BACKGROUND: Regular consumption of fruit and vegetables has been considered to be associated with a reduced risk of dementia and age-associated cognitive decline, although the association is ...currently unsupported by a systematic review of the literature. METHODS: We searched Medline, Embase, Biosis, ALOIS, the Cochrane library, different publisher databases as well as bibliographies of retrieved articles. All cohort studies with a follow-up of 6 months or longer were included if they reported an association of Alzheimer’s disease or cognitive decline in regard to the frequency of fruit and vegetables consumption. FINDINGS: Nine studies with a total of 44 004 participants met the inclusion criteria. Six studies analyzed fruit and vegetables separately and five of them found that higher consumption of vegetables, but not fruit is associated with a decreased risk of dementia or cognitive decline. The same association was found by three further studies for fruit and vegetable consumption analytically combined. CONCLUSION: Increased intake of vegetables is associated with a lower risk of dementia and slower rates of cognitive decline in older age. Yet, evidence that this association is also valid for high fruit consumption is lacking.
Fjorback LO, Arendt M, Ørnbøl E, Fink P, Walach H. Mindfulness‐Based Stress Reduction and Mindfulness‐Based Cognitive Therapy – a systematic review of randomized controlled trials.
Objective: To ...systematically review the evidence for MBSR and MBCT.
Method: Systematic searches of Medline, PsycInfo and Embase were performed in October 2010. MBSR, MBCT and Mindfulness Meditation were key words. Only randomized controlled trials (RCT) using the standard MBSR/MBCT programme with a minimum of 33 participants were included.
Results: The search produced 72 articles, of which 21 were included. MBSR improved mental health in 11 studies compared to wait list control or treatment as usual (TAU) and was as efficacious as active control group in three studies. MBCT reduced the risk of depressive relapse in two studies compared to TAU and was equally efficacious to TAU or an active control group in two studies. Overall, studies showed medium effect sizes. Among other limitations are lack of active control group and long‐term follow‐up in several studies.
Conclusion: Evidence supports that MBSR improves mental health and MBCT prevents depressive relapse. Future RCTs should apply optimal design including active treatment for comparison, properly trained instructors and at least one‐year follow‐up. Future research should primarily tackle the question of whether mindfulness itself is a decisive ingredient by controlling against other active control conditions or true treatments.
The aim of this study is to explore experiences and perceived effects of the Rosary on issues around health and well-being, as well as on spirituality and religiosity. A qualitative study was ...conducted interviewing ten Roman Catholic German adults who regularly practiced the Rosary prayer. As a result of using a tangible prayer cord and from the rhythmic repetition of prayers, the participants described experiencing stability, peace and a contemplative connection with the Divine, with Mary as a guide and mediator before God. Praying the Rosary was described as helpful in coping with critical life events and in fostering an attitude of acceptance, humbleness and devotion.
Abstract Objective To evaluate the practical applicability of systematic reviews and meta-analyses to the maintenance of physical activity or weight loss by assessing methodological and reporting ...aspects. Methods To identify relevant studies a literature search was conducted in MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, PsycINFO, PSYNDEX, Google scholar, and reference lists. Each article was evaluated for methodological quality, operationalization of maintenance, and practicability following the RE-AIM framework and the PRISMA statement. Results Twenty-four systematic reviews and meta-analyses were included of which 14 were published in the last four years. There were multiple definitions of maintenance. In addition the instances of redundancy, and neglect of thematic fields are identified. Eighty-seven percent of the reviews showed methodological flaws. The potential practical use of the outcomes was limited. Conclusion The applicability of systematic reviews and meta-analyses regarding health behaviour maintenance is limited with regard to reporting, methodology and thematic coverage. For practitioners, synthesis of quantitative and qualitative evidence with theoretical models is lacking.
Homeopathy is scientifically banned, both for lack of consistent empirical findings, but more so for lack of a sound theoretical model to explain its purported effects. This paper makes an attempt to ...introduce an explanatory idea based on a generalized version of quantum mechanics (QM), the weak quantum theory (WQT). WQT uses the algebraic formalism of QM proper, but drops some restrictions and definitions typical for QM. This results in a general axiomatic framework similar to QM, but more generalized and applicable to all possible systems. Most notably, WQT predicts entanglement, which in QM is known as Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) correlatedness within quantum systems. According to WQT, this entanglement is not only tied to quantum systems, but is to be expected whenever a global and a local variable describing a system are complementary. This idea is used here to reconstruct homeopathy as an exemplification of generalized entanglement as predicted by WQT. It transpires that homeopathy uses two instances of generalized entanglement: one between the remedy and the original substance (potentiation principle) and one between the individual symptoms of a patient and the general symptoms of a remedy picture (similarity principle). By bringing these two elements together, double entanglement ensues, which is reminiscent of cryptographic and teleportation applications of entanglement in QM proper. Homeopathy could be a macroscopic analogue to quantum teleportation. This model is exemplified and some predictions are derived, which make it possible to test the model.
