Effectiveness of Acupressure on Reducing Blood Sugar and Glycosylated Hemoglobin Levels in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes: A Rapid Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Acupressure as one of the complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) has become very popular in the management of various diseases such as diabetes. Although the increasing use of acupuncture, there are limited systematic reviews and meta-analyses in this field.

The present study was performed with aim to investigate the effectiveness of acupressure on the blood sugar parameters of patients with type 2 diabetes.

In this rapid systematic review and meta-analysis, the studies published globally between 2010 and 2022 were searched in the PubMed, Google Scholar, and Science Direct databases with the keywords of acupressure, diabetes, complementary medicine, blood sugar and glycosylated hemoglobin as separately and in combination. To analyze data, STATA software version 11 was used to analyze data, and the random effect model method was applied for meta-analysis of the studies.

Among the 411 articles found in the initial search, finally 8 articles were selected for this study. The results of the meta-analysis of studies showed that acupressure had a positive effect on blood sugar (95% CI = 0.816-1.553, P < 0.001, OR = 1.18) and fasting blood sugar (95% CI = 0.260 - 0.857, P˂0.001, OR = 0.559) in diabetic patients, while it had no effect on the level of glycosylated hemoglobin (95% CI = -0.139 - 0.389, P = 0.355, OR = 0.559).

Implications for Practice:

 This study showed the positive effect of acupressure in reducing blood sugar and fasting blood sugar in patients with diabetes, however more studies are required to confirm the effect of acupressure on glycosylated hemoglobin.