Improvement of functional dyspepsia through eight constitution acupuncture and eight constitution diet: Three-case reports

Nahyun Cho¹Younkuk Choi²Heekyung Kim²Heeyoung Moon³Younbyoung Chae³Sungha Kim^4*Jungtae Leem^5,6*

• ¹Department of Diagnostics, College of Korean Medicine, Wonkwang University, Iksan, Republic of Korea
• ²Samsung Advanced Institute for Health Sciences & Technology, Sungkyunkwan University, Jongno-gu, Seoul, Republic of Korea
• ³Accupunture and Meridian Science Research Center, Kyung Hee University, Seoul, Seoul, Republic of Korea
• ⁴KM Science Research Division, Korea Institute of Oriental Medicine (KIOM), Daejeon, Republic of Korea
• ⁵Research Center of Traditional Korean Medicine, College of Korean Medicine, Wonkwang University, Iksan-si, Republic of Korea
• ⁶Korean Medicine Clinical Research Institute, Wonkwang University Korean Medicine Hospital, Iksan-si, Republic of Korea

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 constitutional 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