Smartphone-controlled TENS

Inspired by Joan Gan et al 2021 and Sha et al 2022.[1,2] Joan Gan et al Figure 1.[1] TENS – transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulationEA – electroacupunctureSCEA – smartphone-controlled EA (note this was not a form of EA)key to acronyms I found this paper from last year thanks to a letter written in response, which was … Continue reading Smartphone-controlled TENS →

The UK Phyto-V study

Inspired by Thomas et al 2022.[1] Photo by Stéphan Valentin on Unsplash. I'm pretty sure there's some tumeric in the middle there. ASCO – American Society of Clinical OncologyPSA – prostate specific antigenCFU – colony forming unitkey to acronyms Whilst I am still watching the blue line fade from my lateral flow tests, I thought … Continue reading The UK Phyto-V study →

Acupuncture for CD 2022

Inspired by Bao et al 2022.[1] Cladogram from Bao et al 2022. A cladogram is a diagram used to show relationships between organisms – from the Greek clados (branch) and gramma (character). CD – Crohn’s DiseaseMA – manual acupunctureCDAI – Crohn’s Disease Activity IndexEA – electroacupunctureCDEIS – Crohn’s Disease Endoscopic Index of SeverityHS – Histopathological … Continue reading Acupuncture for CD 2022 →

EA in FD 2022

Inspired by Wu et al, Yang et al, & Li et al 2022.[1–3] Image by Paweł Czerwiński on Unsplash. EA – electroacupunctureFD – functional dyspepsia or functional diarrhoeaFDys – functional dyspepsia (in this blog)FDr – functional diarrhoea (in this blog)IBS – irritable bowel syndrometid – ter in die (3 times a day)tds – ter die sumendus (to be … Continue reading EA in FD 2022 →

EA and the gut microbiome

Inspired by Wang et al 2021.[1] Photo by Magda Ehlers on Pexels.comWhilst I think EA is great in KOA, the most direct way of influencing the microbial diversity in the gut is through what we chose to put in it. All the data suggests that colourful vegetables are probably the most important component of diet … Continue reading EA and the gut microbiome →

ST36 EA for visceral hypersensitivity and indirect VNS

Stimulated by Chen et al 2021,[1] and Courties et al 2021.[2] Photo by Sora Shimazaki on Pexels.com EA – electroacupunctureIF – impact factorIBD – inflammatory bowel diseaseNGF – nerve growth factorTrkA – tropomyosin receptor kinase A (high affinity NGF receptor)TRPV1 – transient receptor potential vanilloid 1 (aka capsaicin receptor)DRGs – dorsal root gangliaCAP – cholinergic … Continue reading ST36 EA for visceral hypersensitivity and indirect VNS →

EA vs Prucalopride in SCC

Stimulated by Liu et al 2020.[1] Protocol in Liu et al.[1]Diagram by MC. EA – electroacupunctureSCC – severe chronic constipationIF – impact factorCSBM – complete spontaneous bowel movement5–HT4 – 5–hydroxytryptamine 4 receptorkey to acronyms This paper came out in December 2020, and I have been sitting on it ever since waiting for the urge to … Continue reading EA vs Prucalopride in SCC →

Atraumatic glenohumeral dislocation, IBS and other stories

Stimulated by Qin et al 2020,[1] and Pei et al 2020.[2] Image modified from Figure 1 of Qin et al 2020.[1] The first paper I am highlighting this week is an adverse event report attributed to acupuncture. It is quite unusual for two reasons. First, as the title states, the case presented with a shoulder … Continue reading Atraumatic glenohumeral dislocation, IBS and other stories →

Functional dyspepsia 2020

Image by Paweł Czerwiński on Unsplash. The main paper this week was an obvious choice as it is a big clinical trial published in a mainstream general medicine journal. Currently the paper has not surfaced on PubMed, although it is published online. I was tipped off by an email from the journal editor as I had been one … Continue reading Functional dyspepsia 2020 →

Gastroparesis 2018

On the 18th December another Cochrane Review popped up on my daily PubMed search: Acupuncture for symptomatic gastroparesis.[1] Cochrane reviews are substantial pieces of work, with numerous peer and editorial review stages built in to the process. The rigorous approach to assessing bias and the adoption of the GRADE system to summarise findings often results … Continue reading Gastroparesis 2018 →