Longhurst Gets Grant to Continue Acupuncture Work

Medicine is coming to learn that acupuncture can help treat a host of ailments, but little is known about how this ancient Chinese medical practice works to heal. Dr. John Longhurst, professor of medicine and director of the Samueli Center for Integrative Medicine, is leading the way in discovering how electroacupuncture activates the central nervous system to lower blood pressure. Longhurst recently received a five-year, $1.25 million renewal of a federal research grant to study the mechanism involved with the effective use of acupuncture as a hypertension treatment. Longhurst is a leader in using Western scientific rigor to understand the efficacy of traditional Chinese medicine, and this study is the only National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute-funded acupuncture research in the world.