“Why is acupuncture recommended for cardiovascular disease?”
My doctor recommended acupuncture, actually, to lower my risk for cardiovascular diseases because I have a family history of cardiovascular diseases on my mom's side. Why is acupuncture recommended for this? How does it help?
11 Answers
There is no evidence that acupuncture reduces cardiovascular disease.
Decrease bp.
I have been on rounds at Highland Hospital in Oakland, CA for Cardiology. The reason why your doctor had recommended you for acupuncture may be for a couple of reasons!
It can be very stressful knowing that you may develop a cardiovascular condition. Acupuncture is a great therapy for lowering stress and managing cortisol levels in your body. Cortisol can cause multiple problems in the body if the body keeps becoming exposed to Cortisol.
Secondly, acupuncture is excellent for lowering blood pressure. Cardiologists are MOST concerned about high blood pressure. Acupuncture can keep your blood pressure at a normal level to help prevent your risks of cardiovascular disease.
Lastly, acupuncture is not only good for lowering your blood pressure, but it is great for maintaining a good heart rhythm! When one's stress decreases, and the blood pressure decreases, and they enter a lethargic state of mind, the heart rate will also stay at a comfortable level. This is important for maintaining balance in one's body to prevent risk of any cardiovascular condition!
Always stay in touch with your cardiologist and ask your acupuncturist to send updates to your cardiologist while obtaining acupuncture treatments! I'm sure your doctor would love to hear about how you are doing following his recommendation on receiving acupuncture!
It can be very stressful knowing that you may develop a cardiovascular condition. Acupuncture is a great therapy for lowering stress and managing cortisol levels in your body. Cortisol can cause multiple problems in the body if the body keeps becoming exposed to Cortisol.
Secondly, acupuncture is excellent for lowering blood pressure. Cardiologists are MOST concerned about high blood pressure. Acupuncture can keep your blood pressure at a normal level to help prevent your risks of cardiovascular disease.
Lastly, acupuncture is not only good for lowering your blood pressure, but it is great for maintaining a good heart rhythm! When one's stress decreases, and the blood pressure decreases, and they enter a lethargic state of mind, the heart rate will also stay at a comfortable level. This is important for maintaining balance in one's body to prevent risk of any cardiovascular condition!
Always stay in touch with your cardiologist and ask your acupuncturist to send updates to your cardiologist while obtaining acupuncture treatments! I'm sure your doctor would love to hear about how you are doing following his recommendation on receiving acupuncture!
Acupuncture and herbs treatment can work on the patients for prevention, not just treatment. There are certain acupuncture points and herbs for prevention of cardiovascular diseases. That is why your MD recommend acupuncture.
Acupuncture makes you generally healthier in all ways. It can help lower blood pressure, and it can support all your organs, including your heart. It's a longer term kind of treatment - not a one-shot deal, but it can make a lot of difference to your overall health if you stick with it. Most insurances now cover acupuncture.
Acupuncture improves circulation of blood and energy but also balances hormones, which determine every action of body. It can regulate heart rhythm, improve blood oxygenation, lower blood pressure, etc. It is very beneficial for cardiovascular disease.
For cardiovascular disease, there is a circulation problem. Acupuncture is great for treating heart issues because it promotes healthy blood flow.
Acupuncture helps blood circulation by balancing body energy and using more than just needles such as heat lamp, moxa and cupping and etc.
Generally speaking, acupuncture modulates autonomic nerve system to adjust the CV system of the animal as well as the human body. For instance, when an arterial fibrillation patient with irregular heartbeats walks in, as soon as two needles insert in one particular point, the heart rates will be regulated immediately. I had a patient coming with 112 bpm; the heart rate was 86. After withdrawing the needles, it was 81. After a couple more visits, the HR was 81-86 bpm and regular. She has not had a problem since then. The effect is quicker than a drug. The research studies are published all around the world of academic journals.
Acupuncture is very good at keeping the body's functions moving in a proper way. The cardiovascular system, the respiratory system, the digestive system, et all are actually all related to each other and through a proper diagnosis, our practitioners can help the body communicate between these systems to function more properly and smoothly. Not only through physical means, but also by balancing emotional imbalances and psychological mishaps that could be affecting your health too.
Good luck.
Good luck.
First off, I'm glad to hear your doctor is making this recommendation. Acupuncture has beneficial effect in a wide variety of health conditions beyond just pain management.
