Research progress of external therapies of traditional Chinese medicine in the treatment of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease(NAFLD)is a common chronic liver disease characterized by diffuse hepatic steatosis.With the improvement of people's living standard,the incidence rate of NAFLD has been increasing,which has become one of the global health problems in 21st Century.However,there is no specific drug or standard treatment for NAFLD,which brings challenges to treatment.Acupuncture,moxibustion,massage and other external therapies based on the characteristics of traditional Chinese medicine have obvious curative effect in the clinical treatment of NAFLD,but the mechanism has not been systematically explained,which makes the clinical promotion evidence insufficient.This paper aims to summarize the researches on the treatment of NAFLD by external therapies of traditional Chinese medicine in recent years,and analyze its possible mechanism,so as to provide a scientific theoretical basis for future basic experiments and clinical research,and form a set of standardized clinical diagnosis and treatment scheme with the characteristics of traditional Chinese medicine.

Efficacy and safety of traditional Chinese medicine external interventions in juvenile myopia: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Background:Myopia is a common refractive error that is increasingly prevalent amongst young individuals.Preventing and controlling myopia is crucial due to its association with several complications such as myopic macular degeneration,glaucoma,and retinal detachment.Objective:The aim of this study is to systematically evaluate the efficacy of external Chinese medicine therapies in the treatment of adolescent myopia.Methods:We performed a systematic search of the Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure(CNKI),PubMed,the Cochrane Library,Science Direct,WanFang,the Weipu Database(VIP),China Biology Medicine(CMB),Web of Science(WOS),Medline,Clinical Trials,the Chinese Science Citation Database(CSCD),and the Bailian Yun Library databases from January 2012 to December 2022 to identify the randomized control trials(RCTs)that compared traditional Chinese medicine(TCM)external therapies with conventional therapies for the treatment of juvenile myopia.Two independent reviewers conducted the screening process,data extraction,and quality assessment.A meta-analysis was then conducted.Results:A total of 1735 relevant articles were retrieved.We included 38 RCTs involving 3680 patients and 7250 eyes that used TCM external therapies for the intervention of juvenile myopia.The results of the metaanalysis showed that the efficacy of TCM external therapies in preventing and controlling myopia was statistically significant compared with conventional therapies[odds ratio(OR)=3.72,95%CI(2.87,4.83),P<0.01],and a funnel plot showed the basic symmetry.The meta-analysis results showed that compared with conventional therapies,TCM external therapies had statistically significant effects on the spherical equivalent[weighted mean difference(WMD)=0.22,95%CI(0.16,0.27),P<0.01],visual acuity[WMD=0.09,95%CI(0.07,0.12),P<0.01],and axial length[standardized mean difference(SMD)=0.19,95%CI(0.07,0.31),P<0.01].Conclusion:Results showed that TCM external therapies can be an effective intervention in preventing and controlling adolescent myopia.However,more large-scale,multicenter,double-blind,and long-term RCTs are needed to validate these results.