Exercise vs IA saline in OAK

Inspired by Bandak et al 2022.[1] IA – intra-articularOA – osteoarthritisOAK – OA kneeGLA:D – Good Life with osteoArthritis in DenmarkUS – ultrasoundKOOS – Knee injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome ScoreSMD – standardised mean difference (a measure of effect size used in meta-analyses)EA – electroacupunctureMCID – minimum clinically important differencekey to acronyms I am very grateful … Continue reading Exercise vs IA saline in OAK

Acupuncture for CP CPPS

Inspired by Sun et al 2021.[1] Points used in the trial adapted from Supplement 3 of the publication.[1] CP – chronic prostatitisCPPS – chronic pelvic pain syndromeRCT – randomised controlled trialIF – impact factorNIH-CPSI – National Institute of Health Chronic Prostatitis Symptom IndexMA – manual acupunctureMCID – minimal clinically important differenceSUI – stress urinary incontinencekey … Continue reading Acupuncture for CP CPPS

Acupuncture for TLE

Inspired by Oliveira et al 2021.[1] Lightening in Campinas by Chaval Brasil from Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil. TLE – temporal lobe epilepsyTLE-HS – temporal lobe epilepsy with hippocampal sclerosisAEDs – antiepileptic drugsCLS – Cantril ladder scaleQoL – quality of lifeQOLIE-31 – quality of life in epilepsy (31 item scale)aHR – adjusted hazard ratiokey to acronyms … Continue reading Acupuncture for TLE

CVD risk reduction from treatment of hot flushes

Inspired by Palma et al 2020.[1] CVD – cardiovascular disease Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com Those readers who attended the BMAS Autumn meeting in 2019 may remember some of the details from the paper I am highlighting this week. Professor Angelo Cagnacci gave us a great presentation on his recently published research, and then finished … Continue reading CVD risk reduction from treatment of hot flushes

Reviewing, Race & Sex

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com I was spoilt for choice this week! Various papers had the potential to make the cut, but there was no easy way to draw them together, apart from the fact that many were systematic reviews.[1–5] The race and sex from the title refers to a couple of recent experimental papers … Continue reading Reviewing, Race & Sex

Manual acupuncture for migraine

Stimulated by Xu et al.[1] Photo by Anh Nguyen on Unsplash. I casually picked up my copy of the BMJ on Friday 27th March 2020. The date on the cover was 28th March, in case any of you go searching. The cover image is a road sign mandating “Keep your distance”. Obviously COVID-19 is the big story, so … Continue reading Manual acupuncture for migraine

Acupuncture vs propranolol in migraine

Stimulated by Chen et al 2019.[1] Photo by Carolina Heza on Unsplash. I nearly overlooked this paper when it popped up on my PubMed search a few days after being published online in the Journal of Neurology on 21st August 2019. I guess it was the comparison with propranolol, and the fact that beta-blockers have … Continue reading Acupuncture vs propranolol in migraine

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