Acupuncture and Hypertension
Public ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT00010478. Field values are reproduced from the official study page; the official ClinicalTrials.gov record remains the source of truth for eligibility, enrollment, and contact information.
Data is sourced from official ClinicalTrials.gov public API records. Always review the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for the latest information.
Official title
Acupuncture and Hypertension-Efficacy and Mechanisms
Brief summary
Reproduced verbatim from the official ClinicalTrials.gov record. Not medical advice.
Although traditional Chinese medicine advocates the use of acupuncture not only to induce analgesia but also to treat essential hypertension, acupuncture's postulated antihypertensive efficacy in humans has not been subjected to rigorous Western scientific testing. Before advocating acupuncture as an effective complementary/alternative medicine strategy for essential hypertension, it is necessary to demonstrate that the beneficial effects of acupuncture are scientifically robust, long-lasting, and explicable in terms of modern scientific mechanisms. In spontaneously hypertensive rats, acupuncture-like electrical stimulation of thinly myelinated (Group III) somatic afferents activates central endorphin (naloxone-sensitive) pathways that elicit long-lasting decreases in sympathetic nerve activity (SNA) and blood pressure. The ability to record SNA with microelectrodes in conscious humans provides a new opportunity to test this novel mechanistic hypothesis in patients undergoing electroacupuncture, a modification of the ancient technique that provides a quantifiable and reproducible stimulus to human skeletal muscle afferents. Using a randomized, double-blind placebo-controlled design, we will test the following major hypotheses: Electroacupuncture produces a long-lasting reduction in SNA, thereby providing a safe and effective complementary treatment of human hypertension. Given the enormous interest in acupuncture by our lay public, but the paucity of Western scientific data about its efficacy in cardiovascular disorders, our studies in normotensive and hypertensive humans should provide a conceptual framework for deciding whether to accept or reject the large body of Chinese (and Russian) literature advocating acupuncture as a safe and effective treatment of essential hypertension and other cardiovascular disorders (such as heart failure, and myocardial ischemia).
Study identification
- NCT ID
- NCT00010478
- Recruitment status
- Completed
- Study type
- Interventional
- Phase
- Not applicable
- Enrollment
- Not listed
Conditions and interventions
Conditions
Eligibility (public fields only)
- Age range
- 18 Years to 65 Years
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- Accepts healthy volunteers
This page does not interpret eligibility. Detailed inclusion and exclusion criteria are on the official ClinicalTrials.gov record.
Study timeline
- Start date
- Not listed
- Primary completion
- Not listed
- Completion
- Not listed
- Last update posted
- Aug 17, 2006
United States locations
- U.S. sites
- 1
- U.S. states
- 1
- U.S. cities
- 1
| Facility | City | State | ZIP | Site status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| UT Southwestern | Dallas | Texas | 75390 | — |
Site contact phone numbers, emails, and investigator names are intentionally not displayed here. Open the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for site contact information.
About this trial record page
- What this page shows
- Public field values for ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT00010478, including study identification, conditions, interventions, eligibility (age, sex, healthy volunteer), timeline, and U.S. site list.
- What this page does not do
- No medical advice, eligibility judgments, treatment recommendations, study quality scoring, or AI-generated medical summaries. No site contact phone numbers, emails, or investigator names.
- Where the data comes from
- Sourced from the official ClinicalTrials.gov public API. The official record is the source of truth.
- Last refresh
- Last update posted Aug 17, 2006 · Synced Sep 11, 2026
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Open the official record
The complete protocol, eligibility criteria, and contact information for NCT00010478 live on ClinicalTrials.gov.