Alternative Medicine Studies

Associations between perceived stress, quality of life and complementary health practices in Japanese outpatients: a multicenter observational study

Tomoaki Kimura — 2013-08-05

In Japan and other countries, complementary health practices based on lifestyle modification such as exercise, diet, art and culture, gardening, and biofield therapy, have received increasing attention. This study was conducted to demonstrate associations between perceived stress, quality of life (QOL), and these complementary health practices. Computer-assisted data collection was conducted with Japanese outpatients in 10 clinics. Participants completed questionnaires that measured socioeconomic status (SES) and frequencies of complementary health practices. Psychological stress was measured using the 10-Item Japanese version of the Perceived Stress Scale. QOL was measured using the 10-Item Mokichi Okada Association Quality of Life Questionnaire. Data were analyzed using linear regression modeling. Baseline data of 1480 participants were available for cross-sectional analysis and data of 318 participants were available at follow-up for longitudinal analysis. Gender differences were not observed in stress and QOL, but age was positively correlated with QOL, and negatively with stress. A multiple regression model adjusted for age, gender, and SES indicated weak associations between each health practice and QOL in the cross-sectional (β=0.14-0.28) and the longitudinal analysis (β=0.17-0.27). Moreover, negative associations between each health practice and stress varied from -0.08 to -0.18, with the exception of biofield therapy in the cross-sectional analysis. In the longitudinal analysis, associations varied from -0.13 to -0.27, but diet and biofield therapy were not significantly associated with stress. These results suggest that complementary health practices had a significant effect on maintaining, or improving QOL, as well as in reducing stress of Japanese outpatients.

Physico-chemical characterization and antimicrobial activity of Ceiba pentandra (Kapok) seed oil

Ravi Kiran Chekuboyina — 2012-08-02

Oil extracted from Ceiba pentandra seed was studied to explore its suitability for ethnomedical uses with a special emphasis on its physiochemical characterization, antimicrobial behavior and spectrophotometric parameters. Some of the physiochemical properties were examined and compared with those of standard oils and, in particular, any common characteristics with cotton seed oil were evaluated. Spectrophotometric analysis of oil was carried out to obtain information regarding the types, numbers and position of chromophores and auxochrome, and saturated and unsaturated compounds. Crude Ceiba pentandra oil was found to show good to moderate activity against bacteria, and in particular Gram +ve (B. cereus, B. subtilis and S. aureus) and Gram -Ve (E. coli and P. aeurignosa) and fungal stains, more specifically Aspergillus flavans, Aspergillus niger, Candida albicans and Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Maximum activity was observed on bacterial strains compared with fungal strains. Among bacteria, Bacillus subtilis was highly sensitive; fungi were less susceptible to oil and Saccharomyces cerivisiae were the most susceptible. Minimum inhibitory concentrations and minimum bactericidal and fungicidal concentrations of the seed oil varied between 3 to 10 mg/50 μL against all bacterial and fungal strains used in this study. In conclusion, Ceiba pentandra oil is a natural antimicrobial agent and could have therapeutic potential.

Antimicrobial activity of selected natural products against Gram-positive, Gram-negative and Acid-fast bacterial pathogens

Niket Yadav — 2012-09-06

Recurring epidemics of drug resistant bacterial diseases such as those caused by mycobacteria (tuberculosis and non-tuberculous infections), staphylococci (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus or MRSA infections) and various Gram-negative enterobacteria (enterobacterial infections) have reinforced the need to search for alternative antimicrobials. In this context, we investigated the anti-bacterial potential of nine different natural products and compared them with the antibiotic controls, using three test bacterial species, representing the Gram-negative (Escherichia coli), Gram-positive (Staphylococcus epidermidis), and Acid-fast (Mycobacterium smegmatis) pathogen groups. Six of the nine products showed detectable but variable zones of inhibition (mm2). The anti-bacterial activity (mm2 per 100 mg) of the extracts from the four solid natural products was in the following order for all three pathogen groups: Mint (Mentha arvensis) leaf extract, 264-930>Mushroom (Agaricus bisporus) cap extract, 112-241>Turmeric (Curcuma longa) root extract, 4-10>Ginger (Zingiber officinale) root extract, 3-9. For the liquid products, the activity measured on 100 μL aliquots was in the following order: Eucalyptus (Eucalyptus globules) oil, 264-1044>Mustard (Brassica campestris L. var. brown sarson) oil, 45-96. Taken together, these results indicated the highest activity in Mint extract and Eucalyptus oil against all three test organisms. However, the individual test strains showed the following variable order of susceptibility: Mint extract (M. smegmatis>E. coli>S. epidermidis); Eucalyptus oil (M. smegmatis>S. epidermidis>E. coli). Based on these results it can be concluded that Mint leaves and Eucalyptus oil have an unusually broad spectrum activity and may, therefore, be promising sources of new broad spectrum antimicrobials.

Responsiveness and minimally important difference of a generic quality of life measure for complementary health practices

Tomoaki Kimura — 2012-07-26

Shorter and easier methods of conducting community health surveys would be useful. We conducted a study to demonstrate the responsiveness of the 10-item Mokichi Okada Association quality of life questionnaire (MQL-10) in a follow-up survey and to determine the minimally important difference (MID) for this measure. In 2007, Japanese adults participated in a survey on health prac- tices. We analyzed the MQL-10 scores (n=6365) together with the following factors: gender, age group, disease, reason for participation, and complementary health practices, such as food and eating. The mean baseline MQL-10 score was 26.4±5.83 [standard deviation (SD)] and the mean follow-up score was 27.6±5.45 SD with a mean change of 1.20±4.41 SD. The effect size for change was 0.21 and the standardized response mean was 0.27. The MQL-10 scores in the baseline condition were associated with gender, age group, disease, reason for participation and complementary health practices. Furthermore, the changes in the MQL-10 during the 12 weeks of study were associated with age group, disease, reason for participa- tion and complementary health practices. The increase in frequency of health practices was significantly associated with improvements in the participants’ quality of life (QOL). These results suggest that the MQL-10 is use- ful for assessing the effects of complementary health practices on QOL. The estimate of 3 points for the range of this measure (0-40) was higher than half of the SD of scores; therefore, it was considered reasonable for the MID.