scholarly journals Alternative Medicine: A Recent Overview

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Salima Akter ◽  
Mohammad Nazmul Hasan ◽  
Begum Rokeya ◽  
Hajara Akhter ◽  
Mohammad Shamim Gazi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Trials ◽  
Alternative Medicine ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Modern Medicine ◽  
New Drugs ◽  
Future Perspectives ◽  
Analgesic Effects ◽  
Alternative Medicines ◽  
Pharmacologically Active ◽  
Over Time

Alternative medicine has renewed its growing public interest in recent times due to inequality of patients and healthcare professionals’ ratios with increased workload for the latter, various side effects of modern medicine, lack of complete remission from chronic diseases, high cost of new drugs, and emerging new diseases. Hence, people have become more dependent on treatment systems replying on alternative medicine or herbal medicine from traditional medicinal practitioners. Alternative medicine has grown substantially over time and encompasses several millennia of therapeutic systems. The significant areas of alternative medicine include mind–body therapies, body manipulation, and the therapies based on biological systems. Natural products based biological treatment is the most popular of them as nature has endowed us with abundance of effective pharmacologically active phytochemicals. These phytochemicals possess numerous specific clinical health benefits including antioxidant, antidiabetic, anti-inflammatory, anticancer, anti-infectious and analgesic effects. In addition, alternative medicine is easily accessible, affordable, most often noninvasive, and provides favorable benefits during terminal periods of some diseases. However, due to the lack of well-designed clinical trials, the safety and effectiveness of many alternative medicines/therapies remains elusive. This chapter will critically discuss major areas, uses, safety and regulation, current challenges & future perspectives of alternative medicine.

scholarly journals Increase in public interest concerning alternative medicine during the COVID-19 pandemic in Indonesia: a Google Trends study

F1000Research ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 1201
Author(s):  
Dewi Rokhmah ◽  
Khaidar Ali ◽  
Serius Miliyani Dwi Putri ◽  
Khoiron Khoiron
Keyword(s):  
Alternative Medicine ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Time Lag ◽  
Google Trends ◽  
Rank Test ◽  
Search Term ◽  
Alternative Medicines ◽  
Search Volume ◽  
Relative Search Volume ◽  
Time Lag Correlation

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered individuals to increase their healthy behaviour in order to prevent transmission, including improving their immunity potentially through the use of alternative medicines. This study aimed to examine public interest on alternative medicine during the COVID-19 pandemic using Google Trends in Indonesia. Methods: Employing a quantitative study, the Spearman rank test was used to analyze the correlation between Google Relative Search Volume (RSV) of various search terms, within the categories of alternative medicine, herbal medicine and practical activity, with COVID-19 cases. In addition, time lag correlation was also investigated. Results: Public interest toward alternative medicine during COVID-19 pandemic in Indonesia is dramatically escalating. All search term categories (alternative medicine, medical herbal, and alternative medicine activities) were positively associated with COVID-19 cases (p<0.05). The terms ‘ginger’ (r=0.6376), ‘curcumin’ (r=0.6550) and ‘planting ginger’ (0.6713) had the strongest correlation. Furthermore, time lag correlation between COVID-19 and Google RSV was also positively significant (p<0.05). Conclusion: Public interest concerning alternative medicine related terms dramatically increased after the first COVID-19 confirmed case was reported in Indonesia. Time lag correlation showed good performance using weekly data. The Indonesian Government will play an important role to provide and monitor information related to alternative medicine in order for the population to receive the maximum benefit.

scholarly journals Healthy volunteers in US phase I clinical trials: Sociodemographic characteristics and participation over time

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (9) ◽  
pp. e0256994
Author(s):  
Corey A. Kalbaugh ◽  
Julianne M. Kalbaugh ◽  
Lisa McManus ◽  
Jill A. Fisher
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Trials ◽  
Phase I ◽  
Healthy Volunteers ◽  
New Drugs ◽  
Trial Participation ◽  
Sociodemographic Characteristics ◽  
Phase I Trials ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Phase I Clinical Trials ◽  
Over Time

