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Research Archive

Welcome to our Chinese medicine and acupuncture research news pages. We add to the content of these pages continuously as more research news comes in. Browse through the complete archive below or use the category links on the right.

Please note that the most twenty recent research archive items are free to view but access to the thousands of items in the archive require a journal subscription.

ACUPUNCTURE HELPS HEART PATIENTS

Categories: Heart / Cardiac

Research carried out at the University of California Los Angeles School of Medicine has shown that acupuncture can dramatically reduce the pressure on the heart in patients with severe heart failure. Over-activation of the sympathetic nervous communication between the brain and the heart is common in heart failure patients, with advanced heart failure patients often having two or three times more ...

Acupuncture and cardiovascular disease

Categories: Heart / Cardiac, Hypertension

The Susan Samueli Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of California has received a $2 million, five-year federal grant to continue studying how acupuncture can help treat cardiovascular illnesses such as heart disease, hypertension and arrhythmias. This grant extends a previous five-year grant from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. The study, lead by Dr. John Longhurst, a ...

ANGINA PECTORIS: INTEGRATED REHABILITATION

Categories: Heart / Cardiac

This study was designed to compare the outcomes and treatment costs of patients with advanced angina pectoris who were treated with integrated rehabilitation compared to known statistics for similar patients treated by surgery or other care. 168 patients took part in the study, 103 of whom were candidates for invasive treatment and 63 of whom had been rejected for such treatment due to the risk of ...

TAI CHI FOR HEART FAILURE

Categories: Heart / Cardiac

Tai chi can enhance sleep stability in patients with chronic heart failure. Researchers analysed 24-hour continuous ECG data obtained in a clinical trial of tai chi in 18 patients with heart failure. At 12 weeks, those who participated in tai chi showed a significant increase in EEG parameters that indicated improved sleep stability. These improvements were correlated with better disease-specific ...

Acupuncture for cardiac arrhythmias

Categories: Heart / Cardiac

A review article from authors in the USA supports the use of acupuncture in treating cardiac arrhythmias. According to the eight studies reviewed, 87% to 100% of participants converted to normal sinus rhythm after acupuncture. However, the limited methodological quality of current studies necessitates better-controlled clinical trials. (The effects of acupuncture on cardiac arrhythmias: a literatu ...

HERBAL MEDICINES SAY NO TO CIRCULATORY DISEASE

Categories: Heart / Cardiac

Research from the USA suggests that traditional Chinese herbal medicines (TCMs) used to treat cardiovascular disease may act by producing large amounts of nitric oxide (NO). NO is a chemical messenger molecule that is crucial to the cardiovascular system because of its vasodilatory action. It promotes blood flow through the heart and circulatory system, eliminates blood clots, lowers high blood pr ...

ACUPUNCTURE IN LONG-TERM MIGRAINE

Categories: Headache & migraine

A study carried out in Austria has demonstrated the long-term benefits of acupuncture in the treatment of migraine. 26 patients were treated by local and distal body points, once weekly, for between 6 and 13 treatments. The majority showed reduced frequency of attacks and use of analgesics. Significantly, a follow-up survey showed maintained improvement over a 3-year period. (Headache, 1995; 35(8) ...

ACUPUNCTURE & MIGRAINE

Categories: Headache & migraine

Women who opt for acupuncture instead of a drug to prevent migraines report feeling fewer initial symptoms, fewer attacks, and less side effects from the treatment, new study findings report. The study, carried out at the Woman's Headache Centre at the University of Turin, Italy, compared the effect of acupuncture with oral flunarizine in preventing non-aura migraine over a 6-month period. The 160 ...

ACUPUNCTURE FOR CHRONIC HEADACHE

Categories: Headache & migraine

Acupuncture has demonstrated a clear long-term benefit for patients suffering from chronic headaches. 401 patients were randomly assigned to receive either individualised acupuncture treatment (12 treatments over 3 months), or normal care from their general practitioner (control). At 12 months after the onset of treatment, headache scores in the acupuncture group fell by 34% (compared to 16% in th ...

CHINESE MEDICINE FOR CHRONIC HEADACHES

Categories: Headache & migraine

This German study compared the number of days of moderate headache experienced by two groups of chronic headache sufferers, one after 4 weeks of Chinese herbal medicine and acupuncture treatment at a Chinese medicine hospital in Kotzting, Germany, and the other assigned to a non-treatment waiting group. Fifty-two percent of patients in the treatment group experienced a greater than 50% reduction i ...

