Acupuncture for essential hypertension

AbstractBackgroundTo systematically assess the current clinical evidence of acupuncture for hypertension.Search strategyThe PubMed, EMBASE, Chinese Biomedical Literature Database (CBM), Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Chinese Scientific Journal Database (VIP), and Wan-fang Data in the Cochrane Library were searched until January, 2013. All the randomized controlled trials (RCTs) based on acupuncture compared with western medicine, sham acupuncture or lifestyle intervention in patients with hypertension were included. RCTs were included as well as combined acupuncture with western medicine compared with western medicine. In addition, RCTs based on acupuncture compared with sham acupuncture combined with western medicine in patients with essential hypertension were included. No language restriction was used. Review Manager 5.1 software was used for data analysis. Study selection, data extraction, quality assessment, and data analyses were conducted according to the Cochrane standards.Results35 randomized trials (involving 2539 patients) were included. The methodological quality of the included trials was evaluated as generally low. Two trials reported the effect of acupuncture compared with sham acupuncture in combinations of western medicine. Acupuncture significantly reduced SBP (−7.47mmHg, 95% CI — 10.43 to −4.5, P<0.00001) and DBP (−4.22mmHg, 95% CI — 6.26 to −2.18, P