Associations of Chinese Herbal Medicine Use with the Risks of Acute Exacerbation and Mortality in Patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: A Nationwide Retrospective Cohort Study.

Objectives: This study aimed to assess the correlation of exacerbation and the mortality rate in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) between biomedical treatments with or without Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) as an adjunct. Design: A total of 81,261 COPD patients were identified from the National Health Insurance Research Database in Taiwan between 2001 and 2012. After screening and matching, 3176 COPD patients were included in the study. Statistical analyses were performed to assess the differences in the baseline characteristics. The authors used the Cox proportional hazard regression analysis to calculate the risks of mortality and hospitalization due to acute exacerbation of COPD within 1 year between a CHM user cohort and non-CHM user cohort. The cumulative incidence of mortality in COPD patients with or without CHM treatment was calculated by the Kaplan-Meier method. Results: COPD patients in the CHM user cohort demonstrated a significantly lower risk of mortality (p < 0.001) and acute exacerbation (p < 0.05), compared with the non-CHM user cohort. In addition, the CHM users exhibited a reduced cumulative incidence of mortality compared with the non-CHM user cohort (p < 0.001). Xiao Qing Long Tang and Fritillariae thunbergii were the most common Chinese herbal formula and single Chinese herb prescribed for COPD patients. Conclusion: Combining CHM with biomedical treatment might reduce the risk of acute exacerbation and incidence of mortality in patients with COPD.

Successful intervention with Chinese herbal medicine for hyperthyroidism: Two case reports and a literature review.

BACKGROUND: Hyperthyroidism, the excessive production of thyroid hormones, is most commonly attributed to autoimmune dysfunction such as Graves' disease. Western medical treatment of hyperthyroidism includes antithyroid medications, radioiodine, and thyroidectomy, all of which are associated with side effects. We describe the successful treatment of two patients with Graves' disease who used Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) with or without Western medicine. CASE PRESENTATION: Both cases (a 50-year-old female [case 1] and a 56-year-old male [case 2]) received the Chinese herbal formula Jia Wei Xiao Yao San (JWXYS) as well as Prunella vulgaris, Fritillaria thunbergii, and Crassostrea gigas. Elevated thyroid hormone levels were restored to normal after 10 months of treatment in case 1 and 8 months in case 2. Neither patient experienced any complications or side effects during CHM treatment. Notably, symptoms and thyroid hormone levels have remained well controlled in both patients over 1 year of follow-up until the time of this report. To explore the possible mechanisms involved in CHM treatment of hyperthyroidism, we searched biomedical literature databases and reviewed the literature up to June 2020. CONCLUSIONS: As for the hyperthyroidism almost was controlled by Western medicine instead of CHM, we report that JWXYS as well as Prunella vulgaris, Fritillaria thunbergii, and Crassostrea gigas was a safe and effective formula and we propose that CHM may be considered as either a first choice or combination therapy to control hyperthyroidism.

Automated tongue diagnosis on the smartphone and its applications.

Tongue features are important objective basis for clinical diagnosis and treatment in both western medicine and Chinese medicine. The need for continuous monitoring of health conditions inspires us to develop an automatic tongue diagnosis system based on built-in sensors of smartphones. However, tongue images taken by smartphone are quite different in color due to various lighting conditions, and it consequently affects the diagnosis especially when we use the appearance of tongue fur to infer health conditions. In this paper, we captured paired tongue images with and without flash, and the color difference between the paired images is used to estimate the lighting condition based on the Support Vector Machine (SVM). The color correction matrices for three kinds of common lights (i.e., fluorescent, halogen and incandescent) are pre-trained by using a ColorChecker-based method, and the corresponding pre-trained matrix for the estimated lighting is then applied to eliminate the effect of color distortion. We further use tongue fur detection as an example to discuss the effect of different model parameters and ColorCheckers for training the tongue color correction matrix under different lighting conditions. Finally, in order to demonstrate the potential use of our proposed system, we recruited 246 patients over a period of 2.5 years from a local hospital in Taiwan and examined the correlations between the captured tongue features and alanine aminotransferase (ALT)/aspartate aminotransferase (AST), which are important bio-markers for liver diseases. We found that some tongue features have strong correlation with AST or ALT, which suggests the possible use of these tongue features captured on a smartphone to provide an early warning of liver diseases.

The involvement of serotonin receptors in suanzaorentang-induced sleep alteration.

Sedative-hypnotic medications, including benzodiazepines and non-benzodiazepines, are usually prescribed for the insomniac patients; however, the addiction, dependence and adverse effects of those medications have drawn much attention. In contrast, suanzaorentang, a traditional Chinese herb remedy, has been efficiently used for insomnia relief in China, although its mechanism remains unclear. This study was designed to further elucidate the underlying mechanism of suanzaorentang on sleep regulation. One ingredient of suanzaorentang, zizyphi spinosi semen, exhibits binding affinity for serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine, 5-HT) receptors, 5-HT(1A) and 5-HT(2), and for GABA receptors. Our previous results have implicated that GABA(A) receptors, but not GABA(B), mediate suanzaorentang-induced sleep alteration. In current study we further elucidated the involvement of serotonin. We found that high dose of suanzaorentang (4 g/kg/2 ml) significantly increased non-rapid eye movement sleep (NREMS) when comparing to that obtained after administering starch placebo, although placebo at dose of 4 g/kg also enhanced NREMS comparing with that obtained from baseline recording. Rapid eye movement sleep (REMS) was not altered. Administration of either 5-HT(1A) antagonist (NAN-190), 5-HT(2) antagonist (ketanserin) or 5-HT(3 )antagonist (3-(4-Allylpiperazin-1-yl)-2-quinoxalinecarbonitrile) blocked suanzaorentang-induced NREMS increase. These results implicate the hypnotic effect of suanzaorentang and its effects may be mediated through serotonergic activation, in addition to GABAergic system.