Acupuncture may reduce blood pressure, a new study has found. Though researchers have refrained from drawing any conclusions due to the study’s small scale, they indicated that it demonstrated promise for people with moderately or mildly elevated blood pressure, HealthDay News reports.
“Potentially, blood pressure can be kept low with a monthly follow-up treatment,” said Dr. John Longhurst, a University of California, Irvine cardiologist who co-authored the study. It was published in the Medical Acupuncture journal.
HOW THE STUDY WAS DONE
To carry out the study, researchers used “electroacupuncture” – in which the acupuncture needles mildly electrically stimulate the patients. The small number of participants for the research received the weekly half-hour electroacupuncture treatment sessions.
“A noticeable drop in blood pressure was observed in 70 percent of the patients treated at the effective points, an average of 6 to 8 mm Hg for systolic blood pressure [the top number] and 4 mm Hg for diastolic blood pressure [the lower number],” Dr. Longhurst said in a statement to the press.
A small number of the participants were even deemed “high responders”, because their blood pressure decreased even more than it did for the rest of the group.
CRITICISM OF THE STUDY
Dr. Randall Zusman, a cardiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital Heart Center, criticized the report of the study. Its flaws, according to Zusman, are that the blood pressure variation in the people studied was too high and that the report does not mention the last time they took medication.
Nonetheless, Zusman was pleased with the results, having researched acupuncture’s medical use himself: “The outcomes are interesting and exciting and I’m encouraged that it might have been effective.”
Longhurst stated that more research was necessary, but none is currently planned due to a lack of funding.
ABOUT ACUPUNCTURE
Acupuncture is an ancient Chinese medical treatment. According to the University of Minnesota, needles are inserted into the skin of those undergoing the procedure to influence the Qi, or energy flow, of their body.
HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE AND ACUPUNCTURE
High blood pressure affects one in three American adults, and it is treated with different methods. Fitness naturally lowers blood pressure and is often encouraged by doctors, though the medication that they prescribe often has complicated side effects. For this reason, an alternative treatment is increasingly appealing to doctors.
