A series of acupuncture sessions can reduce the increased risk of stroke associated with rheumatoid arthritis, according to a study published in the open access journal BMJ Open.

The leading cause of death in people with rheumatoid arthritis is cardiovascular disease, and they are more likely to have a stroke than the general population.

The researchers studied data on 23,226 adults diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis between 1997 and 2010. Of those, the 11,613 patients who received an average of ten acupuncture treatments after their diagnosis were matched for age, sex, co-morbidities and the use of drugs with an equal number of patients who had not undergone acupuncture treatments.

During the follow-up period, 946 patients suffered an ischemic stroke. The risk increased with age and the number of co-morbidities, meaning that patients with high blood pressure were more than twice as likely to have a stroke as patients with normal blood pressure, while patients with diabetes were 58% more likely to have a stroke. to suffer a stroke.

However, as it turned out, the acupuncture group had a 43% lower risk of having an ischemic stroke than the non-acupuncture group, and this was independent of age, gender, medication use and co-morbidities. .

The researchers note that this is an observational study, so no firm conclusions can be drawn, and they did not have information on potentially influencing factors such as height, weight, laboratory tests or physical activity levels, and they did not have all the same acupuncture pressure points.

But they point out that “inflammation is a consistent and independent predictor of cardiovascular disease in rheumatoid arthritis,” so acupuncture may reduce pro-inflammatory proteins, thereby reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease, including ischemic stroke.