A large body of evidence implicates psychosocial stress as a risk factor and trigger for myocardial ischemia, infarction and sudden cardiac death, yet the specific mechanisms(s) of this relationship remain under investigation.2-9 The mechanisms may include hemodynamic, hemostatic and neuronally mediated effects on the cardiovascular system. Specifically they may include a prominent role of the cardiac autonomic nervous system, including the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and parasympathetic nervous system (PNS).10 Indeed, cardiac arrhythmias have been implicated both as a risk factor and an etiology for sudden cardiac death, suggesting that alteration of cardiac autonomic nervous system tone may provide an opportunity for reducing acute cardiac events and sudden cardiac death. Prior work by ourselves and others has also demonstrated that sympathetic activation from psychosocial stress results in vascular constriction that, in the presence of impaired nitric oxide (NO) production and endothelial dysfunction, contributes to myocardial ischemia and adverse cardiac events, including sudden death. 6,8,11-15 Traditional Acupuncture (TA) is a Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) practice with documented effects of improving physiologic imbalances and reducing psychosocial stress. For example, the TA technique has been shown, to significantly reduce mental stress in humans16, hypertension in an animal model17 and angina pectoris in CHD patients.18 These changes are consistent with the hypothesis that the TA technique directly alters autonomic nervous system tone, likely by reducing SNS activity, and possibly also by increasing PNS activity. We also hypothesize that TA may beneficially alter CHD indirectly by reducing psychosocial stress. Either of these hypotheses suggests that this CAM practice may serve as a complement or alternative to medical treatment for the prevention of acute cardiac events and sudden cardiac death.