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Takegawa Y, Ikushima H, Ozaki K, et al. Can Kampo therapy prolong the life of cancer patients? J Med Invest. 2008 Feb;55(1-2):99-105. PMID: 18319551

It seems to work. From the conclusion:

Modern cancer treatment, which involves surgery, radiation and chemotherapy, inflicts great suffering and requires stoic endurance on the part of the patients. Kampo was introduced into cancer therapy to improve patient quality of life, but has also been found therapeutically useful in itself. The results of our study indicate that concomitant Kampo has a significant positive effect on survival time.

We expect that cancer treatment in the 21st Century will maximize the patient’s own natural healing abilities, and that concepts will be changed and further efforts will be made to decrease the difficulties of cancer therapy for the patient.

CAMWatch: Posts about free-access, peer-reviewed articles on aspects of complementary medicine theory, practice and policy (about the blogger). This blog is not a source for medical advice.

technorati tags: complementary and alternative medicine integrative medicine kampo

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Kaptchuk TJ, Kelley JM, Conboy LA, et al. Components of placebo effect: randomised controlled trial in patients with irritable bowel syndrome. BMJ. 2008 May 3;336(7651):999-1003. PMID: 18390493

A fine benchmark study from investigators at Harvard Medical School. From the discussion:

In this large prospective study of placebo effects we found that such effects can be disentangled into three components that can then be recombined to produce incremental improvement in symptoms in a manner resembling a graded dose escalation of component parts. In the pairwise comparisons, we also found that an enhanced relationship with a practitioner, together with the placebo treatment, provides the most robust effect in terms of the four measures we used….

The magnitude of non-specific effects in the augmented arm is not only statistically significant but also clearly clinically significant in the management of irritable bowel syndrome…. the percentage of patients reporting adequate relief (62% and 61% at three and six weeks, respectively) is comparable with the responder rate in clinical trials of drugs currently used in the treatment of irritable bowel syndrome.

These results indicate that such factors as warmth, empathy, duration of interaction, and the communication of positive expectation might indeed significantly affect clinical outcome.

CAMWatch: Posts about free-access, peer-reviewed articles on aspects of complementary medicine theory, practice and policy (about the blogger). This blog is not a source for medical advice.

technorati tags: complementary and alternative medicine integrative medicine placebo effect

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Lee BC, Kang SI, Ahn YM, et al. An alternative therapy for graves’ disease: clinical effects and mechanisms of an herbal remedy. Biol Pharm Bull. 2008 Apr;31(4):583-7. PMID: 18379045

From the introduction:

Graves’ disease, the most common cause of hyperthyroidism, is an autoimmune disorder. Antithyroid drugs have been selected as the first-line treatment of Graves’ disease in Korea, Japan, and European countries. However, antithyroid drugs such as methimazole (MMI) and prophylthiouracil (PTU) have limitations in clinical applications because of their side effects. In this study, we performed a clinical trial and in vitro study to investigate the clinical effects and action mechanism of Ahnjeonbaekho-tang (AJBHT), an herbal remedy for Graves’ disease.

CAMWatch: Posts about free-access, peer-reviewed articles on aspects of complementary medicine theory, practice and policy (about the blogger). This blog is not a source for medical advice.

technorati tags: complementary and alternative medicine integrative medicine graves disease

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Stefano GB, Stefano JM, Esch T. Anticipatory stress response: a significant commonality in stress, relaxation, pleasure and love responses. Med Sci Monit. 2008 Feb;14(2):RA17-21. Review. PMID: 18227772

Any time "love" shows up in PubMed, it’s worth a look. And this is an interesting article. A multidisciplinary team of researchers in the United States and Germany review the evolution of love in the context of human health.

Love, for example, when experiencing symptoms such as sweating, heart beat acceleration, increased bowel peristalsis and even diarrhea, can be quite a stressful experience…. However, love is certainly known, primarily, for its relation to feelings that we usually like to experience. This intense sensational and emotional state has inspired artists, and thus biologists have concluded that art, when it is associated with biological phenomena like love and reproduction, is part of an adaptational process ensuring survival. Hence, fine arts, love or lust, and the joy that is imbedded in the underlying concepts, seem to be not only individually rewarding but also behaviorally and biologically advantageous experiences, thereby protecting the species.

CAMWatch: Posts about free-access, peer-reviewed articles on aspects of complementary medicine theory, practice and policy. About the blogger.

technorati tags: complementary and alternative medicine integrative medicine placebo effect

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Deocaris CC, Widodo N, Wadhwa R, Kaul SC. Merger of ayurveda and tissue culture-based functional genomics: inspirations from systems biology. J Transl Med. 2008 Mar 18;6:14. PMID: 18348714

A team from Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science & Technology reviews Ayurveda from a post-genomic perspective. The authors undertake an analysis of the most prominent therapeutic plant of Ayurveda, the Ashwagandha (Withania somnifera). From the manuscript:

What insights can we gain by analyzing the web of complexity of these networks associated with herbal drug action in a cell in system biology perspective? We should expect a major contribution from the bio-informatics resources towards the development and enrichment of traditional herbal medicine because such a perspective captures the uniqueness and complexity of drug action in a cell. Such holistic perspective also avoids the pitfall of being too reductionist, and in effect, mollifies some criticisms from traditional ethnopharmacologic researchers.

technorati tags: complementary and alternative medicine integrative medicine Ayurveda herbalism systems biology

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