AIM To investigate the acute effects of stochastic resonance whole body vibration (SR-WBV), including muscle relaxation and cardiovascular activation. METHODS Sixty-four healthy students participated. The participants were randomly assigned to sham SR-WBV training at a low intensity (1.5 Hz) or a verum SR-WBV training at a higher intensity (5 Hz). Systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic bloo...

Gastroesophageal reflux (GER) is a common, chronic, relapsing symptom. Often people self-diagnose and self-treat it even though health-related quality of life is significantly impaired. In the lack of a valid alternative approach, current treatments focus on suppression of gastric acid secretion by the use of proton pump inhibitors (PPIs), but people with GER have a significantly lower response...

Objectives. To investigate the six-week influence of acupuncture on sleep quality and daytime functioning in primary insomnia. Methods. The study was a double-dummy, single-blinded, randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trial. A total of 180 patients with primary insomnia were randomly assigned to 3 groups: verum group underwent verum acupuncture plus placebo; estazolam group underwent estazo...

UNLABELLED Recent advances in brain imaging have contributed to our understanding of the neural activity associated with acupuncture treatment. In this study, we investigated functional connectivity across longitudinal acupuncture treatments in older patients with knee osteoarthritis (OA). Over a period of 4 weeks (six treatments), we collected resting state functional magnetic resonance imagin...

BACKGROUND Dry eye is usually managed by conventional medical interventions such as artificial tears, anti-inflammatory drugs and surgical treatment. However, since dry eye is one of the most frequent ophthalmologic disorders, safer and more effective methods for its treatment are necessary, especially for vulnerable patients. Acupuncture has been widely used to treat patients with dry eye. Our...

The chemical composition of the essential oil obtained from aerial parts of Galium verum L. (Rubiaceae) from Iran was examined by a combination of GC and GC/MS. The oil isolated by hydro-distillation using a Clevenger-type apparatus. Air-dried aerial parts of Galium verum (80 g) which were collected from Bomehen in Tehran province at full flowering stage on May 2003, were subjected to hydro-dis...

BACKGROUND Over 50% of patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) either do not tolerate or do not respond to antidepressant medications. Several preliminary studies have shown the benefits of acupuncture in the treatment of depression. We sought to determine whether a 2-point electroacupuncture protocol (verum acupuncture) would be beneficial for MDD, in comparison to needling at nonchannel...

The chemical composition of the essential oil obtained from aerial parts of Galium verum L. (Rubiaceae) from Iran was examined by a combination of GC and GC/MS. The oil isolated by hydro-distillation using a Clevenger-type apparatus. Air-dried aerial parts of Galium verum (80 g) which were collected from Bomehen in Tehran province at full flowering stage on May 2003, were subjected to hydro-dis...