Dieter Melchart

..To investigate the suitability of measurements of mercury (Hg) concentration as a means of identifying patients with health complaints attributed to dental amalgam...

..152). Both removal groups showed a significant decrease in steady-state levels of inorganic mercury compared with the no-removal group. Thus, all 3 interventions were associated with clinically relevant improvements...

..Objective is to describe and to compare outcome quality of care offered by three hospitals providing in-patient rehabilitative treatment exemplified for patients with chronic headache...

..03 (1.26-3.26) and 2.35 (1.68-3.30), respectively. Results from the 6-month follow-up were similar. In conclusion, in our trials a significant association was shown between better improvement and higher outcome expectations...

..Randomized trials performed in parallel to this study confirm the relevant overall effect, however, the effect may largely be due to potent unspecific needling and placebo effects...

..To compare patient characteristics and outcomes between a randomized controlled trial (RCT) and an observational study (OS) of acupuncture treatment in patients with migraine...

..CONCLUSIONS: In general, trial physicians complied well with the predefined interventions. A relevant minority of participating trial physicians stated that they would have treated patients differently outside the trial...

..We aimed to investigate (1) to which extent headache diary variables correlate among each other; (2) to which extent they correlate with generic measures of quality of life and disability; (3) and whether correlations vary over time...

..We aimed to investigate whether the Prognos device might be a useful tool in the diagnosis of disorders suspected to be due to dental amalgam fillings...

..trial registration number: isrctn9737659...

..This paper aims to describe the characteristics of physicians and interventions of a large, multicenter randomized trial of acupuncture for migraine (ART Migraine) in order to enable acupuncturists to assess the study interventions...

..Still, they suggest that acupuncture might be an effective and safe treatment option for patients unwilling or unable to use drug prophylaxis...

..CONCLUSION: The results of this study indicate that treatment in the hospital for traditional Chinese medicine in Kotzting is associated with lasting improvements in the majority of patients...

..The aim of this article was to investigate whether there is evidence for a specific syndrome of health problems attributed to dental amalgam...

..This analysis aimed to study predictors of different treatment outcomes and associations between subjective symptoms, psychometric variables and mercury levels in patients who subjectively attributed their health problems to dental amalgam...

..The assessment of the tongue is a crucial diagnostic tool of traditional Chinese medicine. In a series of studies we aimed to investigate to what extent independent raters agree in the description of morphological tongue characteristics...

..To investigate patient characteristics and outcomes after undergoing acupuncture treatment for chronic low back pain (cLBP) in Germany and to analyze chronification, pain grading, and depression as predictors for treatment outcomes...

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..Objective: to assess the use of, knowledge about, and the demand for information concerning complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) in cancer patients...

..The partially randomized patient preference design is recommended for use in future trials of acupuncture for gastroscopy. Such trials should be performed in an outpatient setting...

..To investigate which patients receive acupuncture in the framework of statutory health insurance in Germany, how treatment was carried out, and what results were achieved...

..To present a patient care evaluation program exemplified by a rehabilitation clinic for complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) with focus on aspects of structure quality, steps of quality assurance and interventions administered...

..CONCLUSION: In this small pilot study a significant difference between treatment at P6 and a close sham point could not be detected. However, it cannot be ruled out that an existing difference was missed due to the small sample size...

..To investigate characteristics and outcomes of patients undergoing acupuncture treatment for osteoarthritic pain under conditions of routine care in the framework of statutory health insurance in Germany...

..The results of this pilot study suggest that EPS-EPO VIIa might be effective in reducing chemotherapy-induced leukopenia. The efficacy and safety should be investigated in further studies...

..Acupuncture is widely used to prevent migraine attacks, but the available evidence of its benefit is scarce...

..The unexpected postremoval increase in erythrocyte organic Hg, which is associated with the depletion of cellular inorganic Hg, might result from binding of organic Hg to cellular sites previously occupied by inorganic Hg...

..The evidence base for multifactorial lifestyle interventions is weak. Effects on surrogate measures seem minor, but there may be clinically relevant effects on major clinical endpoints...

..To investigate the safety and efficacy of 2 extracts of echinacea for preventing upper respiratory tract infections...

..To investigate whether acupuncture is superior to placebo and equivalent to sumatriptan for the early treatment of an acute migraine attack...

..We aimed to describe the approaches and characteristics of systematic reviews on three major complementary therapies and to assess their methodological quality...

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..Acupuncture is widely used by patients with low back pain, although its effectiveness is unclear. We investigated the efficacy of acupuncture compared with minimal acupuncture and with no acupuncture in patients with chronic low back pain...

..Descriptions of the interventions used in acupuncture studies are often incomplete. The aim of this paper is to describe participating trial physicians and interventions in a randomised trial of acupuncture for low back pain...

..To present a patient care evaluation program exemplified by a rehabilitation clinic for complementary and alternative medicine(CAM) with emphasis on the description of patients and the outcome quality of the facility...

..As acupuncture has been shown to exhibit considerable autonomic effects, we tested whether the clinical effects of acupuncture in migraine prophylaxis are mediated by changes of the autonomic regulation...