Abstract
Objectives:
The response to acupuncture is presumed to differ with the individual; this variation might be due to genetic differences. Therefore, we examined whether the DRD2 TaqI A polymorphism is associated with the response to acupuncture in the treatment of smoking cessation in a Korean population.
Subjects:
A total of 231 healthy Korean male smokers participated in this study.
Interventions:
The subjects underwent three manual auricular acupuncture treatments in one week.
Design and outcome measures:
After 1 week, high and low responders to the acupuncture treatment were selected according to their cigarette consumption and the desire to smoke. A DRD2 TaqI A restriction enzyme fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) study examined genomic DNA extracted from blood samples.
Results:
The proportions of high, intermediate, and low responders were 28.6, 55.4, and 16.0%, respectively. The RFLP study showed that the distribution of the DRD2*A genotype and allele frequencies differed significantly between the high and low responders (X 2 test, p = 0.031 and 0.016, respectively), and that high responders had a higher DRD2*A2 allele frequency than low responders.
Conclusions:
Our findings suggest that DRD2 TaqI A polymorphism is related to acupuncture response in smoking cessation treatment.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.