Effect Of Tianjiu Therapy In Sanfu Days On Cellular Immune Function Of Healthy Middle-aged And Elderly People

Objective:Comparing the cellular immunity(before and after treatment with Tianjiu therapy in Sanfu Days)of middle-aged and elderly people;offering a theoretical basis for studying the mechanism of how Sanfutian moxibustion affects the cellular immunity.Methods:72 healthy middle-aged and elderly volunteers were randomly divided into two groups: the Sanfu paste group and the control group,36 cases in each group.The volunteers in Sanfu paste group(experimental group)were treated by Tianjiu therapy,and at the same time,the volunteers in control group were treated by blank drug.Both treatments were applied once per 10 days,every time lasted for 2 h,and 4 times in total.Peripheral venous blood samples 2 mL from each of volunteers were collected before application,10 days after the second application,and 10 days after the fourth application,respectively.And some kinds of immune cells in sample were analyzed by flow cytometry(T/B/NK/Th/CD8+T/??T).Correspondingly,the cell subtypes were also detected and analyzed.Finally,based on the blood samples,what were collected from two groups before treatment,we compared and analyzed the variation of cellular immunity after two and four treatments,respectively.Results:Comparing with the control group,for Sanfu paste group,the number of activated NK cells in peripheral blood decreased slightly(P>0.05)after two treatments.While,the number of activated NK cells increased significantly(P=0.0005)after 4 treatments of Sanfu paste.In particular,for the control group,there is no significant change in the number of activated NK cells after 4 blank drug treatments;the number of the activated NK cells in these two groups before treatment and after two treatments are similar,there is no statistical difference(P>0.05).However,the amount of activated NK cells in the peripheral blood what were collected from the Sanfu paste group,was larger than that in the control group after 4 treatments,and thedifference was statistically significant(P<0.05).In addition,there is no significant change in the blood collection time points for the two groups of volunteers(P>0.05).Conclusion:Tianjiu therapy in Sanfu Days can improve the cellular immunity of healthy middle-aged and elderly people by exciting the natural killer cells.And Tianjiu therapy in Sanfu Days has certain preventive effect on the degradation of immune function for middle-aged and elderly people.