-
In subjects with smoke habit wanting to quit their addiction, a treatment of at least 8 weeks, based on transdermal nicotine is advised. To verify its efficacy in even longer periods, a randomized trial has been performed on 568 long-time smokers, treated for 8 weeks with plasters containing 21 mg [...]
-
Gabapentin and nortriptyline are first-use drugs in neuropathic pain, but they present unpleasant side effects according to the used dose and their efficacy is limited. In this trial, it was evaluated whether drugs can be more effective in combined therapy, since their mechanism of action is [...]
-
In 2003, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommended physicians to make for their own patients a counseling concerning the damages deriving from smoke habit; in 2008, the available evidences have been again examined and the indication to the screening on smoke habit has had a new [...]
-
Is it really healthy to do physical exercise? In Sweden, a prospective population trial was performed, examining the consequences of physical exercise and smoke cessation on 2205 males (average age 50 at the beginning of the trial, in 1970-1973). After a follow-up of 35 years, the mortality rates [...]
-
A famous prospective trial performed in the ‘80s concerned 77,782 US nurses between 34 and 59, without cardiovascular diseases and cancers, who periodically completed some questionnaires relative to lifestyle, in order to assess possible associations between measurable factors and these two [...]
-
There have been, in the past, some trials identifying an inversely proportional relation between muscular strength and life expectancy, but these trials were invalidated by methodological faults (the ways in which muscular strength had been measured varied, follow-up was too short, also old [...]
-
The placebo effect is a widely shown phenomenon, but on whose mechanism there is not an absolute clearness yet, so some researchers have made 262 adults affected by irritable bowel syndrome undergoing three different therapeutical regimens: clinical examination and simple observation, placebo [...]
-
The American College of Physicians has recently published some practical guidelines in order to improve palliative care in terminal patients presenting pain, dyspnea and depression. After making a systematic review of literature (33 high-quality reviews and 89 trials), the final document issued by [...]
-
The action of topiramate consists in the stimulation of alpha-aminobutyrate and in the inhibition of those of glutamate; since both these receptors are an active part of alcohol dependence, a trial has been performed showing the efficacy of topiramate in alcohol dependence. Now, a new trial, [...]
-
From some trials it results that the restless legs syndrome (RLS) affects about 5-10% of adults and that there is a genetic predisposition in some population. We do not know much instead on the prevalence of this syndrome in infancy: in 1993 the NIH established the diagnostic criteria for RLS in [...]