Correlation between ischemic myocardial injury and inflammatory reaction, and anti-inflammatory effect of acupuncture / 针刺研究

ABSTRACT

The inflammatory reaction induced by ischemic myocardial injury (IMI) is divided into three phases, i．e. the inflammatory phase, the fibrous proliferative phase and the stable phase. The appropriate inflammatory reaction effectively removes the fragments of myocardial cells, which is the essential phase in the pathological progression of myocardial ischemia (MI). However, the excessive inflammatory reaction may aggravate the myocardial injury. For this reason, the immediate control of the post-injury inflammatory reaction is the principal therapeutic measure and the research hotspot at the present. Acupuncture intervention has been demonstrated to have positive roles in relieving MI and inflammatory reaction by suppressing myocardial inflammatory cytokines (suppressing IL-1β， TNF-α， IL-8, etc.), adjusting inflammatory reaction pathway (NF-κB signaling, TGF-β， etc.)and activating cholinergic anti-inflammatory pathway. Therefore, it is feasible to explore the underlying mechanism of acupuncture therapy in protecting ischemic myocardium based on anti-inflammatory efficacy.