Association of age-related hearing loss, tinnitus, and chronic low back pain in middle-aged and older Korean adults.

This was a cross-sectional study conducted to evaluate the association between hearing impairment and low back pain (LBP) using data from the Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. A total of 5,504 middle-aged and older Korean adults (aged ≥50 years old) who underwent plain radiography of the lumbar spine and pure tone audiometry were included. The presence of LBP was evaluated using a questionnaire, which included a question on whether the patient had experienced LBP that lasted for more than 30 days during the past three months. Patients with age-related hearing loss (ARHL) were defined as those with bilateral hearing impairment who met the following criteria: 1) normal otologic examination results, 2) average pure-tone hearing thresholds of ≤15 dB in both ears, and 3) no occupational noise exposure. Multivariable logistic regression analysis showed that ARHL was not associated with LBP (odds ratio, 1.33; 95% CI, 0.94-1.89) after adjusting for potential confounders in the final model. However, when participants without both ARHL and tinnitus were defined as the reference group, the results showed that the participants with both ARHL and tinnitus were more likely to have LBP (OR, 1.86; 95% CI, 1.11-3.11). These results indicate that ARHL with tinnitus is significantly associated with LBP. We recommend that elderly patients with ARHL and tinnitus increase their daily physical activities and engage in more muscle-strengthening exercises to prevent LBP.

Herbal medicine Banha-sasim-tang for the treatment of functional dyspepsia protocol for a systematic review of randomized controlled trials.

BACKGROUND: Functional dyspepsia (FD) has a high prevalence rate. The dyspeptic symptoms are not easily cured despite the availability of various conventional Western medical treatments. Banha-sasim-tang (BST) is a traditional herbal medicine that has long been used for treating FD. METHODS: The following databases will be searched from inception to January 2019: Medline via PubMed, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, EMBASE, Allied and Complementary Medicine Database, National Digital Science Library, Korean Medical Database (KoreaMed), Oriental Medicine Advanced Searching Integrated System, Korean Studies Information Service System, China National Knowledge Infrastructure Database, and Citation Information by Nii. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that used BST or herbs-added BST for treating FD will be included in the systematic review. Control groups in these RCTs will be the placebo, no-treatment, and conventional Western medicine groups. RCTs that compared BST and Western medicine combination therapy with the conventional Western medicine will also be included in the systematic review to investigate the synergistic effect of BST and Western medicine. Data extraction and evaluation of risk of bias will be performed by 2 independent investigators. The primary outcome will be the total clinical effective rate and secondary outcomes will include gastrointestinal symptom scale, visual analog scale, FD-related quality of life, electrogastrography, plasma motilin, dyspepsia-related symptom score, gastric emptying, and adverse events. RevMan version 5.3 will be used for data integration and analysis. RESULTS: This systematic review will provide a high-quality integration of current evidence of BST for treating FD from several aspects including total clinical effective rate, dyspepsia-related symptoms, quality of life, and adverse events. CONCLUSIONS: This systematic review will provide evidence of the effectiveness and safety of BST on FD. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: Identifying information of the participants will not be revealed; hence, this protocol does not need ethical approval. The systematic review will be published in a peer-reviewed journal and disseminated electronically. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: PROSPERO CRD42019123285.