Advances of Study on Relationship Among Immune Inflammation Reaction and Prehypertension and Its Target Organ Damage and Protective Effects of Acupuncture Intervention / 针刺研究

ABSTRACT

Prehypertension is an independent risk factor for end stage of heart, brain and renal diseases. The immune inflammatory imbalance promotes the occurrence of damage of target organs in the pre-hypertension stage. This article focuses on the relationship between the immune-inflammation and prehypertension and its target organ damage. It was found that acupuncture treatment can lower blood pressure, postpone the development of prehypertension, improve vascular endothelia function and immune function, down-regulate the levels of serum proinflammatory cytokines, and reduce inflammatory reactions of the heart and kidney, possible by way of regulating cellular signal pathways as TLR 4/NF-κB, p 38/MAPK, CaM-eNOS-NO, TGF-β 1/Smads, etc. and playing a protective effect on the target organs. However, its detailed mechanisms remain largely unknown up to now.