ACUPUNCTURE FOR CHRONIC HEADACHE

Categories: Headache & migraine

Another large German study similarly compared the effects of randomly assigned acupuncture, self-elected acupuncture and non-acupuncture controls on chronic migraine and tension headache in a total of 15,056 patients. After three months of treatment (fifteen sessions) the frequency of headache days reduced significantly and quality of life scores improved significantly between the acupuncture and ...

LASER ACUPUNCTURE & CHRONIC TENSION HEADACHE

Categories: Headache & migraine

Laser acupuncture has a distinct advantage over needle acupuncture in clinical trials since it is considerably easier to apply a placebo intervention. In a study of the use of laser acupuncture in the treatment of chronic tension-type headache, 50 patients were randomly allocated to treatment or placebo groups. Patients in the treatment group received low energy laser acupuncture to Lieque LU-7, H ...

ACUPUNCTURE & TENSION HEADACHE

Categories: Headache & migraine

A German trial compared 'true' acupuncture, sham acupuncture and no acupuncture in 270 female patients suffering from episodic or chronic tension-type headache. The acupuncture protocol, which was carried out at 28 different clinics, was developed through consultation with various German acupuncture experts and societies and delivered by practitioners with a median of 500 hours training and 10 yea ...

ACUPUNCTURE & MIGRAINE

Categories: Headache & migraine

Acupuncture (up to 15 sessions over 12 weeks) was compared with metoprolol (a standard migraine prophylaxis medication) for effectiveness and tolerability in 113 patients randomised to one of two groups. The number of days with migraine decreased by 2.5 days in the acupuncture group compared to 2.2 in the medication group and those experiencing 50% or greater reduction in attacks was 61% for acupu ...

ACUPUNCTURE & HEADACHE

Categories: Headache & migraine

In a randomised, controlled trial, 74 patients with chronic daily headache were randomly assigned to receive either medical management alone (headache medication) or medical management plus acupuncture (10 treatments over six weeks). The patients receiving acupuncture were reported 3.7 times less suffering due to headaches at six weeks, and further showed improvements in the Headache Impact Test a ...

ACUPUNCTURE EQUIVALENT TO DRUGS FOR MIGRAINE

Categories: Headache & migraine

A review of current studies on acupuncture and migraine concludes that a six-week course of acupuncture is not inferior to a six-month prophylactic drug treatment, but that specific TCM-based point selection, point stimulation and needling depth may not be that important. The review suggests that acupuncture should be integrated into existing migraine therapy protocols. Role of acupuncture in the ...

LASER ACUPUNCTURE EFFECTIVE FOR CHILDREN'S HEADACHES

Categories: Headache & migraine

Laser acupuncture can provide significant benefit in the treatment of children with headache. Researchers in Germany carried out a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of laser acupuncture in 43 children (mean age 12.3 years) with various types of headache. Patients received a course of four treatments over four weeks with either active or placebo laser. The acupuncture treatment was ...

ACUPUNCTURE FOR TENSION-TYPE HEADACHE

Categories: Headache & migraine

Tension-type headache (TTH), improves after acupuncture, but the difference between real and sham treatment is not significant, a new German study has found. The randomised, controlled, multicentre, patient-and observer-blinded trial was carried out in 122 outpatient practices on 409 patients with TTH. Patients had either verum acupuncture (according TCM principles) or sham acupuncture (superficia ...

ACUPUNCTURE FOR MIGRAINE

Categories: Headache & migraine

Italian researchers have conducted a trial on migraine sufferers that attempts to separate the specific effects of a true TCM acupuncture treatment from the effects of both standard sham acupuncture and a mock 'acupuncture healing ritual'. One hundred and sixty patients were divided into four groups: true acupuncture (TA) plus normal drug therapy (Rizatriptan), ritualised mock acupuncture (RMA) pl ...

ACUPUNCTURE IMPROVES AUTONOMIC REGULATION IN MIGRAINE

Categories: Headache & migraine

A positive response to acupuncture by migraine sufferers is associated with beneficial changes in the regulation of the autonomic nervous system. Thirty migraineurs were randomly allocated to two groups receiving either verum acupuncture (VA) or sham acupuncture (SA) treatment. Across the combined VA and SA groups, clinical responders (those with at least 50% reduction of migraine attacks) exhibit ...