Auricular concha eletroacupuncture modulates lipid-lipoprotein metabolism in rats submitted to cold stress

Abstract Objective To explore whether auricular concha eletroacupuncture (ACEA) is effective in regulating lipid-lipoprotein metabolism in rats submitted to cold stress. Methods Thirty-six adult male Sprague-Dawley rats were placed in four groups(9 rats in each group), the rats in three groups of which were submitted to cold stress for fourteen days, the last one of which was a control group. After the cold stress process, in those three groups, the rats of one group were with no treatment (stress only), two were treated with either ACEA or auricular margin eletroacupuncture (AMEA) repeated for fourteen days. On the 14th day, all the rats were sacrificed after all experimental procedure for blood sampling. Blood glucose, triglycerides (TG), total cholesterol (TC), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) levels were tested by using the collected serum. Plasma lecithin-cholesterol acyltransferase (LCAT) was measured with ELISA kit. Results ACEA down-regulated the TG level (P Conclusion ACEA played an important role in regulating lipid-lipoprotein metabolism in rats submitted to cold stress.