1H NMR-based metabonomic study on the metabolic changes in the plasma of patients with functional dyspepsia and the effect of acupuncture

Functional dyspepsia (FD) is a common gastrointestinal disorder with multiple pathogenic mechanisms seen in clinical practice, and acupuncture may potentially be an alternative therapy for it. In order to investigate the biological effects of FD and the effect of acupuncture on metabolism, 1H nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR)-based metabonomic techniques have been used to compare the plasma metabolic profiles of six female FD patients with those of six female healthy control subjects. Plasma metabolic profiles of FD patients treated by acupuncture at the Foot-Yangming Meridian were also collected and compared. Data obtained from NMR spectroscopy were subjected to principal components analysis (PCA). The results show that there are relatively higher levels of glucose, acetate, high-density lipoprotein (HDL), and phosphatidylcholine (PtdCho), and lower levels of lactate, leucine/isoleucine, N-acetyl glycoprotein (NAc), and low-density lipoprotein/very low-density lipoprotein (LDL/VLDL) in FD patients than in healthy controls. Acupuncture treatment of FD patients significantly changed the levels of leucine/isoleucine, lactate and glucose, and slightly changed lipids level towards those of the healthy controls, demonstrating its therapeutic effects on the relief of FD symptoms. Due to the limited number of subjects, the present work is just a proof-of-principle study and further researches with larger number of subjects are needed. Our work shows the potential of an NMR-based metabonomic approach in the study of biological effects of acupuncture.