Acupuncture in Arterial Hypertension: Evaluation of its Efficacy with Both Office and Ambulatory Blood Pressure Measurements

Introduction: A possible alternative to pharmacological antihypertensive therapies in grade 1 low risk hypertensive patients or in those experienced drugs adverse effects could be acupuncture. Aim: we focused on its possible effects on BP both as Office BP (OBP) and as Ambulatory BP Monitoring (ABPM) evaluating it before starting a 6 weeks twice weekly (total 12 session) acupuncture cycle and after 2 months from its completion. Methods: in this prospective study we treated with acupuncture 45 patients: 24 of them presents high-normal BP values and low cardiovascular risk while 21 patients were on anti-hypertensive drug with slightly uncontrolled BP values (from 140 to 145 mmHg for Systolic BP—SBP—and/or from 90 to 95 mmHg for Diastolic BP—DBP). Results: regarding SBP, a significant reduction have been observed for office values (from 134.2 ± 15.7 to 125.1 ± 12.2, p = 0.03), and for ABPM 24 h (from 131.1 ± 10.7 to 126.0 ± 10.1, p = 0.01) and day-time values (from 134.7 ± 10.5 to 127.1 ± 18.4, p = 0.02). For DBP, only ABPM 24 h and day-time values showed significant changes (from 85.3 ± 9.1 to 82.1 ± 7.5, p = 0.03; and from 88.5 ± 9.3 to 85.7 ± 7.8, p = 0.02). Within session SBP decrease was − 5.8 mmHg (-3.75%) during the first session while it falls to – 2.1 mmHg (– 1.25%) and stands firmly under 2 mmHg for all the next session. At the last session SBP reduction was − 1.9 mmHg (– 1.6%). Conclusions: we found a significant reduction in office, 24 h and day-time ABPM SBP determined by a 6-weeks twice weekly acupuncture cycle that lasts at least for the first two months after its completion.