Antibody response correlates with severity of infection.

OBJECTIVE:To compare the effects of weight control on simple obese women between electroacupuncture and sit-up exercise. DESIGN: Randomized and crossover trial conducted from 1 January 2002 to 31 December 2002. The subjects were randomly divided into groups A and B. Group A received electroacupuncture treatment first while group B received sit-up exercise treatment first. After 6 weeks of treatment and 7 days of washout, group A switched to sit-up exercise treatment and group B received electroacupuncture treatment for another 6 weeks. PATIENTS: In total, 54 simple obese women, with waist circumference (WC)490 cm and body mass index (BMI)430 kg/m 2 , and who had not received any other weight control maneuver within the last 3 months. MEASUREMENT: The measurements of body weight (BW), BMI and WC were performed at the beginning, 6, 8 and 13 weeks. The data at different time periods were compared and expressed as % reductions. RESULTS: Electroacupuncture (n ¼ 46) showed significant differences in the % reductions in BW (P ¼ 0.001), BMI (P ¼ 0.003) and WC (P ¼ 0.005) compared with sit-up exercise. At the end of 13 weeks, there were no significant difference between groups A (n ¼ 24) and B (n ¼ 22) in all the measurements. At the end of the study, groups A and B showed significant differences in the % reductions in BW (P ¼ 0.004; 0.001), BMI (P ¼ 0.003; 0.021) and WC (Pr0.001; 0.001) compared with the initial values. CONCLUSIONS: Electroacupuncture treatment is more effective than sit-up exercise in reducing weight and WC, making it an alternative treatment option for weight and WC control on obese women.

In this pilot study, electroacupuncture treatment was more effective than situp exercise or no intervention in reducing BW, BMI, and WC.

No abstract

Chinese medicine (CM) has been used to control infectious diseases for thousands of years. In 2003 outbreaks of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) occurred in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. In view of the possible beneficial effect of CM on SARS, we conducted this study to examine whether CM is of any benefit as a supplementary treatment of SARS. Four severe laboratory-confirmed SARS patients received routine western-medicine treatment plus different supplementary treatment: CM A, CM B and CM C (placebo control). We reported the course of the cases in terms of changes in chest radiographic scores. Case 1 treated as a placebo control passed away on the 9th day after onset of disease. The other three cases treated with CM A or CM B survived. The initial findings seemed to indicate a favorable effect of CM on management of SARS. The findings need to be verified with a larger sample. Using CM as a supplementary treatment of severe SARS seems to indicate that natural herbal medicine can be used against avian influenza. Hence, such related experience or clinical trials should be taken into consideration when facing the possible outbreak of avian influenza in the future.