Complementary Medicine Journal of Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery (Jul 2019)
Investigating the Effect of wet Cupping on some Biochemical parameters of lambs’ Blood
Abstract
Introduction: Wet cupping is considered as a treatment procedure in traditional Iranian medicine, which is performed by creating suction and bleeding on special areas of the body. Methods: To examine the effect of wet cupping on the biochemical parameters of lambs’ blood, two experiments were conducted. Ten male Mehraban lambs weighing 23.4±3.24 Kg were randomly assigned to two groups: control (no cupping) and experimental (cupping). Experiment 1 was designed for comparing biochemical parameters of the venous and cupping blood. Experiment 2 was conducted one week after performing wet cupping and aimed to investigate the effect of wet cupping on biochemical and haematological parameters of the venous blood. Results: There was s significant difference in serum total cholesterol (p<0.041), triglycerides (TG) (p<0.047), high-density lipoprotein (HDL) (p<0.042), Serum glutamic pyruvic transaminase (SGPT) (p<0.012) and uric acid (p<0.009) between the venous blood and the cupping blood. No significant difference was observed between the control and experimental groups in terms of biochemical parameters. However, many of them improved in the cupping group. Conclusion: The amount of wastes in the cupping blood was much higher than those in the venous blood. One week after performing wet cupping, some of the biochemical parameters in the blood samples of the cupping group showed a slight decrease compared to those in the control group. Disposing of wastes in the cupping blood may indicate the positive effect of cupping on the biochemical profile of the blood.