NUHS Florida faculty member, Brett Martin, DC, MSAc, recently published an article on acupuncture and hypertension in The American Acupuncturist, the official journal of the American Association of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (AAAOM). Dr. Martin’s article appears in the Fall 2013 issue, and is titled:  “A comparison of western and traditional Chinese medicine etiologies and evaluation of the effectiveness and safety of acupuncture for treatment of primary hypertension: A literature review.”

The study looks at both western and eastern medicine’s approach to determining the cause of disease, in this case hypertension. Dr. Martin found that there were several overlapping causes of hypertension that both western and eastern medicine agreed upon, such as genetics, age, poor diet, cigarette smoking and stress.

“Even though both western and eastern medicine agreed on several causes of hypertension, there are significant differences between the western and eastern treatment of hypertension,” says Dr. Martin. His article also compared the safety and effectiveness of western versus eastern medical approaches to hypertension based on a review of the scientific literature.

Dr. Martin has previously published research on acupuncture and hypertension as a co-author of a case study with Dr. Frank Yurasek, a member of the NUHS acupuncture and oriental medicine faculty. He has also authored several articles on nutritional biochemistry.

Dr. Brett Martin received both his doctor of chiropractic degree and master of science in acupuncture degree from NUHS, and is currently an instructor in the NUHS Florida DC program.

“Dr. Martin is perfectly suited to do a paper of this type because of his background as both a chiropractic physician and an acupuncturist,” says Dr. Greg Cramer, dean of research at NUHS. “This type of work is essential for development of complementary and alternative medicine in general, and in this case acupuncture in particular.”