Response to Comment on “Beyond Medications and Diet: Alternative Approaches to Lowering Blood Pressure: A Scientific Statement From the American Heart Association”

摘要

We thank Dr Hudnut1 for the letter and important points on our review of acupuncture in the recent American Heart Association scientific statement “Beyond Medications and Diet: Alternative Approaches to Lowering Blood Pressure.”2 In the introduction, we did forthright acknowledge the difficulties inherent in performing trials for many of the alternative approaches, such as identifying appropriate control groups.2 These barriers hinder the capacity and reliability to objectively determine the independent efficacy of these approaches to lower blood pressure, in particular acupuncture.An additional concern seems to be the relatively few citations in the article to support our conclusions on …