Acupuncture: Complementary or alternative blood pressure therapy?
When Tufts|ebcam reviewed this topic, they concluded, “while the results of some RCT [randomized clinical trials] and case series suggest some benefits of acupuncture for managing hypertension, the results must be treated with caution because of serious methodological limitations.”
To address these shortcomings the NIH funded a rigorously designed study titled “Stop Hypertension with the Acupuncture Research Program” (SHARP).
Acupuncture as alternative therapy
In SHARP, 192 people with untreated high blood pressure (140/90 to 179/109 mm Hg) were weaned off their blood pressure medicines and randomly assigned to 3 treatments.
- Individualized traditional Chinese acupuncture
- Standardized acupuncture at preselected points
- Invasive sham acupuncture
The mean decrease in blood pressure 10 weeks later didn’t differ significantly between groups. Treatments lowered blood pressure a modest 3 to 5 mm Hg.
Acupuncture as complementary therapy
But that’s not the end of the story. This study published after SHARP concluded that acupuncture offered “an additional benefit to ongoing treatment of hypertensive patients.”
- 41 volunteers with blood pressures of at least 120/80 mm Hg were randomly assigned to real or sham acupuncture.
- Treatment lasted 8 weeks.
- The real acupuncture group showed a significant decrease in average blood pressure from 137/84 to 122/77 mm Hg.
- That’s an 11% reduction in systolic pressure and an 8% reduction in diastolic blood pressure.
The sham acupuncture group showed no significant change in blood pressure.
The bottom line?
The goal of blood pressure control is less than 140/90 mm Hg, according to the 7th Report of the Joint National Committee on the Treatment of High Blood Pressure (JNC VII), which is associated with a decrease in cardiovascular complications. In people with high blood pressure and diabetes or kidney disease, the goal is less than 130/80 mm Hg.
Acupuncture appears to be an option for people who are about 10% shy of achieving JNC VII blood pressure targets.
3/17/07 14:56 JR
