Acupuncture better for headaches

For chronic headaches, the best treatment may be one of the oldest: acupuncture.

In 1998, the National Institutes of Health accepted acupuncture as a useful alternative treatment for headaches, but warned that there were not enough clinical trials to draw firm conclusions about its efficacy. Now a systematic review of studies through 2007 concludes that acupuncture provides greater relief than either medication or a placebo.

The report, which appears in the December issue of Anesthesia and Analgesia, reviewed 25 randomized controlled trials in adults that lasted more than four weeks. In seven trials comparing acupuncture with medication, researchers found that 62 percent of 479 patients had significant response to acupuncture, and only 45 percent to medicine.

“People who get acupuncture prefer it to medication, because of the potential side effects of drugs,” said Dr. Tong J. Gan, a co-author of the review and a professor of anesthesiology at Duke. “This is an alternative treatment that is starting to move into the mainstream.

Not all blood pressure tests equal

For people with resistant hypertension — high blood pressure that does not respond to three or more drugs — a blood pressure reading taken in the doctor’s office may be a procedure without a purpose.

Researchers report that only ambulatory blood pressure, readings taken with a portable device that measures pressure at regular intervals over 24 hours, can predict a future heart problem.

The study, published in The Archives of Internal Medicine, followed 556 patients with resistant hypertension for an average of five years. All had had their blood pressure measured regularly in an office and had their pressure monitored using ambulatory devices. During the time, 19.6 percent either had a cardiovascular event or died.

After controlling for other risks and medications, the researchers found that office blood pressure readings failed to predict any of these events. A higher average ambulatory reading was a predictor of cardiac events and death.

Does this mean an office blood pressure reading is useless? “No,” said Dr. Gil F. Salles, the lead author of the study and a professor of clinical medicine at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. The findings apply only to resistant hypertension.

From wire reports