According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, heart disease is the leading cause of death for men and women in the United States. And ethnicity doesn’t matter, as people of all racial and ethnic groups are impacted. With such serious statistics, many might wonder what treatment options are available. Did you know that acupuncture can help with treating heart disease, as well as many of its contributing factors? Read on to learn how.

Whether as a solo treatment or in combination with other traditional medical treatments, acupuncture is a great option for those suffering from heart disease, particularly as a preventative measure. Not surprisingly, the top three risk factors for developing heart disease are high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and smoking. While lifestyle changes are also key to preventing heart disease, there are some additional steps you can take through regular acupuncture treatments to mitigate the risk factors of heart disease.

Acupuncture Points and Herbs for Treating Heart Disease

There are six common points related to treating heart disease:

• HT1 (Ji Quan) – located under the arm and is used for heart pain, chest pain, shortness of breath, anxiety, and palpitations.
• HT9 (Shao Chong) – located on the pinky and is used for heart attack, stroke, and heart pain.
• SP3 (Taibai) – located on the bottom of the foot and is used for heart pain.
• UB15 (Xin Shu) – located near the spine and is used for heart palpitations, anxiety, and heart pain.
• Hu Po – herbal formulation used for tremors, to stop palpitations, to help with insomnia, and used for coronary heart disease.
• Xue Fu Zhu Yu Wan – herbal formulation used for coronary artery disease, angina, and other cardiovascular health issues.

What the Research Says

Northwestern Medicine is currently studying acupuncture as an effective treatment for heart rhythm disorders, pain, and nausea, and for use after cardiac surgery. Researchers sought to answer three main questions: 1. Would patients embrace acupuncture during heart surgery? 2. Is it logistically feasible in a cardiac surgery setting to provide daily acupuncture to patients? 3. Does acupuncture impact medical outcomes such as AFib and post-surgical symptoms like pain, nausea, stress, and anxiety?

According to lead researcher Dr. Kim Feingold, “We learned that acupuncture after open heart surgery is feasible in this fast-paced environment – even in the intensive care unit the day after surgery – and was well tolerated by patients with no adverse effects.” The research team concluded that acupuncture used after heart surgery produced lower rates of post-operative atrial fibrillation, reduced pain, nausea, stress and anxiety, less time in the intensive care unit, and a reduced need for antiarrhythmic medication.

Help with Risk Factors

As mentioned previously, acupuncture can also help patients address risk factors that can lead to future heart issues. For example, acupuncture is great at treating high blood pressure, helping people to quit smoking, lose weight, reduce stress, and regulate sleep. Acupuncture looks to return balance to the body, thus improving overall health and wellness. If you suffer from one or more of these risk factors, it will likely take many sessions to address these issues. Your acupuncturist will work with you to conduct a complete health history and treatment plan addressing each of your concerns. The treatment plan may also include herbal formulas to help patients reach their health goals. 

Don’t wait until a more serious issue arises, if you are looking to jumpstart your New Year with new health goals, make an appointment today. Share your concerns, be honest with your practitioner and let them help you to achieve your health goals. Better health is within your reach and acupuncture can help you get there.

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According to the National Institutes of Health, research has demonstrated that acupuncture could be helpful for a variety of pain conditions including back pain, knee pain caused by osteoarthritis, and postoperative pain. There is also evidence to suggest that it helps relieve joint pain “associated with the use of aromatase inhibitors.”

Also, according to the NIH, an analysis of the data from 20 different studies totaling 6,376 participants with documented “painful conditions” showed that the benefits of acupuncture continued to be felt for a year after the end of treatment for all conditions except for neck pain.

However, pain isn’t the only condition acupuncture can help with. The NIH says that acupuncture has been studied for “at least 50 other health problems” and there is evidence that “acupuncture may help relieve seasonal allergy symptoms, stress incontinence in women, and nausea and vomiting associated with cancer treatment.”

Listed below are just a handful of results from acupuncture studies documenting how treatment helps for some of the most common health conditions. More details about each of these studies can be found by visiting the National Institutes of Health acupuncture facts page which is where this research was gathered.

Osteoarthritis

In a 2018 review, data from 10 studies (2,413 participants) showed acupuncture was more effective than no treatment for osteoarthritis pain, and data from 9 studies (2,376 participants) showed acupuncture was more effective than sham acupuncture. The difference between acupuncture and no treatment was greater than the difference between acupuncture and sham acupuncture. Most of the participants in these studies had knee osteoarthritis, but some had hip osteoarthritis. The pain-relieving effect of acupuncture was comparable to that of NSAIDs.