Background Increasing the diversity of research participants is an important focus of clinical trials. However, little is known regarding who enrolls as healthy volunteers in Phase I clinical trials, which test the safety and tolerability of investigational new drugs. Despite the risk, healthy volunteers can derive no medical benefit from their participation, and they are financially compensated for enrolling. Objective This study’s purpose is to describe sociodemographic characteristics and clinical trial participation histories of healthy people who enroll in US Phase I trials. Methods The HealthyVOICES Project (HVP) is a longitudinal study of healthy individuals who have enrolled in Phase I trials. We describe self-reported sociodemographic information and Phase I trial history from HVP recruitment (May-December 2013) through the project’s end three years later (December 2016). Trial experiences are presented as medians and quartiles. Results The HVP included 178 participants. Nearly three-fourths of participants were male, and two-thirds were classified as racial and ethnic minorities. We found that some groups of participants were more likely to have completed a greater number of clinical trials over a longer timeframe than others. Those groups included participants who were male, Black, Hispanic, 30-39-years-old, unemployed, had received vocational training in a trade, or had annual household incomes of less than $25,000. Additionally, the greater the number of clinical trials participants had completed, the more likely they were to continue screening for new trials over the course of three years. Participants who pursued clinical trials as a full-time job participated in the greatest number of trials and were the most likely to continuing screening over time. Implications Participation as a healthy volunteer in US Phase I trials is driven by social inequalities. Disadvantaged groups tend to participate in a greater number of clinical trials and participate longer than more privileged groups.

scholarly journals Increase in public interest concerning alternative medicine during the COVID-19 pandemic in Indonesia: a Google Trends study

F1000Research ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 1201
Author(s):  
Dewi Rokhmah ◽  
Khaidar Ali ◽  
Serius Miliyani Dwi Putri ◽  
Khoiron Khoiron
Keyword(s):  
Alternative Medicine ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Time Lag ◽  
Google Trends ◽  
Rank Test ◽  
Search Term ◽  
Alternative Medicines ◽  
Search Volume ◽  
Relative Search Volume ◽  
Time Lag Correlation

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered individuals to increase their healthy behaviour in order to prevent transmission, including improving their immunity potentially through the use of alternative medicines. This study aimed to examine public interest on alternative medicine during the COVID-19 pandemic using Google Trends in Indonesia. Methods: Employing a quantitative study, the Spearman rank test was used to analyze the correlation between Google Relative Search Volume (RSV) of various search terms, within the categories of alternative medicine, herbal medicine and practical activity, with COVID-19 cases. In addition, time lag correlation was also investigated. Results: Public interest toward alternative medicine during COVID-19 pandemic in Indonesia is dramatically escalating. All search term categories (alternative medicine, medical herbal, and alternative medicine activities) were positively associated with COVID-19 cases (p<0.05). The terms ‘ginger’ (r=0.6376), ‘curcumin’ (r=0.6550) and ‘planting ginger’ (0.6713) had the strongest correlation. Furthermore, time lag correlation between COVID-19 and Google RSV was also positively significant (p<0.05). Conclusion: Public interest concerning alternative medicine related terms dramatically increased after the first COVID-19 confirmed case was reported in Indonesia. Time lag correlation showed good performance using weekly data. The Indonesian Government will play an important role to provide and monitor information related to alternative medicine in order for the population to receive the maximum benefit.

scholarly journals Helminth therapy: Advances in the use of parasitic worms against Inflammatory Bowel Diseases and its challenges

2018 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Maruszewska-Cheruiyot ◽  
K. Donskow-Łysoniewska ◽  
M. Doligalska
Keyword(s):  
Ulcerative Colitis ◽  
Clinical Trials ◽  
Inflammatory Bowel Diseases ◽  
Modern Medicine ◽  
New Drugs ◽  
Bowel Diseases ◽  
Inflammatory Bowel ◽  
Time Expansion ◽  
Helminth Therapy ◽  
Parasitic Worms

