ClinicalTrials.gov
skipnavHome|Search|Browse|Resources|Help|What's New|About

Acupuncture and Hypertension

This study has been completed.

Sponsored by: National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM)
Information provided by: National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM)

Purpose

Although traditional Chinese medicine advocates the use of acupuncture not only to induce analgesia but also to treat essential hypertension, acupuncture's postulated antihypertensive efficacy in humans has not been subjected to rigorous Western scientific testing. Before advocating acupuncture as an effective complementary/alternative medicine strategy for essential hypertension, it is necessary to demonstrate that the beneficial effects of acupuncture are scientifically robust, long-lasting, and explicable in terms of modern scientific mechanisms. In spontaneously hypertensive rats, acupuncture-like electrical stimulation of thinly myelinated (Group III) somatic afferents activates central endorphin (naloxone-sensitive) pathways that elicit long-lasting decreases in sympathetic nerve activity (SNA) and blood pressure. The ability to record SNA with microelectrodes in conscious humans provides a new opportunity to test this novel mechanistic hypothesis in patients undergoing electroacupuncture, a modification of the ancient technique that provides a quantifiable and reproducible stimulus to human skeletal muscle afferents. Using a randomized, double-blind placebo-controlled design, we will test the following major hypotheses: Electroacupuncture produces a long-lasting reduction in SNA, thereby providing a safe and effective complementary treatment of human hypertension. Given the enormous interest in acupuncture by our lay public, but the paucity of Western scientific data about its efficacy in cardiovascular disorders, our studies in normotensive and hypertensive humans should provide a conceptual framework for deciding whether to accept or reject the large body of Chinese (and Russian) literature advocating acupuncture as a safe and effective treatment of essential hypertension and other cardiovascular disorders (such as heart failure, and myocardial ischemia).

Condition Treatment or Intervention
Hypertension
 Procedure: Acupuncture

MedlinePlus related topics:  High Blood Pressure

Study Type: Interventional
Study Design: Treatment, Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo Control

Eligibility

Ages Eligible for Study:  18 Years   -   65 Years,  Genders Eligible for Study:  Both

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Criteria

Inclusion Criteria:


Location Information


Texas
      UT Southwestern, Dallas,  Texas,  75390,  United States

More Information

Study ID Numbers:  1 R01 AT00129-02
Record last reviewed:  October 2003
Record first received:  February 2, 2001
ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier:  NCT00010478
Health Authority: United States: Federal Government
ClinicalTrials.gov processed this record on 2004-10-20
line
U.S. National Library of Medicine, Contact NLM Customer Service
National Institutes of Health, Department of Health & Human Services
Copyright, Privacy, Accessibility, Freedom of Information Act