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Abdominal and auricular acupuncture reduces blood pressure in hypertensive patients
Hamid Abdi1, Maryam Tayefi2, Seyed Reza Moallem2
1Biochemistry of Nutrition Research Center, School of Medicine, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran; Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, Beijing, China.
Insights
Abdominal electro-acupuncture significantly reduced blood pressure in a 6-week trial. Conversely, auricular acupuncture showed a short-term adverse effect on systolic and diastolic blood pressure.
Area of Science:
- Integrative and Complementary Medicine
- Cardiovascular Research
- Clinical Trials
Background:
- Hypertension is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD).
- CVD encompasses conditions like stroke, heart attack, and kidney disease.
- Obesity is a common comorbidity associated with hypertension.
Purpose of the Study:
- To compare the effectiveness of abdominal and auricular acupuncture on blood pressure.
- To evaluate acupuncture's impact in individuals with and without obesity.
- To conduct a randomized controlled clinical trial on acupuncture and hypertension.
Main Methods:
- 400 participants were randomized into four groups: auricular acupuncture and abdominal electroacupuncture (cases and controls).
- Blood pressure and anthropometric measurements were taken pre- and post-intervention.
- Participants adhered to an isocaloric diet followed by a 6-week low-calorie diet.
Main Results:
- Abdominal electroacupuncture demonstrated a time-dependent reduction in systolic blood pressure.
- Auricular acupuncture group showed a significant increase in systolic blood pressure levels.
- No significant changes were observed in the sham control groups for either intervention.
Conclusions:
- Abdominal electro-acupuncture effectively reduced both systolic and diastolic blood pressure over 6 weeks.
- Auricular acupuncture exhibited a transient negative impact on both systolic and diastolic blood pressure.
- The study highlights differential effects of acupuncture modalities on blood pressure management.
Introduction:
Hypertension is an important risk factor of cardiovascular disease (CVD), which is associated with premature death, myocardial infarction, stroke, peripheral vascular disease, and renal disease. The goal of the present study was to use a randomized controlled clinical trial to explore and compare the effectiveness of abdominal and auricular acupuncture on blood pressure in 440 subjects with and without obesity.
Methods:
Four hundred participants were recruited and randomized to one of four groups: cases and controls receiving auricular acupuncture (204 subjects) and cases and controls receiving abdominal electroacupuncture (196 subjects). Blood pressure and anthropometric parameters were measured before and after the intervention period. In order to match the initial diet of the groups, participants were required to follow an isocaloric diet for two weeks before the trial, and a low-calorie diet for 6 weeks during the intervention period.
Results:
We observed a significant time dependent improvement in the systolic blood pressure measurements in the abdominal intervention group, although this improvement was more pronounce in the first period of study. Of note, in the auricular intervention group, a significant increasing in the level of SBP was detected. Importantly no statistically significant changes were found in the corresponding sham groups.
Conclusions:
Our findings demonstrated that abdominal electro-acupuncture for 6 weeks reduced both systolic and diastolic blood pressure and auricular acupuncture had a short-term adverse effect on both SBP and DBP.
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