AIMS To compare the bacteriostatic and bactericidal activity of 13 chemotyped essential oils (EO) on 65 bacteria with varying sensitivity to antibiotics. METHODS AND RESULTS Fifty-five bacterial strains were tested with two methods used for evaluation of antimicrobial activity (CLSI recommendations): the agar dilution method and the time-killing curve method. EO containing aldehydes (Cinnamom...

Discussion: Sham TMS is a tradeoff between competing quality criteria. So far, the applied sham conditions accepted a reduced cortex stimulation effect to imitate the sensations of verum stimulation. We here focused on the development of a sham condition with only minor cortex stimulation. This was achieved by using a mu-metal shield between a double-coil arrangement. With two coils of the same...

UNLABELLED The German Randomized Acupuncture Trial for chronic shoulder pain (GRASP) comprised 424 outpatients with chronic shoulder pain (CSP) > or =6 weeks and an average pain score of VAS > or =50 mm, who were randomly assigned to receive Chinese acupuncture (verum), sham acupuncture (sham) or conventional conservative orthopaedic treatment (COT). The patients were blinded to the type of acu...

BACKGROUND Homeopathic pathogenetic trials (provings) are fundamental to homeopathy. Since most of the data from available provings have not been statistically evaluated, it is unclear how specific reported symptoms are and how they differ from those reported by people taking placebo. METHOD We combine and analyse data from two different homeopathic pathogenic trials--including 10 and 11 prov...

Background. Little is known which factors influence the blinding in acupuncture studies. Aim. To investigate if blinding varied between patients with different characteristics receiving verum or sham acupuncture. Methods. We randomised cancer patients to verum (n = 109) or sham acupuncture (n = 106) with a nonpenetrating telescopic sham needle for nausea. Level of blinding was compared between ...