Preeclampsia is a disease that occurs during pregnancy and affects upwards of 10% of pregnancies around the world (Osungbade & Ige, 2011). African American pregnant women are particularly vulnerable and die at a disproportionate rate compared to other races. In this literature review, three research studies were analyzed to determine if African American pregnant women were included in preeclampsia Studies. Only one of the studies included in this review met all criteria by including African American pregnant women. One research study met half of the criteria; however, the authors noted that there was not enough evidence for Black Americans. The third research article also only met half of the criteria. We conclude that further studies are needed that include African American women in studies on preeclampsia.
Methods: Three databases were used to search for papers published after 2010 until October 2019 discussing obesity, overweight and TCM. No forms of Chinese medicine were excluded from the search. Studies were excluded if they did not meet the date criteria or if they overlapped with papers found in other databases.
Results: Six of the selected papers covered acupuncture (electro, balance or catgut embedding acupuncture methods) either jointly with other treatments or alone, one exclusively on moxibustion and three studies on three different types of TCM herbal medicine. Each study showed a statistically significant effect on body mass index (BMI) value decrease or total weight loss (TWL). The six acupuncture papers all showed statistical significance at the 95% CI against control groups (sham acupuncture or no acupuncture) and against before-treatment BMI values or TWL values.
Conclusion: Of the treatments reviewed, almost all acupuncture studies were shown to be consistently effective in treating overweight or obese individuals within this selection of studies, as well as in another meta-analysis. This may be due to acupuncture’s ties to a neuroendocrine mechanism. Future studies should further explore the neuroendocrine connection between acupuncture and weight loss. Herbal medication was also shown to have a significant effect in reducing weight in each study; however, two studies used mice or rats as subjects, therefore understanding the effects on human subjects is limited.