Homeopathic medicine

Part 2 of this narrative review outlines the theoretical and practical bases for assessing the efficacy and effectiveness of conventional medicines and homeopathic products. Known and postulated mechanisms of action are critically reviewed. The evidence for clinical efficacy of products in both categories, in the form of practitioner experience, meta-analysis and systematic reviews of clinical trial results, is discussed. The review also addresses problems and pitfalls in assessing data, and the ethical and negative aspects of pharmacology and homeopathy in veterinary medicine.

Clinical mastitis is an important disease in dairies. Its treatment is mainly based on the use of antimicrobial drugs. Numerous non-antimicrobial drugs and treatment strategies have already been reported for clinical mastitis treatment, but data on their efficacy have never been collated in a systematic way. The objective of this systematic review was to identify treatments other than conventional antimicrobials for the treatment of clinical mastitis in lactating dairy cows.

Null hypothesis significance testing is the typical statistical approach in search of the truthfulness of hypotheses. This method does not formally consider the prior credence in the hypothesis, which affects the chances of reaching correct conclusions. When scientifically implausible or empirically weakly supported hypotheses are tested, there is an increased risk that a positive finding in a test in fact is false positive.

BACKGROUND: Molluscum contagiosum is a common skin infection that is caused by a pox virus and occurs mainly in children. The infection usually resolves within months in people without immune deficiency, but treatment may be preferred for social and cosmetic reasons or to avoid spreading the infection. A clear evidence base supporting the various treatments is lacking.This is an update of a Cochrane Review first published in 2006, and updated previously in 2009.

The debate around the ethics of homeopathy in recent issues of the journal has been approached as a binary question; is homeopathy ethical or not? This paper suggests that this is an unhelpful question and instead discusses a framework to establish the extent to which the dominant (medical) culture should tolerate non-dominant health practices such as homeopathy.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy and effectiveness of homeopathic intervention in the treatment of seasonal or perennial allergic rhinitis (AR). METHOD: Randomized controlled trials evaluating all forms of homeopathic treatment for AR were included in a systematic review (SR) of studies published up to and including December 2015. Two authors independently screened potential studies, extracted data, and assessed risk of bias. Primary outcomes included symptom improvement and total quality-of-life score.

AIM: To systematically review surveys of 12-month prevalence of homeopathy use by the general population worldwide. METHODS: Studies were identified via database searches to October 2015. Study quality was assessed using a six-item tool. All estimates were in the context of a survey which also reported prevalence of any complementary and alternative medicine use. RESULTS: A total of 36 surveys were included. Of these, 67% met four of six quality criteria. Twelve-month prevalence of treatment by a homeopath was reported in 24 surveys of adults (median 1.5%, range 0.2-8.2%).

BACKGROUND: Fibromyalgia (FM) is a chronic, debilitating pain disorder. Dissatisfaction with conventional medicine can lead people with FM to turn to complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). Two previous overviews of systematic reviews of CAM for FM have been published, but they did not assessed for risk of bias in the review process. METHODS: Five databases Medline, Embase, AMED (via OVID), Web of Science and Central were searched from their inception to December 2015. Reference lists were hand-searched.

The objective of the authors is to highlight the historical complexities for the diagnosis and treatment of hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD) with a focus on Flibanserin. A systematic review of the medical literature published in PubMed using the search terms HSDD and Flibanserin was conducted. Each author reviewed the results of the systematic review for articles to include in this study.

BACKGROUND: Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is one of the most commonly diagnosed psychiatric disorders in childhood. A wide variety of treatments have been used for the management of ADHD. We aimed to compare the efficacy and safety of pharmacological, psychological and complementary and alternative medicine interventions for the treatment of ADHD in children and adolescents. METHODS AND FINDINGS: We performed a systematic review with network meta-analyses. Randomised controlled trials (?