Astounding Benefits of Acupuncture

Many people tend to get a little bit freaked out at the idea of lot of tiny needles entering their body but acupuncture has been working wonders on patients for thousands of years. New studies are finding more and more benefits of acupuncture as opposed to many kinds of prescription medications. Ayurvedic acupuncture is offered at Optimal Wellness.

A new study suggests that a form of acupuncture may benefit patients with high blood

pressure and lower their risk of stroke and heart disease.

The single-blind trial, conducted at the University of California-Irvine (UCI), is the first

scientific confirmation that the ancient Chinese medical technique is beneficial for patients

with mild to moderate hypertension.

In the journal Medical Acupuncture, the team describes finding how electroacupuncture

can lower blood pressure for up to 6 weeks in patients with hypertension.

Electroacupuncture is a form of acupuncture that applies low-intensity electrical pulses

through needles inserted at specific points on the body.

The researchers say their findings suggest that with regular use, electroacupuncture could

help people manage their blood pressure and reduce their risk of heart disease and stroke in the

longer term.

Senior author John Longhurst, a cardiologist and UCI professor of medicine, says the clinical

study comes after nearly 10 years of bench research into the effect of acupuncture on high blood

pressure. He adds:

“By using Western scientific rigor to validate an ancient Eastern therapy, we feel we have

integrated Chinese and Western medicine and provided a beneficial guideline for treating a

disease that affects millions in the US.”

70% of treated patients experienced noticeable drop in blood pressure

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there are about 70 million

American adults (29%) with high blood pressure – only about half of whom have the condition under

control.

Fast facts about acupuncture

  • Acupuncture is a traditional Chinese medicine that has been in use for over 3,000 years
  • It uses thin needles to stimulate one or more out of hundreds of specific points on the

    body

  • US regulators approved acupuncture needles for use by licensed practitioners in 1996.

Learn more about acupuncture

High blood pressure costs the US some $46 billion a year. This figure covers health care

services, medications and absence from work.

For their study, Prof. Longhurst and colleagues recruited 65 patients with hypertension who

were not taking any drugs to treat their condition. Each patient was randomly assigned to one of

two groups.

Both groups were treated with electroacupuncture, except that one group (the treatment group)

had it applied to both sides of the inner wrists and slightly below each knee (acupoints thought

to reduce blood pressure), and the other group had it applied to other acupoints along the

forearm and lower leg (the control group).

The trial was a single-blind trial. That means the practitioners giving the treatment knew

which patients were in the treatment group and which were in the control group, but the patients did

not.

The results showed that 70% of the 33 patients in the treatment group experienced a

noticeable drop in blood pressure. On average, the reduction was 6-8 mm/Hg for systolic blood

pressure and 4 mm/Hg for diastolic blood pressure.

Systolic (when the heart contracts) is the higher, and diastolic (when the heart rests between

beats) is the lower number in blood pressure readings.

The researchers say these improvements persisted for 6 weeks after treatment.

Treatment also followed by other beneficial changes

The treatment group also showed significant drops – 41% on average – in blood concentration of

norepinephrine (also called noradrenaline), a hormone that constricts blood vessels and increases

blood pressure and blood sugar.

The treatment group also showed a 67% drop in renin – an enzyme released in the kidneys that

helps control blood pressure – and a 22% drop in a hormone that regulates electrolytes

(aldosterone).

There were no significant blood pressure changes in the 32 patients in the control group.

Prof. Longhurst notes that while the reductions in blood pressure seen in the treatment group

were not large – most ranged between 4 mm/Hg and 13 mm/Hg – they were clinically significant and

suggest the treatment could be especially useful for people in their 60s and older with high

systolic blood pressure. He concludes:

“Because electroacupuncture decreases both peak and average systolic blood

pressure over 24 hours, this therapy may decrease the risk for stroke, peripheral artery disease,

heart failure and myocardial infarction in hypertensive patients.”

Medical News Today also recently learned about a study published in the journal

Endocrinology that suggests acupuncture acts in a

similar way to psychiatric drugs when used to treat chronic stress. Researchers from

Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington, DC, came to this conclusion after running

controlled experiments with rats.

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Source: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/298376.php