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Effects of TAT-SOD at Acupoints on Essential Hypertension by Monitoring Meridians Electrical Potential

  • Acupuncture Research
  • Published:
Chinese Journal of Integrative Medicine Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Objectives

To investigate the effect on essential hypertension of the topical application of TAT-Cu, Zn-superoxide dismutase (TAT-SOD) at left acupoint Zusanli (ST 36), and to observe whether the change of electrical potential difference (EPD) can be related to the change of blood pressure.

Methods

Sixteen patients with essential hypertension and 16 healthy subjects were included in the study. EPD between the left acupoints of Yanglingquan (GB 34) and Qiuxu (GB 40) was firstly screened out for the EPD detection. An intracellular superoxide quenching enzyme, TAT-SOD, was topically applied to the acupoint ST 36 within an area of 1 cm2 once a day, and the influence on EPD was investigated. The dosage applied to TAT-SOD group (n=8) was 0.2 mL of 3000 U/mL TAT-SOD cream prepared by adding purified TAT-SOD to a vehicle cream, while placebo group (n=8) used the vehicle cream instead. The left acupoints of Yanglingquan (GB 34) and Qiuxu (GB 40) were selected for EPD measurement after comparing EPD readings between 5 acupoints on each of all 12 meridians.

Results

EPDs between the left acupoints of GB 34 and GB 40 for 16 patients of essential hypertension and 16 healthy subjects were 44.9±6.4 and 5.6±0.9 mV, respectively. Daily application of TAT-SOD for 15 days at ST 36 of essential hypertension patients significantly decreased systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) of 179.6 and 81.5 mm Hg to 153.1 and 74.1 mm Hg, respectively. Responding to the change in blood pressure, EPD between the left acupoints of GB 34 and GB 40 also declined from 44.4 to 22.8 mV with the same trend. No change was observed with SBP, DBP and EPD between the left acupoints of GB 34 and GB 40 with the daily application of the placebo cream.

Conclusion

Enzymatic scavenging of the intracellular superoxide at ST 36 proved to be effective in decreasing SBP and DBP. The results reconfirm the involvement of superoxide anions and its transportation along the meridians, and demonstrate that EPD between acupoints may be an indicator to reflect its functioning status. Moreover, preliminary results suggest a close correlation between EPD and blood pressure readings, implying a possibility of using EPD as a sensitive parameter for blood pressure and to monitor the effect of antihypertensive treatment.

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Acknowledgment

We thank XU Jin-sen of Fujian University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, who gave us great help in the clinical trial application.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences/Zhejiang Gongshang University Joint Centre for Food and Nutrition Research, Zhejiang Gongshang University, Hangzhou, 310035, China

    Jing-ke Guo, Li-jing Ke, Jian-wu Zhou & Ping-fan Rao

  2. Acupuncture College, Fujian University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Fuzhou, 350003, China

    Jin-sen Xu

  3. Natural Drug Discovery Group, School of Pharmacy, Queen’s University, Belfast, BT97BL, UK

    Tian-bao Chen

  4. College of Oceanology and Food Science, Quanzhou Normal University, Quanzhou, Fujian, 362000, China

    Ming-ming Xu

  5. College of Biological Science and Technology, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou, 350108, China

    Shu-tao Liu

  6. Guangzhou Halcyon Technology Ltd., Guangzhou, 510630, China

    Chao-xin Zhang

  7. Institute of Food Science and Technology, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, 100193, China

    Qiang Wang

Authors
  1. Jing-ke Guo
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  2. Jin-sen Xu
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  3. Tian-bao Chen
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  4. Ming-ming Xu
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  5. Shu-tao Liu
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  7. Li-jing Ke
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  8. Jian-wu Zhou
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  9. Qiang Wang
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  10. Ping-fan Rao
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Contributions

Guo JK, Xu JS, Chen TB, Wang Q and Rao PF designed the study, analysed the data, and prepared this manuscript; Guo JK, Xu JS, Xu MM and Zhang CX performed the research; Liu ST, Ke LJ and Zhou JW finished TAT-SOD expression; Guo JK, Xu MM and Zhang CX researched electric properties of acpoints. All authors contributed to the scientific discussion.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ping-fan Rao.

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Conflict of Interests

The authors declare that there is no conflict of interests regarding the publication of this paper.

Supported by National Key R&D Program of China (No. 2016YFD0400202), National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 31500685, 30973720), Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (No. LY16C050002), and Start-Up Fund of Research in Quanzhou Normal University (No. G16062)

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Guo, Jk., Xu, Js., Chen, Tb. et al. Effects of TAT-SOD at Acupoints on Essential Hypertension by Monitoring Meridians Electrical Potential. Chin. J. Integr. Med. 26, 694–700 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11655-019-3173-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11655-019-3173-9

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