[Considerations about mechanisms of acupuncture therapy for improving hypertension by regulating immune system]

Essential hypertension (EH) is a very common clinical disorder affecting the patient's health. Accumulating evidence indicates that immunological factors play an important role in the pathogenesis of hypertension. In the present paper, the authors introduce 1) progress of researches on the pathogenesis of hypertension from cellular immune and body fluid immune (multiple immuno-humoral factors); 2) effects of acupuncture intervention on natural killer cell activity, exercise-induced immunosuppression, circulating inflammatory factor levels and balance of cytokines; 3) blood-pressure reduction effect of acupuncture intervention by lowering circulating TNF-alpha, IL-6, matrix metalloproteinases-9, angiotensin convertase and endothelin levels, and up-regulating serum opioid peptide content, etc. to decrease inflammatory injury of the cardiovascular system. Many researches have demonstrated that acupuncture may have a positive role in improving EH in clinical practice, which may be associated with its regulative effect on immune system, but its mechanism has not been fully elucidated.