A systematic review of Tuina for cervical hypertension: A protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: Cervical hypertension is a secondary form of hypertension with a high incidence rate. As the main etiology of cervical hypertension is related to cervical spondylosis, commonly used antihypertensive drugs have poor efficacy in the treatment of cervical spondylosis, and improving the symptoms of cervical spondylosis can effectively reduce blood pressure. Massage can effectively improve the symptoms of patients with cervical hypertension, but there has been no systematic review of massage treatment for cervical hypertension. This study aimed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of massage in patients with cervical hypertension. METHODS: Before February 10, 2022, a systematic literature search was conducted using the following databases: Embase, SinoMed (previously called the Chinese Biomedical Database), China Science and Technology Journal Database for Chinese Technical Periodicals, Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure, and Wanfang Data. Review Manager software (version 5.3) will be used for statistical analysis. Quality and risk assessments of the included studies were performed, and the outcome indicators of the trials were observed. RESULTS: This meta-analysis further confirmed the beneficial effects of massage in patients with cervical hypertension. CONCLUSION: This study investigated the efficacy and safety of massage therapy in patients with cervical hypertension, providing clinicians and patients with additional options for the treatment of this disease.

Efficacy and safety of external therapy of TCM for primary dysmenorrhea: A protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: Primary dysmenorrhea (PD) is a painful disease that severely affects the daily lives of young women. External therapy using traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is widely used in the clinical treatment of this disease and has achieved a good effect. There are many kinds of TCM external therapies, but the effectiveness, safety, and advantages of various methods have not been confirmed by high-quality meta-analyses. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy and safety of representative TCM external therapies in patients with PD. METHODS: Published randomized controlled trials that assessed the efficacy of these interventions in patients with PD were included. We searched the following electronic databases: PubMed, Cochrane Library, Embase, Web of Science, China Science and Technology Journal, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wanfang, and Chinese Biomedical Literature Database and other sources. The main outcomes included menstrual pain intensity and the clinical effectiveness rate. The secondary outcomes were the quality of life and safety. The meta-analysis will be performed using the Review Manager version 5.3 software. RESULTS: We will provide more practical results investigating the efficacy of external TCM therapy with high clinical frequency for PD patients in several respects, including the improvement of menstrual pain intensity, quality of life, and safety. CONCLUSION: This review systematically reviews the effectiveness and safety of common TCM external therapies for PD and provides clinicians with the best treatment options. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: This systematic review aimed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of external TCM therapy for PD. Since all data included were published, the systematic review did not require ethical approval. REGISTRATION NUMBER: CRD42021297078.

Efficacy and safety of external therapy of TCM for diabetic peripheral vascular disease: A protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: In modern society, the incidence of diabetes is increasing yearly, and poor glycemic control can accelerate the progression and severity of diabetic peripheral vascular disease. External treatment with traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has been widely used in the treatment of diabetes, but there is no systematic review on the external treatment of TCM for diabetic peripheral vascular disease; therefore, this study aimed to conduct a meta-analysis on the clinical efficacy and safety of external treatment of TCM in the treatment of diabetic peripheral vascular diseases. METHODS: We searched The Cochrane Library, PubMed, Web of Science, EMBASE, China Science and Technology Journal, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wanfang, Chinese Biomedical Literature Database, and other sources from their respective inception dates to October 20, 2022, to identify potentially eligible studies. We will use Review Manager 5.4 software provided by the Cochrane Collaborative Network for statistical analysis. We then assessed the quality and risk of the included studies and observed their outcome measures. RESULTS: Changes in the bilateral femoral artery, popliteal artery, dorsal artery diameter, blood flow, ankle/brachial index, and dorsal foot temperature: An overall reduction in symptoms (a reduction in diabetes-related symptoms that occur only during the intervention or as a result of the intervention, including peripheral vascular disease). CONCLUSION: The objective of this meta-analysis was to investigate the influence of external treatment of traditional Chinese medicine on diabetic peripheral vascular disease and to provide more methods for the clinical prevention and treatment of diabetic peripheral vascular disease.

