| Abstract: | 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. |
