Diluted Bee Venom Acupuncture a Promising Alternative Therapy for Respiratory Inflammatory Diseases Such as Pleurisy

Bee venom stimulation into lung meridian acupoint reduces inflammation in a mouse model of carrageenan-induced pleurisy: an alternative therapeutic approach for the respiratory inflammatory disease

J Vet Sci. 2018 Jun 21. [Epub ahead of print]

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Respiratory inflammation is frequent and fatal pathologic state encountered in veterinary medicine. Although diluted bee venom (dBV) has potent anti-inflammatory effects, the clinical use of dBV is limited to several chronic inflammatory diseases.

The present study was designed to propose the acupoint treatment of dBV as a novel therapeutic strategy for respiratory inflammatory disease. Experimental pleurisy was induced by injection of carrageenan into left pleural space in mouse. dBV was injected into a specific lung meridian acupoint (LU-5) or into arbitrary non-acupoint located near the midline of the back in mouse.

The inflammatory responses were evaluated by analysis the inflammatory indicators in pleural exudate. dBV injection into LU-5 acupoint significantly suppressed the increase of pleural exudate volume, leukocyte accumulation, MPO activity. Moreover, dBV acupoint treatment effectively inhibited the production of IL-1β, but not TNF-α in pleural exudate. On the other hand, dBV treatment on non-acupoint did not inhibit the inflammatory responses in carrageenan-induced pleurisy.

The present results demonstrate that dBV stimulation into the LU-5 lung meridian acupoint produces significant anti-inflammatory effects on carrageenan-induced pleurisy suggesting that dBV acupuncture as a promising alternative medicine therapy for respiratory inflammatory diseases.