Headaches & Migraines

A 2020 review of nine studies that compared acupuncture with various drugs for preventing migraine found that acupuncture was slightly more effective, and study participants who received acupuncture were much less likely than those receiving drugs to drop out of studies because of side effects.

There’s moderate-quality evidence that acupuncture may reduce the frequency of migraines (from a 2016 evaluation of 22 studies with almost 5,000 people). The evidence from these studies also suggests that acupuncture may be better than sham acupuncture, but the difference is small. There is moderate- to low-quality evidence that acupuncture may reduce the frequency of tension headaches (from a 2016 evaluation of 12 studies with about 2,350 people).

Seasonal Allergies

A 2015 evaluation of 13 studies of acupuncture for allergic rhinitis, involving a total of 2,365 participants, found evidence that acupuncture may help relieve nasal symptoms. The study participants who received acupuncture also had lower medication scores (meaning that they used less medication to treat their symptoms) and lower blood levels of immunoglobulin E (IgE), a type of antibody associated with allergies.

A 2014 clinical practice guideline from the American Academy of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery included acupuncture among the options health care providers may offer to patients with allergic rhinitis.

Postoperative Pain

A 2016 evaluation of 11 studies of pain after surgery (with a total of 682 participants) found that patients treated with acupuncture or related techniques 1 day after surgery had less pain and used less opioid pain medicine after the operation.

With positive results like these, it’s no wonder the demand for acupuncture treatments is on the rise. Make an appointment today and talk to your local acupuncturist. They will take a thorough health history and answer any questions you may have. The research speaks for itself! Acupuncture works so call today!

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Having recurring migraines is similar to parenting a temperamental toddler. When they go from being annoying to actively disruptive and mildly infuriating, there is often little one can do but grit your teeth and persevere. The helpful suggestions for managing this occurrence involved a mixture of expert opinion, anecdotal hearsay, individual tinkering and a big dose of patience. So where does acupuncture fit into this picture?

We’ll start with expert opinion. Consider a 2013 systematic review that compared actual and placebo effects of several interventions for the treatment of migraines ¹. The study showed  that sham acupuncture had a stronger placebo effect than the oral pharmacological placebo, and furthermore the placebo effect of acupuncture was shown to be as strong as the true, active-drug treatment. So the research currently suggests even if one were to receive only the placebo benefit of acupuncture, it may still be as effective as taking a pharmaceutical for the treatment of migraines.

That is promising research, but let’s add anecdote for good measure. It is possible to stop a migraine in its tracks if one is able to see an acupuncturist during the acute stage of migraine. The release of endogenous opioids, the body’s natural pain-relievers, combined with the stimulation of endorphins, can turn the worst headache into no more than a mild annoyance within that hour-long session. Acupuncture also treats nausea and vomiting, and it balances the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis ², which is implicated in migraine pathology ³.

Now for individual tinkering. Acupuncture is hyper-individualized, with each treatment responding to your body’s symptoms at that exact moment, in a way specific to only you. Coming in for acupuncture during the acute stage provides the acupuncturist with valuable information about how your body is experiencing the strongest symptoms of migraine attack. This informs the treatments given afterward to prevent or reduce the severity of the next migraine. Weekly treatments downregulate stress hormones and create a more clear baseline from which to observe physiological patterns such as dietary and environmental triggers. This can help make your individual-lifestyle adjustments more effective in reducing migraines.

And finally, patience is still the key when treating migraines. Acupuncture must be used regularly for an individually determined period of time in order for its full benefit to become apparent. In the same way that eating one kale leaf will not make one a beacon of health, neither will having just one acupuncture treatment. The goal is to set up and then reinforce a pattern of signaling in the body that is closer to the “rest and digest” mode of existence and further away from the “fight and flight” mode that governs our modern lives. Each acupuncture treatment helps reinforce the beneficial relaxing mode that reduces the prevalence of migraines.

1) Meissner, K, et. al. Differential effectiveness of placebo treatments: a systematic review of migraine prophylaxis. JAMA Internal medicine. 2013 Nov 25;173(21):1941-51.

2) Wang, S-J, Zhang, J-J, and Qie, L-L. Acupuncture relieves the excessive excitation of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal cortex axis function and correlates with the regulatory mechanism of GR, CRH, and ACTHR. Evidence based complementary and alternative medicine. 2014; 2014.

3) Tietjen, G. and Peterlin, B. Childhood abuse and migraine: epidemiology, sex differences, and possible mechanisms. Headache. 2011 Jun: 51(6):869-879.

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