ArticleChinese medicine2015
What do we understand from clinical and mechanistic studies on acupuncture treatment for hypertension?
Article in Chinese medicine, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.
What it found
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 29 citations in OpenAlex.
- Cardio-Cerebral Protective Effect of Moxibustion on Phlegm-Dampness Type Hypertension: Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial.JMIR research protocols · 2025Article
- The Effect of Electroacupuncture on Microcirculation in Patients With Hypertension and Cognitive Impairment: Protocol for a Multicenter Randomized Controlled Trial.JMIR research protocols · 2025Article
- Global trends and research hotspots in acupuncture treatment for cardiovascular diseases over the past decade: a bibliometric study.Journal of cardiothoracic surgery · 2025Review
- Clinical study of acupuncture combined with surface anesthesia using proparacaine in geriatric cataract phacoemulsification.World journal of clinical cases · 2023Article
- Research trends of acupuncture therapy for hypertension over the past two decades: a bibliometric analysis.Cardiovascular diagnosis and therapy · 2023Review
- Proteomics analysis of the hypothalamus in spontaneously hypertensive rats treated with twirling reinforcing manipulation, twirling reducing manipulation or electroacupuncture.Experimental and therapeutic medicine · 2021Article
- P2RX7 in Dopaminergic Neurons of Ventral Periaqueductal Gray Mediates HTWP Acupuncture-Induced Consciousness in Traumatic Brain Injury.Frontiers in cellular neuroscience · 2020Article
- The Hypotensive Role of Acupuncture in Hypertension: Clinical Study and Mechanistic Study.Frontiers in aging neuroscience · 2020Review
- Perioperative acupuncture medicine: a novel concept instead of acupuncture anesthesia.Chinese medical journal · 2019Review
- Orexin Receptor-1 in the Rostral Ventrolateral Medulla Mediates the Antihypertensive Effects of Electroacupuncture.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2019Article
- Electroacupuncture Improves Baroreflex andNeural plasticity · 2018Article
- Spotlight on acupuncture in laboratory animal medicine.Veterinary medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2017Review
- Lifestyle Approaches to White Coat Hypertension.American journal of lifestyle medicineArticle
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
The outcome of acupuncture on hypertension treatment is inconclusive. This study aims to evaluate the influence of acupuncture on hypertension, based on findings from mechanistic studies over the course of decades particularly those conducted at the University of California, Irvine. Low-current and low-frequency electroacupuncture (EA) at P5-6 (overlying the median nerve) and S36-37 (overlying the deep peroneal nerve) reduced high blood pressure in a subset of patients (~70 %) with mild-to-moderate hypertension, in a slow-onset (4-8 weeks) but long-lasting (1-2 months) manner. EA inhibited cardiovascular sympathoexcitatory neurons through activation of neurons in the arcuate nucleus of the hypothalamus, the ventrolateral periaqueductal gray in the midbrain and the nucleus raphe pallidus in the medulla, through inhibiting the activity of premotor sympathetic neurons in the rostral ventrolateral medulla (rVLM). Several neurotransmitters such as glutamate, acetylcholine, opioids, GABA, nociceptin, serotonin and endocannabinoids were involved in this EA-induced hypotensive response. The long-lasting inhibition of hypertension induced by EA was related to opioids and GABA in the rVLM, neural circuitry between the arcuate and ventrolateral periaqueductal gray, and prolongation of the increase in preproenkephalin mRNA levels and enkephalin levels in the rVLM and arcuate. Moreover, the long-lasting inhibition of sympathetic activity by EA was confirmed in EA-treated hypertensive patients with decreased levels of norepinephrine, renin and aldosterone.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.