Summary Development of modern medicine and better living conditions in the 20th century helped in reducing a number of cases of infectious diseases. During the same time, expansion of autoimmunological disorders was noticed. Among other are Inflammatory Bowel Diseases (IBD) including ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease which are chronic and relapsing inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract. Absence of effective treatment in standard therapies effects the search for alternative opportunities. As per hygienic hypothesis increasing number of cases of autoimmune diseases is as a result of reduced exposure to pathogens, especially parasites. Thus, one of the promising remedial acts against IBD and other allergic and autoimmune disorders is “helminth therapy”. Cure with helminths seems to be the most effective therapy of IBD currently proposed. Helminth therapy focuses on advantageous results that have been obtained from the clinical trials, but its mechanisms are still unclear. Explanation of this phenomenon would help to develop new drugs against IBD based on helminth immunomodulatory molecules.

Permeability Through Bacterial Porins Dictates Whole Cell Compound Accumulation

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Silvia Acosta Gutiérrez ◽  
Igor Bodrenko ◽  
Matteo Ceccarelli
Keyword(s):  
Cell Envelope ◽  
Scoring Function ◽  
Modern Medicine ◽  
New Drugs ◽  
Prediction Ability ◽  
Whole Cell ◽  
Virtual Libraries ◽  
Major Bottleneck ◽  
Global Threat ◽  
Bacterial Porins

The lack of new drugs for Gram-negative pathogens is a global threat to modern medicine. The complexity of their cell envelope, with an additional outer membrane, hinders internal accumulation and thus, the access of molecules to targets. Our limited understanding of the molecular basis for compound influx and efflux from these pathogens is a major bottleneck for the discovery of effective antibacterial compounds. Here we analyse the correlation between the whole-cell compound accumulation of ~200 molecules and their predicted porin permeability coefficient (influx), using a recently developed scoring function. We found a strong linear relationship (75%) between the two, confirming porins key role in compound penetration. Further, the remarkable prediction ability of the scoring function demonstrates its potentiality to guide the optimization of hits to leads as well as the possibility of screening ultra-large virtual libraries. Eventually, the analysis of false positives, molecules with high-predicted influx but low accumulation, provides new hints on the molecular properties behind efflux.<br>

scholarly journals Investigational Monoclonal Antibodies in the Treatment of Multiple Myeloma: A Systematic Review of Agents under Clinical Development

Antibodies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmad Iftikhar ◽  
Hamza Hassan ◽  
Nimra Iftikhar ◽  
Adeela Mushtaq ◽  
Atif Sohail ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Multiple Myeloma ◽  
Clinical Trials ◽  
Monoclonal Antibodies ◽  
Combination Therapy ◽  
Immune Responses ◽  
Web Of Science ◽  
Cochrane Library ◽  
Future Perspectives ◽  
Antibody Drug Conjugate ◽  
Chemotherapy Agents

Background: Immunotherapy for multiple myeloma (MM) has been the focus in recent years due to its myeloma-specific immune responses. We reviewed the literature on non-Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) to highlight future perspectives. We searched PubMed, EMBASE, Web of Science, Cochrane Library and ClinicalTrials.gov to include phase I/II clinical trials. Data from 39 studies (1906 patients) were included. Of all the agents, Isatuximab (Isa, anti-CD38) and F50067 (anti-CXCR4) were the only mAbs to produce encouraging results as monotherapy with overall response rates (ORRs) of 66.7% and 32% respectively. Isa showed activity when used in combination with lenalidomide (Len) and dexamethasone (Dex), producing a clinical benefit rate (CBR) of 83%. Additionally, Isa used in combination with pomalidomide (Pom) and Dex resulted in a CBR of 73%. Indatuximab Ravtansine (anti-CD138 antibody-drug conjugate) produced an ORR of 78% and 79% when used in combination with Len-Dex and Pom-Dex, respectively. Conclusions: Combination therapy using mAbs such as indatuximab, pembrolizumab, lorvotuzumab, siltuximab or dacetuzumab with chemotherapy agents produced better outcomes as compared to monotherapies. Further clinical trials investigating mAbs targeting CD38 used in combination therapy are warranted.

scholarly journals Future Perspectives of Therapeutic, Diagnostic and Prognostic Aptamers in Eye Pathological Angiogenesis

