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Research Archive

Welcome to our Chinese medicine and acupuncture research news pages. We add to the content of these pages continuously as more research news comes in. Browse through the complete archive below or use the category links on the right.

Please note that the most twenty recent research archive items are free to view but access to the thousands of items in the archive require a journal subscription.

Mobile phones and brain tumours

Categories: Lifestyle research

A meta-analysis from Sweden has evaluated the association between long-term use of mobile phones and the risk of brain tumours. Based on ten studies on glioma and nine studies on acoustic neuroma, they concluded that long term (10+ years) use of mobile phones increased the risk of tumours on the side of phone use (by 200 and 240% respectively). Mobile phone use was not associated with increased ri ...

Caesarean section increases diabetes risk

Categories: Lifestyle research

Babies delivered by Caesarean section have a 20% higher risk than those delivered normally of developing type 1 diabetes. A meta-analysis by Northern Irish researchers examined 20 published observational studies from 16 countries including around 10,000 children with type 1 diabetes and over a million control children. They found a 20% increase of developing the disease in children born by Caesare ...

Caffeine associated with foetal growth restriction

Categories: Lifestyle research

Consumption of caffeine during pregnancy may increase the risk of foetal growth restriction, according to the results of a large, prospective observational study carried out in the UK. 2635 low risk pregnant women were recruited between 8-12 weeks of pregnancy. A validated caffeine assessment tool was used to quantify total caffeine intake from four weeks before conception and throughout pregnancy ...

Living near green spaces is healthy

Categories: Lifestyle research

People who live near green spaces are healthier. British researchers classified the entire pre-retirement population of England (n=40 813 236) into groups on the basis of income deprivation and exposure to green space. They concluded that populations that are exposed to the greenest environments have the lowest levels of health inequality related to low income. The investigators further analysed t ...

Sleep loss leads to inflammation

Categories: Immunity, Lifestyle research

Loss of sleep, even for a single night, can trigger the body's inflammatory response, increasing the risk of heart disease and autoimmune disorders. American researchers measured levels of nuclear factor (NF)-ÎºB, a transcription factor mediating inflammatory signalling, in healthy adults. Measurements were repeated in the morning after normal sleep, after partial sleep deprivation (where the vo ...

Music is good for the heart

Categories: Lifestyle research

Listening to enjoyable music may be good for cardiovascular health, a US study suggests. To determine the effect of music on endothelial function, researchers conducted a four-phase randomised crossover study on ten healthy nonsmokers, mean age 36 years. The volunteers selected 30 minutes of music they enjoyed and were also asked to identify music that made them feel anxious. On four separate occa ...

Alternative approach better than statins

Categories: Lifestyle research

An American randomised controlled trial has compared the lipid-lowering effects of lifestyle changes plus dietary supplements with a standard dose of a statin drug. The study enrolled 74 patients with hypercholesterolaemia and randomised them to an alternative treatment group (AG) or simvastatin (40 mg/d). The alternative treatment included therapeutic lifestyle changes (weekly education meetings, ...

Chlorinated water associated with birth defects

Categories: Lifestyle research

Drinking chlorinated water while pregnant can harm the foetus. A cross-sectional study of nearly 400,000 infants in Taiwan examined the risk of developing eleven common birth defects at four levels of exposure to chlorination by-products. The results revealed that exposure to high levels of by-products substantially increased the risk of three common defects: ventricular septal defects, cleft pala ...

A happy marriage is a healthy marriage

Categories: Lifestyle research

Men and women in happy marriages have lower blood pressure than single people. An American study looked at ambulatory blood pressure (ABP) over a 24 hour period in 204 married and 99 single males and females. High marital quality was associated with lower ABP, lower stress, less depression, and higher satisfaction with life. Single individuals had lower ABP than those in low-quality marriages, sug ...