Background: The reasoning behind evaluating medical interventions is that a hierarchy of methods exists which successively produce improved and therefore more rigorous evidence based medicine upon which to make clinical decisions. At the foundation of this hierarchy are case studies, retrospective and prospective case series, followed by cohort studies with historical and concomitant non-randomized ...

Extracts of Chinese red yeast rice (RYR, a traditional dietary seasoning of Monascus purpureus) contains several active ingredients including lovastatin, and several trials of its possible lipid-lowering effects have been conducted. This meta-analysis assesses the effectiveness and safety of RYR preparations on lipid modification in primary hyperlipidemia. We included randomized controlled trials ...

Denne rapport giver en introduction til kvalitative forskningsmetoder, der er velegnede til forskning i komplementær og alternativ behandling. Kvalitative og kvantitative metoder producerer meget forskellige former for kundskaber, som er rettet mod forskellige brugssammenhænge og formål. Vi starter med at forholde os til evidens-baseret viden og beskriver epistemologiske baggrunde for at vælge ...

Background: Green tea is one of the most popular beverages worldwide. This review summarizes the beneficial effects of green tea on cancer prevention. <br> Methods: Electronic databases, including PubMed (1966–2008), the Cochrane Library (Issue 1, 2008) and Chinese Biomedical Database (1978–2008) with supplement of relevant websites, were searched. There was no language restriction. The searches ...

Background: The extent to which a health care intervention causes or facilitates health-related change is a key question in research. The need to quantify such change has led to the development of an increasing number of change indicators, to measure what have come to be known as 'outcomes'. In the context of medical research into the efficacy or effectiveness of an intervention the term 'outcomes' ...

<p><i>Background and objectives</i> The Pan-European research network CAMbrella was established under the 7th Framework Programme in 2010. One of the main aims is to review the legal and regulatory status for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, and indicate how legal and regulatory differences can be taken into account both in research initiatives and efforts to secure equal access to health ...

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has been widely used in cancer in China. Case series report a series of cases exposed to a certain intervention. To understand the current situation of case series of TCM for cancer, we performed this review. We included case series of cancer patients treated with TCM therapy. Electronic searches were conducted in four main Chinese databases until February 2011. ...