Wet cupping and anemia: A review of literature

3^rd International Conference and Exhibition on Traditional & Alternative Medicine

August 03-05, 2015 Birmingham, UK

Nouran A Aleyeidi

Ministry of Health, KSA

Scientific Tracks Abstracts: Altern Integr Med

Abstract :

Practitioners who tend to do wet-cupping or â�?�?Hijamaâ�? to their patients, always be hesitant when they are dealing with anemic patients. Actually, they have a point, because wet cupping is a form of blood loss that might seem harmful for some cases. Nevertheless, there are very little researches studying the effect of wet-cupping on blood hemoglobin level. There are a number of case reports, mainly from Korea, of patients who performed wet-cupping and then developed anemia. In the other hand, there was a study done in Iran in 2009 by M. Mahdavi et al. where they performed wet-cupping on 56 healthy adult males, and there where no clinically significant difference between the hemoglobin level before and after the wet-cupping procedure. When we look deeply at those studies we can find some clear differences that most likely can be the reason behind the different effects on hemoglobin levels. Still we need more research in that area and we encourage all researchers who are doing or will do a research on wet-cupping to measure the CBC of their participants before and after the procedure to ensure the safety of their participants, and give us a better understanding of this possible side effect.

Biography :

Nouran A Aleyeidi completed the Saudi Board of Community Medicine. She has a publication on wet-cupping and hypertension. She is currently working in the Public Health Administration in the Ministry of Health, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Email: dr.nouran@live.com