Cardiovascular Conditions Treated with Acupuncture & Chinese Medicine
Acupuncture is a viable complementary therapy for cardiac conditions, particularly hypertension, atrial fibrillation, and heart failure. Additionally, such vascular conditions as lymphedema, post-traumatic edema, and Raynaud's disease respond quite well to needle and electroacupuncture.
Recent studies indicate that acupuncture works by downregulating the sympathetic nervous systems, modulating the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system, improving vascular endothelium, lowering (bad) cholesterol, and reducing oxidative stress.
References
Middlekauff, H. R., Hui, K., Yu, J. L., Hamilton, M. A., Fonarow, G. C., Moriguchi, J., Maclellan, W. R., & Hage, A. (2002). Acupuncture inhibits sympathetic activation during mental stress in advanced heart failure patients. Journal of cardiac failure, 8(6), 399–406. https://doi.org/10.1054/jcaf.2002.129656 Ni, Y. M., & Frishman, W. H. (2018). Acupuncture and Cardiovascular Disease: Focus on Heart Failure. Cardiology in review, 26(2), 93–98. https://doi.org/10.1097/CRD.0000000000000179 Zhou, J., Zhao, L., Meng, L., Liang, H., Zhou, T., Ye, S., Qi, Z., Huang, X., Zhou, P., & Fu, W. (2020). Acupuncture treatment for carotid atherosclerotic plaques: study protocol for a pilot randomized, single blinded, controlled clinical trial. Trials, 21(1), 768. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13063-020-04709-0