Cells ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 1455
Author(s):  
Emilio Iturriaga-Goyon ◽  
Beatriz Buentello-Volante ◽  
Fátima Sofía Magaña-Guerrero ◽  
Yonathan Garfias
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Trials ◽  
Macular Degeneration ◽  
Small Molecules ◽  
Inflammatory Diseases ◽  
Age Related Macular Degeneration ◽  
Future Perspectives ◽  
Whole Cells ◽  
Pathological Angiogenesis ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Viral Particles

Aptamers are single-stranded DNA or RNA oligonucleotides that are currently used in clinical trials due to their selectivity and specificity to bind small molecules such as proteins, peptides, viral particles, vitamins, metal ions and even whole cells. Aptamers are highly specific to their targets, they are smaller than antibodies and fragment antibodies, they can be easily conjugated to multiple surfaces and ions and controllable post-production modifications can be performed. Aptamers have been therapeutically used for age-related macular degeneration, cancer, thrombosis and inflammatory diseases. The aim of this review is to highlight the therapeutic, diagnostic and prognostic possibilities associated with aptamers, focusing on eye pathological angiogenesis.

scholarly journals Bayesian modeling and prediction of accrual in multi-regional clinical trials

2014 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 752-765 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yi Deng ◽  
Xiaoxi Zhang ◽  
Qi Long
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Trials ◽  
Poisson Process ◽  
Process Model ◽  
Nonhomogeneous Poisson Process ◽  
Modeling And Prediction ◽  
Accuracy And Precision ◽  
Start Up ◽  
Accrual Rate ◽  
Model Region ◽  
Over Time

In multi-regional trials, the underlying overall and region-specific accrual rates often do not hold constant over time and different regions could have different start-up times, which combined with initial jump in accrual within each region often leads to a discontinuous overall accrual rate, and these issues associated with multi-regional trials have not been adequately investigated. In this paper, we clarify the implication of the multi-regional nature on modeling and prediction of accrual in clinical trials and investigate a Bayesian approach for accrual modeling and prediction, which models region-specific accrual using a nonhomogeneous Poisson process and allows the underlying Poisson rate in each region to vary over time. The proposed approach can accommodate staggered start-up times and different initial accrual rates across regions/centers. Our numerical studies show that the proposed method improves accuracy and precision of accrual prediction compared to existing methods including the nonhomogeneous Poisson process model that does not model region-specific accrual.

scholarly journals Practical and conceptual issues of clinical trial registration for Brazilian researchers

2015 ◽  
Vol 134 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolina Gomes Freitas ◽  
Thomas Fernando Coelho Pesavento ◽  
Maurício Reis Pedrosa ◽  
Rachel Riera ◽  
Maria Regina Torloni
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Trial ◽  
Clinical Trials ◽  
International Committee ◽  
New Drugs ◽  
Trial Registration ◽  
Clinical Trial Registry ◽  
Clinical Trial Registration ◽  
Registration Process ◽  
Trial History ◽  
Definition Of

CONTEXT AND OBJECTIVE: Clinical trial registration is a prerequisite for publication in respected scientific journals. Recent Brazilian regulations also require registration of some clinical trials in the Brazilian Clinical Trials Registry (ReBEC) but there is little information available about practical issues involved in the registration process. This article discusses the importance of clinical trial registration and the practical issues involved in this process. DESIGN AND SETTING: Descriptive study conducted by researchers within a postgraduate program at a public university in São Paulo, Brazil. METHODS: Information was obtained from clinical trial registry platforms, article reference lists and websites (last search: September 2014) on the following topics: definition of a clinical trial, history, purpose and importance of registry platforms, the information that should be registered and the registration process. RESULTS: Clinical trial registration aims to avoid publication bias and is required by Brazilian journals indexed in LILACS and SciELO and by journals affiliated to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). Recent Brazilian regulations require that all clinical trials (phases I to IV) involving new drugs to be marketed in this country must be registered in ReBEC. The pros and cons of using different clinical trial registration platforms are discussed. CONCLUSIONS: Clinical trial registration is important and various mechanisms to enforce its implementation now exist. Researchers should take into account national regulations and publication requirements when choosing the platform on which they will register their trial.

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