Methods Adult patients diagnosed with migraine without aura who had previously not had prophylactic treatment were recruited from fi ve hospital outpatient departments. They were randomised to two groups in equal numbers: (1) the treatment group had verum acupuncture plus placebo medication and (2) the control group had sham acupuncture plus fl unarizine, a drug recommended as a fi rstline prev...

This study was performed to observe the influence of sham and different verum acupuncture manipulations on skin temperature of the stimulated acupoint in healthy volunteers. Thirty-seven healthy volunteers with a mean age of 25.4 ± 2.2 years were enrolled in the study. All volunteers had experienced acupuncture before. They received sham acupuncture and two different kinds of verum acupuncture ...

BACKGROUND & AIMS : We hypothesize that wound closure in trauma patients with disorders in wound healing is accelerated by supplementation of antioxidant micronutrients and glutamine. METHODS In a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, 20 trauma patients with disorders in wound healing were orally supplemented with antioxidant micronutrients (ascorbic acid, α-tocopherol, β-carote...

Brain processing of acupuncture stimuli in chronic neuropathic pain patients may underlie its beneficial effects. We used fMRI to evaluate verum and sham acupuncture stimulation at acupoint LI-4 in Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CTS) patients and healthy controls (HC). CTS patients were retested after 5 weeks of acupuncture therapy. Thus, we investigated both the short-term brain response to acupunctu...

Lidocaine is a well-accepted topical anaesthetic, also used in minors to treat painful conditions on mucosal membranes. This randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study (registered prospectively as EudraCT number 2011-005336-25) was designed to generate efficacy and safety data for a lidocaine gel (2%) in younger children with painful conditions in the oral cavity. One hundred sixty-one ...

This study aims to develop eco-friendly botanical pesticides. Dried fruits of star anise (Illicium verum Hook.f. (Austrobaileyales: Schisandraceae)) were extracted with methyl alcohol (MA), ethyl acetate (EA), and petroleum ether (PE) at 25°C. The constituents were determined by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, and the repellency and contact toxicity of the extracts against Sitophilus zeam...

Most of the analgesic clinical trials have failed to succeed over the past years because of the occurrence of large placebo responses. Patients' expectations about the therapeutic benefit represent a major determinant of the placebo response. Therefore, assessing patients' expectations should become the rule in any clinical trial. This would allow us to better interpret therapeutic outcomes whe...

Carpal tunnel syndrome is the most common entrapment neuropathy, affecting the median nerve at the wrist. Acupuncture is a minimally-invasive and conservative therapeutic option, and while rooted in a complex practice ritual, acupuncture overlaps significantly with many conventional peripherally-focused neuromodulatory therapies. However, the neurophysiological mechanisms by which acupuncture i...

Randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trials are recommended for evaluation of a treatment's efficacy with the goal of separating the specific effects (verum) from the non-specific ones (placebo). In order to be able to carry out placebo-controlled acupuncture trials, minimal/sham acupuncture procedures and a sham acupuncture needle has been used with the intention of being inert. However, cl...

The aim of this review is to provide an overview of the different effects of manual and electroacupuncture on the central nervous system in studies with different neuroimaging interventions. The Database PubMed was searched from 1/1/2000 to 1/6/2014 with restriction to human studies in English language. Data collection for functional magnetic resonance (fMRI) studies was restricted to the perio...