The effect of acupuncture on tumor growth and gut microbiota in mice inoculated with osteosarcoma cells.

BACKGROUND: Cancer is a complex systemic disease. As a key component of traditional Chinese medicine, acupuncture is a clinically proven medical treatment for many diseases, and it also has preventative effects as it balances the body, allowing it to self-regulate. For cancer patients, acupuncture is widely used as complementary therapy to boost the immune system and reduce the side effects of radiotherapy and chemotherapy. However, few studies have determined how acupuncture against cancer, especially in regulating the intestinal flora of the tumor-burdened mice. METHODS: We treated osteosarcoma tumor-burdened mice by using needling on different acupoints and acupoints combination, thereafter determined the effects of acupuncture on tumor growth by using imaging technology in vitro. In addition, intestinal bacteria were analyzed for further understanding the holistic and systemic treatment effects of acupuncture in osteosarcoma tumor-burdened mice. RESULTS: Acupuncture treatment can delay tumor growth and changes of intestinal bacteria in osteosarcoma tumor-burdened mice. In detail, the loss of body weight and the development of tumor volume of mice have been postposed by needling specific acupoints. In addition, acupuncture treatment has delayed the changes of the relative abundance of Bacteroidetes, Firmicutes and Candidatus Saccharibacteria at the phylum level. Moreover, the relative abundance of many bacteria (e.g., Catabacter, Acetatifactor and Aestuariispira) has been regulated by using acupuncture treatment, and the trend of structural changes of these bacteria at the genus level has also been postposed compared to that of the tumor-burdened mice model group. CONCLUSION: Our results suggest that acupuncture may provide a systemic treatment for cancer. Our findings encourage new and extensive research into the effects of acupuncture on changes of the intestinal microbiome associated with the development of cancer.

Protective effects of mesenchymal stem cell cond tional medium against inflammatory injury on human gingival fibroblast.

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) alleviate oxidative stress in kidney, lung and heart by secreting bioactive factors. Human gingival fibroblasts (HGFs) are important for repairing periodontal tissues. This study observed protective effects of MSCs conditional medium (MSCCM) on HGFs against inflammatory injury, to investigate anti-inflammatory function and mechanism of MSCCM on HGFs. Primary cultured HGFs were identified for sources by immunohistochemistry (IHC)-SP assay. In vitro cultured MSCs were extracted for MSCCM, which was used to pre-treat HGFs with inflammatory induction by 10 µg/L IL-6 or TNF-α for 4 h. ELISA quantified transforming growth factor (TGF)-ß level in the supernatant, and superoxide dismutase (SOD) plus malondialdehyde (MDA) levels were measured by colorimetry. RT-PCR measured keratocyte growth factor (KGF) mRNA expression, and flow cytometry or Western blot measured apoptosis or Caspase-3 expression in HGFs, respectively. Compared to control group, MSCCM treatment group showed no significant change of SOD, MDA, TGF-ß level, cell apoptosis, KGF mRNA or Caspase-3 expression (P>0.05). Inflammation treatment elevated all those indexes but decreased SOD (P<0.05). Compared to model group, MSCCM treatment further decreased these factors but increased SOD level (P<0.05). No significant difference was found between IL-6 and TNF-α treated cells. MSCCM can partially inhibit IL-6 induced inflammatory injury of HGFs via suppressing Caspase-3 and KGF expression.

Dynamic Human Body Modeling Using a Single RGB Camera.

In this paper, we present a novel automatic pipeline to build personalized parametric models of dynamic people using a single RGB camera. Compared to previous approaches that use monocular RGB images, our system can model a 3D human body automatically and incrementally, taking advantage of human motion. Based on coarse 2D and 3D poses estimated from image sequences, we first perform a kinematic classification of human body parts to refine the poses and obtain reconstructed body parts. Next, a personalized parametric human model is generated by driving a general template to fit the body parts and calculating the non-rigid deformation. Experimental results show that our shape estimation method achieves comparable accuracy with reconstructed models using depth cameras, yet requires neither user interaction nor any dedicated devices, leading to the feasibility of using this method on widely available smart phones.