scholarly journals The Efficacy of Complementary and Alternative Medicine in the Treatment of Female Infertility

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Jiaxing Feng ◽  
Jing Wang ◽  
Yuehui Zhang ◽  
Yizhuo Zhang ◽  
Liyan Jia ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Alternative Medicine ◽  
Complementary And Alternative Medicine ◽  
Psychological Intervention ◽  
Female Infertility ◽  
Obstetric Outcomes ◽  
Serious Adverse Events ◽  
Obvious Effect ◽  
Vitro Fertilization ◽  
Complementary And Alternative

Female infertility is a state of fertility disorder caused by multiple reasons. The incidence of infertility for females has significantly increased due to various factors such as social pressure, late marriage, and late childbirth, and its harm includes heavy economic burden, psychological shadow, and even marriage failure. Conventional solutions, such as hormone therapy, in vitro fertilization (IVF), and embryo transfer, have the limitations of unsatisfied obstetric outcomes and serious adverse events. Currently, complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), as a new treatment for infertility, is gradually challenging the dominant position of traditional therapies in the treatment of infertility. CAM claims that it can adjust and harmonize the state of the female body from a holistic approach to achieve a better therapeutic effect and has been increasingly used by infertile women. Meanwhile, some controversial issues also appeared; that is, some randomized controlled trials (RCTs) confirmed that CAM had no obvious effect on infertility, and the mechanism of its effect could not reach a consensus. To clarify CAM effectiveness, safety, and mechanism, this paper systematically reviewed the literature about its treatment of female infertility collected from PubMed and CNKI databases and mainly introduced acupuncture, moxibustion, and oral Chinese herbal medicine. In addition, we also briefly summarized psychological intervention, biosimilar electrical stimulation, homeopathy, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, etc.

Serious adverse events associated with pediatric complementary and alternative medicine

2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 467-472 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liliane Zorzela ◽  
Heather Boon ◽  
Silvano Mior ◽  
Jerry Yager ◽  
Anita Gross ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Adverse Events ◽  
Alternative Medicine ◽  
Complementary And Alternative Medicine ◽  
Serious Adverse Events ◽  
Complementary And Alternative

Laboratory tests commonly used in complementary and alternative medicine: a review of the evidence

2019 ◽  
Vol 56 (3) ◽  
pp. 310-325 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart L Jones ◽  
Bruce Campbell ◽  
Tanya Hart
Keyword(s):  
Alternative Medicine ◽  
Complementary And Alternative Medicine ◽  
Inductively Coupled Plasma ◽  
Laboratory Tests ◽  
The United States ◽  
Evidence Base ◽  
Inductively Coupled ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Complementary And Alternative

It is increasingly easy for the general public to access a wide range of laboratory tests. Tests can be ordered online with little or no input from a health professional. The complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) community promote and sell a wide range of tests, many of which are of dubious clinical significance. Many have little or no clinical utility and have been widely discredited, whilst others are established tests that are used for unvalidated purposes. They range from the highly complex, employing state of the art technology, e.g. heavy metal analysis using inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry, to the rudimentary, e.g. live blood cell analysis. Results of ‘CAM tests’ are often accompanied by extensive clinical interpretations which may recommend, or be used to justify, unnecessary or harmful treatments. There are now a small number of laboratories across the globe that specialize in CAM testing. Some CAM laboratories operate completely outside of any accreditation programme whilst others are fully accredited to the standard of established clinical laboratories. In this review, we explore CAM testing in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia with a focus on the common tests on offer, how they are reported, the evidence base for their clinical application and the regulations governing their use. We will also review proposed changed to in-vitro diagnostic device regulations and how these might impact on CAM testing.

scholarly journals Targeting Sonic Hedgehog Signaling by Compounds and Derivatives from Natural Products

2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 ◽  
pp. 1-5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yu-Chuen Huang ◽  
K. S. Clifford Chao ◽  
Hui-Fen Liao ◽  
Yu-Jen Chen
Keyword(s):  
Alternative Medicine ◽  
Complementary And Alternative Medicine ◽  
Sonic Hedgehog ◽  
Anticancer Agents ◽  
Invasion And Metastasis ◽  
Antitumor Effects ◽  
Shh Signaling ◽  
Shh Pathway ◽  
Complementary And Alternative

Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are a major cause of cancer treatment failure, relapse, and drug resistance and are known to be responsible for cancer cell invasion and metastasis. The Sonic hedgehog (Shh) signaling pathway is crucial to embryonic development. Intriguingly, the aberrant activation of the Shh pathway plays critical roles in developing CSCs and leads to angiogenesis, migration, invasion, and metastasis. Natural compounds and chemical structure modified derivatives from complementary and alternative medicine have received increasing attention as cancer chemopreventives, and their antitumor effects have been demonstrated bothin vitroandin vivo. However, reports for their bioactivity against CSCs and specifically targeting Shh signaling remain limited. In this review, we summarize investigations of the compounds cyclopamine, curcumin, epigallocatechin-3-gallate, genistein, resveratrol, zerumbone, norcantharidin, and arsenic trioxide, with a focus on Shh signaling blockade. Given that Shh signaling antagonism has been clinically proven as effective strategy against CSCs, this review may be exploitable for development of novel anticancer agents from complementary and alternative medicine.

scholarly journals A Review of Complementary and Alternative Medicine Therapies on Muscular Atrophy: A Literature Review of In Vivo/In Vitro Studies

2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 ◽  
pp. 1-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seong-Mok Jeong ◽  
Byung-Kwan Seo ◽  
Yeon-Cheol Park ◽  
Yong-Hyeon Baek
Keyword(s):  
Alternative Medicine ◽  
Complementary And Alternative Medicine ◽  
Muscular Atrophy ◽  
In Vitro Studies ◽  
Hindlimb Suspension ◽  
In Vivo Studies ◽  
Cochrane Library ◽  
Complementary And Alternative

Objective. The objective of this review is to evaluate the recent treatment and study trends of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) treatments on muscular atrophy by reviewing in vivo/in vitro studies.Materials and Methods. The searches were conducted via electronic databases including PubMed, the Cochrane Library, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Wanfang MED, and five Korean databases. Only in vivo and in vitro studies were included in this study.Results. A total of 44 studies (27 in vivo studies, 8 in vitro studies, and 9 in vivo with in vitro) were included. No serious maternal or fetal complications occurred. There were various animal models induced with muscular atrophy through “hindlimb suspension”, “nerve damage”, ‘alcohol or dexamethasone treatment’, “diabetes”, “CKD”, “stroke”, “cancer”, “genetic modification”, etc. In 28 of 36 articles measuring muscle mass, CAM significantly increased the mass. Additionally, 10 of them showed significant improvement in muscle function. In most in vitro studies, significant increases in both the diameter of myotubes and muscle cell numbers were reported. The mechanisms of action of protein synthesis, degradation, autophagy, and apoptotic markers were also investigated.Conclusions. These results demonstrate that CAM could prevent muscular atrophy. Further studies about CAM on muscular atrophy are needed.

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