Association between green tea intake and risk of gastric cancer: a systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis of observational studies.

OBJECTIVE: To examine and quantify the potential dose-response relationship between green tea intake and the risk of gastric cancer. DESIGN: We searched PubMed, EMBASE, Web of Science, CBM, CNKI and VIP up to December 2015 without language restrictions. SETTING: A systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis of observational studies. SUBJECTS: Five cohort studies and eight case-control studies. RESULTS: Compared with the lowest level of green tea intake, the pooled relative risk (95 % CI) of gastric cancer was 1·05 (0·90, 1·21, I 2=20·3 %) for the cohort studies and the pooled OR (95 % CI) was 0·84 (0·74, 0·95, I 2=48·3 %) for the case-control studies. The pooled relative risk of gastric cancer was 0·79 (0·63, 0·97, I 2=63·8 %) for intake of 6 cups green tea/d, 0·59 (0·42, 0·82, I 2=1·0 %) for 25 years of green tea intake and 7·60 (1·67, 34·60, I 2=86·5 %) for drinking very hot green tea. CONCLUSIONS: Drinking green tea has a certain preventive effect on reducing the risk of gastric cancer, particularly for long-term and high-dose consumption. Drinking too high-temperature green tea may increase the risk of gastric cancer, but it is still unclear whether high-temperature green tea is a risk factor for gastric cancer. Further studies should be performed to obtain more detailed results, including other gastric cancer risk factors such as smoking and alcohol consumption and the dose of the effective components in green tea, to provide more reliable evidence-based medical references for the relationship between green tea and gastric cancer.

Systematic review and meta-analysis of the clinical efficacy and adverse effects of Chinese herbal decoction for the treatment of gout.

BACKGROUND: In East Asia, numerous reports describe the utilization of traditional Chinese herbal decoctions to treat gout. However, the reported clinical effects vary. OBJECTIVES: In this study, we reviewed and analyzed a large number of randomized controlled clinical trials to systematically assess the clinical efficacy and adverse reactions of Chinese herbal decoctions for treating gout. METHODS: We performed a comprehensive search of databases, such as PubMed, EMBASE, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Chinese biomedical literature database, et al. In addition, we manually searched the relevant meeting information in the library of the Third Military Medical University. RESULTS: Finally, 17 randomized controlled trials with a sample size of 1,402 cases met the criteria and were included in the study. The results of the meta-analysis showed that when gout had progressed to the stage of acute arthritis, there was no significant difference in clinical efficacy between Chinese herbal decoctions and traditional Western medicine, as indicated based on the following parameters: serum uric acid (standardized mean difference (SMD):0.35, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.03 to 0.67), C reactive protein (SMD: 0.25, 95% CI: -0.18 to 0.69), erythrocyte sedimentation rate (SMD: 0.21, 95% CI: -0.02 to 0.45) and overall clinical response (relative risk (RR): 1.05, 95% CI: 1.01 to 1.10). However, the Chinese herbal decoction was significantly better than traditional Western medicine in controlling adverse drug reactions (RR: 0.06, 95% CI: 0.03 to 0.13). CONCLUSIONS: Through a systematic review of the clinical efficacy and safety of Chinese herbal decoctions and traditional Western medicine for the treatment of gout, we found that Chinese herbal decoction and traditional Western medicine led to similar clinical efficacy, but the Chinese herbal decoctions were superior to Western medicine in terms of controlling adverse drug reactions.

Clinical trials of traditional Chinese medicine in the treatment of diabetic nephropathy--a systematic review based on a subgroup analysis.

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE: The purpose of this study is to systematically evaluate the efficacy of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) decoctions with different ingredients in the treatment of diabetic nephropathy (DN). MATERIALS AND METHODS: Papers obtained after the retrieval of randomized controlled clinical trials (RCTs) of TCM treatments of diabetic nephropathy through online database (e.g. Medline, CBM, CNKI, VIP, the online database of Chinese medicine, CDFD, CMFD, and CENTRAL FROM Cochrane Library, etc.) as well as research data in our library. They were published between January 2001 and December 2012. According to the categories of the main TCM ingredients, all the cases in the literature were divided into a liver-kidney YIN deficiency group, a QI-BLOOD YIN-and-YANG deficiency group, and a spleen-kidney YANG deficiency group. Stata 11.0 was applied for subgroup analysis. RESULTS: A total of 21 Chinese RCTs were included in this review. The Q values of the three groups were 13.18, 0.25 and 3.27, respectively, P>0.05, and thus, there was no clinical heterogeneity. The combined relative risk (RR) value and its 95% confidence interval were 1.48 (1.37, 1.60), 1.19 (1.06, 1.34), and 1.33 (1.19, 1.50), respectively, P<0.05. CONCLUSIONS: Compared with the qi-blood yin-and-yang deficiency group and the spleen-kidney yang deficiency group, the liver-kidney yin deficiency group has better prospects in clinical application to ensure renal function during the treatment of DN, and this possibility is worthy of further study.

Systematic review and meta-analysis of traditional Chinese medicine in the treatment of migraines.

Migraine is a chronic disorder characterized by recurrent moderate to severe headaches often in association with a number of autonomic nervous system symptoms. It is a common disease and incidence has increased yearly. Chinese medical treatments are popularly used in Asian countries, although they vary in effectiveness. In this study, we applied a systematic review method and combined meta-regression with meta-subgroup analysis to explore heterogeneity of clinical therapeutic efficacy upon meta-analysis of randomized controlled Chinese medical treatments for migraine. We also aimed to provide a more effective Chinese prescription and to advance the knowledge in evaluating validity of preventing or alleviating migraine symptoms with Chinese medical treatments. Twenty randomized migraine control trails, including 2246 patients, were collected from online databases: PubMed, MEDLINE, EMBASE, CENTRAL of Cochrane Library, CBM, integrated version of CMCI/CMCC, TCM online, CDFD, and CMFD from January 2000 to December 2011. The results showed that the major factors influencing therapeutic efficacy were either the specific medicine form of or its prescription type (p < 0.05). The use of TCM decoctions, especially those that condition the viscera, treat from the perspective of "wind", and target the Shaoyang gateway, could be the best migraine treatment in clinical TCM practice (RR > 1.30).