Reposted as Postolova Acupuncture News from HospiMedica

Hypertensive patients treated with electroacupuncture (EA) experienced long-lasting drops in their blood pressure that lasted up to a month and a half, according to a new study.

Researchers at the University of California, Irvine (UCI; USA) and Shanghai East International Medical Center (China) conducted a randomized controlled study of 65 hypertensive patients not receiving medication to examine the effectiveness of EA at select acupoints to reduce systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressures (DBP). The hypertensive patients were randomly to one of two acupuncture interventions once weekly for 8 weeks. The main outcome measures were effectiveness of EA and average SBP and DBP.

The results showed that in the group receiving EA on both sides of the inner wrists and slightly below each knee [PC 5-6+ST 36-37], a noticeable 6–8 mmHg drop in SPB and 4 mmHg drop in DBP occurred in 70% of participants, when compared to sham EA controls; the improvements persisted for a 45 days. The researchers also identified significant declines in blood levels of norepinephrine (41%), renin (67%), and aldosterone (22%), a hormone that regulates electrolytes. The study was published on August 18, 2015, in Medical Acupuncture.

“Because electroacupuncture decreases both peak and average systolic blood pressure over 24 hours, this therapy may decrease the risk for stroke, peripheral artery disease, heart failure, and myocardial infarction in hypertensive patients,” said senior author cardiologist John Longhurst, MD, of UCI. “By using Western scientific rigor to validate an ancient Eastern therapy, we feel we have integrated Chinese and Western medicine and provided a beneficial guideline for treating a disease that affects millions in the United States.”

Acupuncture is an ancient alternative methodology that treats patients by manipulating thin, solid needles that have been inserted into acupuncture points in the skin. According to traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), stimulating these points can correct imbalances in the flow of qi through channels known as meridians. Scientific research, however, has not found any histological or physiological correlates for qi, meridians, and acupuncture points.

My dear patients, as many of you already know, my daughter Anna Postolov, M.D., MPH completed her residency at Stanford Medical Hospital, and recently she also received an offer to continue her academic career in medicine by doing a fellowship in immunology-oncology-rheumatology and allergy at Stanford as well. What I’m even more excited about is that she and I recently became partners in our new company, East-West Organic Herbs, with our intention to manufacture the best in organic herbal formulas for optimum health.

We both feel so strongly that pesticides and GMOs are a major threat to our patients’ health. It applies not only to food, which I’ve already stressed the importance of over the years, but also to the herbal formulas and supplements we consume daily. I was recently reading a great article in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) called “GMOs, Herbicides, and Public Health” that supports our beliefs and came to realize our food is becoming a bigger concern for a variety of reasons.

They highlight several studies that show that GM foods, herbicides and pesticides may pose serious health risks to human health, with “the potential to produce unanticipated allergens” as well as being “probable and possible human carcinogens,” with growing concern for the potential hazard to infants and children.

This is the reason it is our desire to deliver to our patients the finest quality organic products that Mother Nature has to offer, ensuring they are of the highest quality and in their purest form. The NEJM podcast is also very informative and we highly suggest listening to it so that you can better understand the seriousness of the situation and our joint mission to change it.

READ the New England Journal of Medicine’s Full Article Here.

LISTEN to their podcast Here.