疾病病理相关，可导致线粒体功能障碍、DNA修复受损、细胞损伤或凋亡。越来越多的证据表明针灸可以减少病理状态下生物体的氧化应激反应。本文通过整理近5年来国内外针灸改善氧化应激相关作用机制的文献，从针灸调节活性氧（ROS）的产生，影响抗氧化酶相关途径减少ROS，修复被ROS攻击的蛋白质、脂质及DNA，抑制ROS途径下游的细胞凋亡或自噬这4个方面探讨了针灸与氧化还原生物学过程之间的联系。通过对针灸抗氧化机制最新研究进展的归纳及展望，为针灸改善氧化应激及相关疾病的深入机制研究提供一定的依据和思路。.
Keywords: Acupuncture-moxibustion; Antioxidant enzyme; Apoptosis; Oxidative stress; Reactive oxygen species.