Background: There are only few studies on cancer patients who are treated in complementary and alternative medicine clinics and comparing them with patients in conventional care. We will present the ...comparison of characteristics of two patient cohorts: one was treated in a homeopathic cancer care clinic and one was treated in a conventional oncology care (CC) outpatient clinic.
Patients and methods: Six-hundred and forty-seven patients were included in this cross-sectional cohort study and had to fill in questionnaires health-related quality of life (QoL) (Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy—General Scale), depression and anxiety (Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale), fatigue (Multidimensional Fatigue Inventory) and expectancies toward treatment. Clinical data were extracted from medical records. This study presents the comparison of both cohorts.
Results: Patients in the homeopathy cohort are younger, better educated and more often employed than patients in the CC cohort. The most pronounced differences indicate longer disease histories and different diagnostic and clinical pretreatment variables. Despite the clinical differences, QoL as well as anxiety, depression and fatigue was similar in both the groups.
Conclusions: Homeopathic treatment is sought by cancer patients at a different phase during the course of the disease, which has particular implications for research. However, expectancies toward the benefit of the treatment as well as QoL data are similar.
Among homeopaths the common idea about a working hypothesis for homeopathic effects seems to be that, during the potentization process, 'information' or 'energy' is being preserved or even enhanced ...in homeopathic remedies. The organism is said to be able to pick up this information, which in turn will stimulate the organism into a self-healing response. According to this view the decisive element of homeopathic therapy is the remedy which locally contains and conveys this information. I question this view for empirical and theoretical reasons. Empirical research has shown a repetitive pattern, in fundamental and clinical research alike: there are many anomalies in high-dilution research and clinical homeopathic trials which will set any observing researcher thinking. But no single paradigm has proved stable enough in order to produce repeatable results independent of the researcher. I conclude that the database is too weak and contradictory to substantiate a local interpretation of homeopathy, in which the remedy is endowed with causal-informational content irrespective of the circumstances. I propose a non-local interpretation to understand the anomalies along the lines of Jung's notion of synchronicity and make some predictions following this analysis.
Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) is a structured group program that employs mindfulness meditation to alleviate suffering associated with physical, psychosomatic and psychiatric disorders. ...The program, nonreligious and nonesoteric, is based upon a systematic procedure to develop enhanced awareness of moment-to-moment experience of perceptible mental processes. The approach assumes that greater awareness will provide more veridical perception, reduce negative affect and improve vitality and coping. In the last two decades, a number of research reports appeared that seem to support many of these claims. We performed a comprehensive review and meta-analysis of published and unpublished studies of health-related studies related to MBSR.
Sixty-four empirical studies were found, but only 20 reports met criteria of acceptable quality or relevance to be included in the meta-analysis. Reports were excluded due to (1) insufficient information about interventions, (2) poor quantitative health evaluation, (3) inadequate statistical analysis, (4) mindfulness not being the central component of intervention, or (5) the setting of intervention or sample composition deviating too widely from the health-related MBSR program. Acceptable studies covered a wide spectrum of clinical populations (e.g., pain, cancer, heart disease, depression, and anxiety), as well as stressed nonclinical groups. Both controlled and observational investigations were included. Standardized measures of physical and mental well-being constituted the dependent variables of the analysis.
Overall, both controlled and uncontrolled studies showed similar effect sizes of approximately 0.5 (
P<.0001) with homogeneity of distribution.
Although derived from a relatively small number of studies, these results suggest that MBSR may help a broad range of individuals to cope with their clinical and nonclinical problems.
The assertion that 'local' theories of homeopathy are traditional appears to be contradicted by Hahnemann's description of the action of homeopathic medicines as 'spirit-like'. Entanglement theory ...prohibits the use of entangled states to convey information. Experimental proof of entanglement can only come indirectly. The implications for clinical research include that positive results will probably be found only in large series and that studies should avoid imposing a causal framework.
PDF
