Research progress on acupuncture-moxibustion regulating brain energy metabolism to intervene in Alzheimer’s disease

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a common neurodegenerative disorder, and brain energy metabolism disorders are closely related to the onset of AD. Acupuncture-moxibustion is one of the effective treatments for AD, which can significantly improve AD symptoms and slow down the progression of the disease. The mechanism of its action has also been continuously studied. This article summarizes the relevant research on acupuncture-moxibustion regulating brain energy metabolism to improve AD. The results show that acupuncture-moxibustion mainly improves AD brain energy metabolism disorders from the following aspects: 1) regulating glucose metabolism disorders (promoting glucose transport, increasing glucose uptake and utilization, and regulating glycolytic activity in the brain), 2) regulating mitochondrial structure and dysfunction (improving mitochondrial structure and dynamics, enhancing electron transfer chain activity and ATP production, inhibiting abnormal opening of mitochondrial permeability transition pores), 3) improving insulin resistance and damage to the insulin signaling pathway, and 4) restoring amino acid and lipid metabolic imbalance. It plays a role in neuroprotection and delaying the progression of the disease.