21st Brazilian Diabetes Society Congress

Introduction:Acupuncture is a widely used technique for the treatment of diabetes in Asian countries.Nevertheless, there are few studies with appropriate methodological rigor evaluating its effectiveness and promoting a standardized procedure in the western world.The FreeStyle libre glucose monitoring system has specific characteristics, being diverse from the traditional monitoring methods.It does not require finger prick and identifies glucose variations, especially nocturnal hypoglycemia.Objectives: Evaluate the short-term effect of acupuncture in the treatment of type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM2) using the FreeStyle libre system.Method: In a randomized, controlled, prospective, open-label trial, we randomly assigned 20 insulin independent DM2 patients to undergo acupuncture (group 1) or in the control group (group 2).Participants should be between 20 and 75 years old, diagnosed with DM2 for at least 3 years, and with stable glycemic control (evaluated through glycated hemoglobin).Patients should not be in use of glucocorticoids or insulin, be pregnant or have record of nephrotic syndrome, hepatic insufficiency, hyperthyroidism, acromegaly or renal insufficiency.Demographic data, baseline characteristics, biochemical and metabolic profiles were analyzed before the intervention.Participants underwent continuous glucose monitoring for 14 days, period in which they did not change diet, exercise or medication.Group 1 received acupuncture 4, 8 and 12 days after installation of the monitoring system.The acupuncture treatment promotes energetic rebalance and, in this study, diabetes-specific treatment points were used in all patients (B38, IG4, R24, E36 e BP9).This trial was approved by the ethics committee (CAAE-60576616.6.0000.5572)and registered at Brazilian Registry of Clinical Trials (UTN) is U1111-1199-9630.Results: There were no statistically significant differences in the baseline characteristics (Table 1).In group 1, mean glucose level obtained through 14 days monitoring after acupuncture treatment was 143 ± 28,8 mg/dl, whilst in group 2, who did not undergo acupuncture, the mean level was 165.8 ± 30.2 mg/dl (p-0.015) (Fig. 1). Conclusion:In this randomized pilot trial, there was an improvement in global glycemic control during the 14 days of monitoring in the acupuncture group.Despite the small sample of this trial, there were no significant differences in baseline characteristics.Further studies with larger cohorts should be performed.