Acupuncture For Heart Failure

[Guest guest]

Hi All,

A friend just sent me this, wonder if it might work for us.

Best wishes,

Bill Utterback

South San Francisco

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ANAHEIM, Calif., Nov 16 (Reuters Health) - Acupuncture controls the

overactive nerve stimulation that is present in heart failure, researchers

announced here Wednesday at the 2001 Scientific Sessions of the American

Heart Association.

Dr. Holly R. Middlekauff of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA),

presented data collected on 14 patients with advanced heart failure. The

patients received either " active " acupuncture--delivered by traditional

needles at true acupuncture points; " sham " acupuncture--delivered by needles

to non-acupuncture points; or " no-needle " acupuncture--in which the

investigators tapped the back of the patient's neck.

Middlekauff explained that nerve communication between the brain and the

heart, or sympathetic nervous system activity, is two to three times higher

in patients with heart failure, putting the failing heart under constant,

wearing strain. Drugs called beta-blockers are prescribed to block that

excess stimulation. Acupuncture also blocks sympathetic nerve activity,

Middlekauff noted.

The UCLA team subjected patients to 4 minutes of mental stress. The stress

included having patients perform rapid mental math problems, after which " we

chastised them when they were wrong, " Middlekauff said. Patients also

performed a word-color mismatch test in which they had to correctly identify

a color while ignoring a wrong written cue.

The researchers measured heart rate, blood pressure and sympathetic nerve

activity in a leg muscle after the mental stress tests without acupuncture

and then again with acupuncture performed for 20 minutes prior to the stress

test.

There was a 25% increase in sympathetic nerve activity after the mental

stress tests without active acupuncture. With acupuncture, sympathetic nerve

activity was similar to what it had been before the patients underwent the

stress test, Middlekauff reported.

" Real acupuncture essentially eliminated the sympathetic response in heart

failure patients after only one session. Now I would like to see what a full

course would do, " she stated.

Middlekauff pointed out that some patients with heart failure do not respond

to beta-blockers, while others cannot take them at all. Acupuncture would be

of particular value in these patients, she noted.

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