OBJECTIVE To compare the clinical effects of needling in the abdominal acupoints and diet only in treating sim-ple obese patients with heat and dampness in the stomach.METHODS random number table method was adopted to divide 86 obese patients with heat and dampness in the stomach into two groups.There were 44 patients in the treatment group with 3 being uncounted later and the treating method was needling in the abdominal acupoints and certain acupoints in the body.There were 42 patients in the control group with 2 being uncounted later and they were treated with diet only.The certain indexes re-lated to obesity,lipid levels,and nuclear magnetic resonance scanning results were recorded and compared before and after the treatment.CONCLUSIONS The certain indexes related to obesity,lipid levels,and nuclear magnetic resonance scanning re-sults of both groups were lower compared with before(P<0.05~0.01).And the results of the treatment group were lower than the control group(P<0.05).The total effective rate of the treatment group after two periods of treating was higher than that of the control group(P<0.05).CONCLUSIONS The clinical effect of needling in the abdominal acupoints is better than diet only in loosing weight and is worth of being widely used.