Effects of moxibustion on erectile function and NO-cGMP pathway in diabetic rats with erectile dysfunction / 中国针灸

ABSTRACT

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To explore the effect and the mechanism of moxibustion for treatment of diabetic erectile dysfunction (ED).</p><p><b>METHODS</b>Diabetes mellitus (DM) rat model was induced by streptozotozin (STZ) and then penis erectile experiment of apomorphine (APO) was used to select diabetic ED rats model, which were divided into 2 groups a model group and a moxibustion group, with another normal control group set up. The moxibustion group were treated with moxibustion at "Shenshu" (BL 23) and "Sanyinjiao" (SP 6) with small moxa cone about the size of a wheat grain. The effects on penis erectile, blood sugar and total NOS, cNOS, iNOS, and cGMP were investigated.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>Moxibustion had a certain improving action on blood sugar, improved significantly erectile function, and more significantly increased NOS, cNOS, iNOS activities and cGMP contents in the penis.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>Moxibustion has a certain action on the erectile function in the diabetic ED rats, which is related with improvement of blood sugar and promoting NO-cGMP pathway.</p>