Objective: To investigate the effects of
acupuncture and combined
acupuncture and
medicine on the
quality of life and the
genital endocrine level in postmenopausal
women .
Methods: Forty-seven
patients were randomly assigned to
acupuncture and
acupuncture plus
medicine groups,23 cases in the
acupuncture group and 24 cases in the
acupuncture plus
medicine group. The observed
course of
treatment was 3 months. A
Chinese concise SF-36
questionnaire was used to evaluate the
quality of life in the different groups of
patients before and
after treatment .Meanwhile,
radioimmunoassay was used to observe the differences in
serum genital hormones follicle stimulating hormone (FSH),
luteinizing hormone (LH) and
estradiol (E2) contents between pretreatment and posttreatment in both groups.
Results: After treatment , there was a significant difference in
quality of life between the two groups and it was better in the
acupuncture plus
medicine group than in the
acupuncture group(P< 0.01). E2 content increased more markedly in the
acupuncture plus
medicine group than in the
acupuncture group(P< 0.05). There were no significant differences in FSH and LH contents between the two groups (P > 0. 05).
Conclusion: Both
acupuncture and
acupuncture plus
medicine can improve the
quality of life and increase obviously low E2 content in postmenopausal
women .
Acupuncture plus
medicine raises the
patients '
quality of life and E2 content more markedly than
acupuncture . It is suggested that both
acupuncture and
acupuncture plus
medicine can improve the symptoms, signs, and physical and
mental health , raise the
quality of life and ameliorate
genital -endocrine
environment in postmenopausal
women , but a combination of
acupuncture and
medicine has a better effect.