Cardiovascular disease is a tricky one to explain because there are so many facets that could be discussed; from high blood pressure to arterial plaques to angina and so on. Acupuncture's effects in each case are probably due to different mechanisms, some of which are not well understood currently.
Acupuncture has pretty consistently shown that it promotes the parasympathetic side of the autonomic nervous system. The parasympathetic is the so-called "rest and digest" mode (as opposed to the "fight or flight" or sympathetic side). This gives us a level of stress reduction along with dilating the blood vessels. A larger pipe leads to reduced pressure and this is one of the ways acupuncture reduces high blood pressure.
Acupuncture has also been shown to increase blood levels of nitric oxide (NO). This is a fairly potent vasodilator (again, larger pipe) and can also lead to decreased blood pressure as well as decreased angina (chest pain).
There are studies showing acupuncture can exert a cardio-protective effect. The mechanism here isn't clear, but we see lowered levels of cardiac enzymes in patients treated with acupuncture prior to heart surgery. Cardiac enzymes in the blood is one of the ways we know the heart has been damaged. Typically in heart surgery we expect to see a lot of cardiac enzymes in the blood after the procedure. For some reason, with acupuncture prior to the operation, we don't see a lot of cardiac enzymes in the blood so acupuncture might be doing something to protect the heart cells.
Acupuncture can also be used to help regulate irregular heart beat (arrhythmia). Some studies show acupuncture having similar effect to pharmaceuticals in this regard. Again, the mechanism isn't clear.
Since it has come up a couple times here, there are a lot of cases, in both Chinese and conventional medicine, where the mechanism of action isn't clear. In fact, there are a lot of FDA approved drugs on the market whose mechanism of action either isn't known at all or isn't fully understood. We make decisions based on efficacy and safety - does it do what it claims and are there any serious side-effects? In acupuncture's case the answer is typically, yes, it does what it claims and no, there generally aren't any serious side-effects. So, just because we don't understand how it works, sometimes it's enough to know that it does work and it works safely.
All of which brings me to my final point: to get the best and safest result, you need to make sure you're seeing an NCCAOM board certified acupuncturist. If your doctor doesn't have a few acupuncturists that he/she recommends, go to NCCAOM.org and use their "Find a Practitioner" link to locate someone local to you.
Cardiovascular disease is a tricky one to explain because there are so many facets that could be discussed; from high blood pressure to arterial plaques to angina and so on. Acupuncture's effects in each case are probably due to different mechanisms, some of which are not well understood currently.
Acupuncture has pretty consistently shown that it promotes the parasympathetic side of the autonomic nervous system. The parasympathetic is the so-called "rest and digest" mode (as opposed to the "fight or flight" or sympathetic side). This gives us a level of stress reduction along with dilating the blood vessels. A larger pipe leads to reduced pressure and this is one of the ways acupuncture reduces high blood pressure.
Acupuncture has also been shown to increase blood levels of nitric oxide (NO). This is a fairly potent vasodilator (again, larger pipe) and can also lead to decreased blood pressure as well as decreased angina (chest pain).
There are studies showing acupuncture can exert a cardio-protective effect. The mechanism here isn't clear, but we see lowered levels of cardiac enzymes in patients treated with acupuncture prior to heart surgery. Cardiac enzymes in the blood is one of the ways we know the heart has been damaged. Typically in heart surgery we expect to see a lot of cardiac enzymes in the blood after the procedure. For some reason, with acupuncture prior to the operation, we don't see a lot of cardiac enzymes in the blood so acupuncture might be doing something to protect the heart cells.
Acupuncture can also be used to help regulate irregular heart beat (arrhythmia). Some studies show acupuncture having similar effect to pharmaceuticals in this regard. Again, the mechanism isn't clear.
Since it has come up a couple times here, there are a lot of cases, in both Chinese and conventional medicine, where the mechanism of action isn't clear. In fact, there are a lot of FDA approved drugs on the market whose mechanism of action either isn't known at all or isn't fully understood. We make decisions based on efficacy and safety - does it do what it claims and are there any serious side-effects? In acupuncture's case the answer is typically, yes, it does what it claims and no, there generally aren't any serious side-effects. So, just because we don't understand how it works, sometimes it's enough to know that it does work and it works safely.
All of which brings me to my final point: to get the best and safest result, you need to make sure you're seeing an NCCAOM board certified acupuncturist. If your doctor doesn't have a few acupuncturists that he/she recommends, go to NCCAOM.org and use their "Find a Practitioner" link to locate someone local to you.
