Effects of Moxa (Artemisia Vulgaris) Smoke Inhalation on Heart Rate and Its Variability

Baixiao Zhao,Yingxue Cui,Chaxi Huang,Lu Wang,Ping Liu,Gerhard Litscher,Jun Li

doi:10.4236/cm.2011.22010

Baixiao Zhao, Yingxue Cui + Show 5 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.4236/cm.2011.22010

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Abstract

Objective: To evaluate the changes of human heart rate (HR) and heart rate variability (HRV) during and after moxa smoke inhalation and to investigate the effects of moxa smoke on human autonomic nervous system. Methods: 24 healthy volunteers were exposed to moxa smoke with their HRV parameters measured before, during and after the moxa smoke inhalation. Results: The healthy volunteers exposed to moxa smoke had significant reductions in HR and also significant changes in HRV parameters. Conclusions: Moxa smoke can improve the autonomic nervous system activity. The inhalation of moxa smoke will induce a depressant effect on human body.

Highlights

Moxibustion, accompanied with herbal medicine and acupuncture, is one of the mainstream medical therapies in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) with a history of more than 3000 years
24 healthy volunteers were exposed to moxa smoke with their heart rate variability (HRV) parameters measured before, during and after the moxa smoke inhalation
The results showed that significant (p < 0.001) decreases in heart rate (HR) occur during moxa smoke inhalation

Summary

Introduction

Moxibustion, accompanied with herbal medicine and acupuncture, is one of the mainstream medical therapies in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) with a history of more than 3000 years. As one of the major therapies in TCM, there exist a large amount of literature in the history of moxibustion which showed that moxibustion is applicable to many diseases, especially for chronic conditions, deficient pattern of a disease, prevention of disease, and health preservation. Since many people are exposed to moxa smoke during acupuncture-moxibustion treatment, some studies have been done recently to investigate if burning moxa in TCM constitutes a health hazard recently. There are no immediate concerns found arising from the continued use of moxa as therapeutic modality in TCM [2] to our knowledge the influence of moxa smoke on biological signals has not been investigated sufficiently in Asia and in Europe [3,4]

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