Traditional Chinese Medicine constitution among patients with allergic rhinitis and its correlation with anxiety and depression.

OBJECTIVE: To preliminary investigate the distribution of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) constitution among patients with allergic rhinitis (AR) and reveal the related factors with anxiety and depression. METHODS: Between July 2020 and June 2021, specialist doctor recruited AR patients in Beijing and Shanghai. A total of 630 patients admitted to participate in the survey, and 516 (81.9%) (male 54.3%, female 45.7%) participants completed the questionnaires. Three scales including Constitution in Chinese Medicine Questionnaire (CCMQ), Generalized Anxiety Disorder Questionnaire (GAD-7) and The Patient Health Queationaire-9 (PHQ-9) were applied. The χ2 and the Fisher's exact test were used to evaluate the classification data, multivariate logistic regression was used to explore the related factors of anxiety and depression. RESULTS: According to 516 AR patients, the most commonly first-constitution was Yang-deficiency (22.1%) and frequent of all constitutions was inherited-special (21.6%). One third of AR patients (33.5%) suffered from anxiety, nearly half of AR patients (46.5%) were found to be depressive. Inherited-special (27.7%) was the most common constitution in patients with anxiety whereas Yang-deficiency (26.7%) was most common constitution in patients with depression. Sex, duration of symptoms, balanced, Qi-deficiency, phlegm-dampness, Qi-stagnation, and inherited-special constitutions were related with anxiety; Sex, income, duration of symptoms, balanced, Qi-deficiency, Yang-deficiency, phlegm-dampness, Qi-stagnation, and inherited-special constitutions were related with depression. CONCLUSIONS: According to our study, the commonly constitution types of AR were Yang-deficiency and inherited-special. We found that the prevalence value of anxiety and depression were high. People with Qi-deficiency, phlegm-dampness, Qi-stagnation, and inherited-special constitutions were more likely to have mental problems than the others. Controlling these influential factors might be beneficial for clinical health management of AR patients, and the government should apply appropriate mental health treatment services to offer psychiatric support.

Research advances in traditional Chinese medicine therapy for cholelithiasis / 临床肝胆病杂志

Cholelithiasis is a common disease in clinical practice. At present, surgery is the primary Western treatment method for this disease, but there are problems such as surgical trauma, a high recurrence rate, and postoperative complications. Various traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) methods for the treatment of cholelithiasis have achieved satisfactory results and have been widely used in clinical practice in recent years. This article summarizes the research advances in TCM therapy for cholelithiasis from the aspects of the understanding of cholelithiasis in TCM, TCM treatment methods for cholelithiasis and their mechanisms, and integrated traditional Chinese and Western medicine therapy. It is pointed out that TCM can significantly improve or inhibit the information of cholelithiasis and has the advantages of reliable therapeutic effect, few side effects, and a low recurrence rate; however, its further application is limited by the unclear mechanism of action of TCM and defects of related clinical research such as low quality and poor repeatability. It is recommended to strengthen basic research and conduct high-level randomized controlled clinical trials in the future to provide scientific and objective evidence for clinical diagnosis and treatment of cholelithiasis and thus improve the clinical effect of TCM in the treatment of cholelithiasis.