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Case Reports
. 2025 Jul 23:12:1545687.
doi: 10.3389/fmed.2025.1545687. eCollection 2025.

Case Report: Improvement of functional dyspepsia using eight constitution acupuncture and eight constitution diet - A report of three cases

Nahyun Cho #  1   2 , Younkuk Choi #  3   4 , Heekyung Kim  3   5 , Heeyoung Moon  6 , Younbyoung Chae  7 , Sungha Kim  8 , Jungtae Leem  1   9   10
Affiliations
Case Reports

Case Report: Improvement of functional dyspepsia using eight constitution acupuncture and eight constitution diet - A report of three cases

Nahyun Cho et al. Front Med (Lausanne). .

Abstract

Background: Functional dyspepsia (FD) is a common gastrointestinal disorder affecting 10-20% of the global population. This case series aimed to report the clinical outcomes of three patients with FD who were treated with eight constitution acupuncture (ECA) and eight constitution diet (ECD), a personalized treatment approach based on the eight constitution medicine (ECM) theory.

Methods: Three patients with chronic FD were retrospectively selected from two Korean medical clinics. Each patient underwent ECA and ECD according to their constitution type as determined by pulse diagnosis. FD symptoms and quality of life were assessed using the Nepean Dyspepsia Index-Korean version (NDI-K) and Functional Dyspepsia-Quality of Life (FD-QoL) scores before and 2 and 4 weeks post-treatment. Adherence to treatment and adverse events were also evaluated.

Results: All three patients showed significant improvements in NDI-K and FD-QoL scores after 4 weeks of treatment. No adverse events were observed during the treatment period. In particular, one patient experienced temporary symptom relapse due to poor dietary adherence, suggesting that the effectiveness of ECD may be associated with adherence to the prescribed diet.

Conclusion: ECA combined with ECD led to significant symptom improvement and improved the quality of life in patients with chronic FD. These findings support the potential use of ECM-based interventions as effective and personalized treatment approaches for FD. More studies with larger sample sizes and standardized tools to assess diet adherence are required to validate these results and explore long-term outcomes.

Keywords: acupuncture therapy; case report; diet therapy; dyspepsia; personalized medicine.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. The reviewer S-JK declared a shared affiliation with the authors HM and YCha to the handling editor at the time of review.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Standard eight constitution acupuncture guide tube.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Schematic diagrams of the acupuncture points used for each patient. (A) Case 1. (B) Case 2. (C) Case 3.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Nepean Dyspepsia Index-Korean version score change of three cases. NDI, Nepean Dyspepsia Index.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Functional Dyspepsia-Quality of Life score change of three cases.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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