Physical activity and tobacco smoking in the German adult population.

Background: Physical inactivity and tobacco smoking remain the leading causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide. In Germany, smoking prevalence is high at around 30%, and only 45% achieve the WHO recommendation for physical activity (PA). Understanding how smoking and physical inactivity co-occur can inform interventions targeting these behaviours.

Smokers' perception of the comparative health risks of cigarettes, e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products: a survey among the German population.

Background: Tobacco cigarettes, e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products can pose different health risks (harm continuum). As current tobacco smokers could benefit from switching to less harmful products, we aimed to assess current smokers' perceived comparative health risks of these three products and to explore associations between risk perceptions and specific user characteristics.

Methods: We analysed data from 11 waves (2019-2021; N = 5657 current tobacco smokers) of a representative, cross-sectional household survey conducted in Germany.

Cannabis Use in Germany.

Background: The federal government of Germany is planning to liberalize the recreational cannabis market for adults. We aimed to collect key baseline data on frequency of use, routes of administration, and co-use of cannabis and inhaled nicotine or tobacco products in the population.

Methods: Based on data from a national survey of 9644 people aged >14 years, we analyzed self-reported use of cannabis in the past 12 months and preferred route of administration (single choice: smoked with tobacco; smoked without tobacco; inhaled without tobacco; consumed with food; consumed in another form).

Are people interested in receiving advice from their general practitioner on how to protect their health during heatwaves? A survey of the German population.

Objective: Climate change increases the frequency, intensity and length of heatwaves, which puts a particular strain on the health of vulnerable population groups. General practitioners (GPs) could reach these people and provide advice on protective health behaviour against heat. Data is lacking on whether and what topic of GP advice people are interested in, and whether specific person characteristics are associated with such interests.

Effectiveness of a complex regional advance care planning intervention to improve care consistency with care preferences: study protocol for a multi-center, cluster-randomized controlled trial focusing on nursing home residents (BEVOR trial).

Background: According to recent legislation, facilitated advance care planning (ACP) for nursing home (NH) residents is covered by German sickness funds. However, the effects of ACP on patient-relevant outcomes have not been studied in Germany yet. This study investigates whether implementing a complex regional ACP intervention improves care consistency with care preferences in NH residents.

Training general practitioners in the ABC 5As method of delivering stop-smoking advice: a pragmatic, two-arm cluster randomised controlled trial.

This study assessed the effectiveness of a 3.5-h training session for general practitioners (GPs) in providing brief stop-smoking advice and compared two methods of giving advice - ABC 5As - on the rates of delivery of such advice and of recommendations of evidence-based smoking cessation treatment during routine consultations. A pragmatic, two-arm cluster randomised controlled trial was carried out including a pre-/post-design for the analyses of the primary outcome in 52 GP practices in Germany.

Quit attempts and tobacco abstinence in primary care patients: follow-up of a pragmatic, two-arm cluster randomised controlled trial on brief stop-smoking advice - ABC 5As.

We developed a 3.5-h training for general practitioners (GPs) in delivering brief stop-smoking advice according to different methods (ABC, 5As). In a pragmatic, cluster randomised controlled trial our training proved effective in increasing GP-delivered rates of such advice (from 13% to 33%).

The Placebo and Nocebo Responses in Clinical Trials in Inflammatory Bowel Diseases.

Placebo and nocebo responses are mostly discussed in clinical trials with functional bowel disorders. Much less has been investigated and is known in gastrointestinal diseases beyond irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), especially in inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD). For the purpose of this review, we screened the Journal of Interdisciplinary Placebo Studies (JIPS) database with approximately 4,500 genuine placebo research articles and identified nine meta-analyses covering more than 135 randomized and placebo-controlled trials (RCTs) with more than 10,000 patients with Crohn´s disease (CD) and another five meta-analyses with 150 RCTs and more than 10,000 patients with ulcerative colitis (UC).

Placebo Responses and Placebo Effects in Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders.

Much has been written about the placebo effects in functional gastrointestinal disorders (FGD), especially in irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), driven by the early hypothesis that in randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of IBS, the placebo effect might be specifically high and thus, corrupts the efficacy of novel drugs developed for this condition. This narrative review is based on a specific search method, a database (www.jips.

Waterpipe Use among Adolescents in Germany: Prevalence, Associated Consumer Characteristics, and Trends (German Health Interview and Examination Survey for Children and Adolescents, KiGGS).

Waterpipe (WP) use is popular among youth worldwide, but epidemiological data from Germany are scarce. We aimed to describe prevalence rates of WP use (current, last 12 months, ever) and analysed correlates and trends among 11- to 17-year-olds in Germany. Analyses were based on data from the "German Health Interview and Examination Survey for Children and Adolescents" study during 2014-2017 ( = 6599).

Waterpipe use and associated consumer characteristics in the German population: Data from a national representative survey (DEBRA study).

Background: Waterpipes (WP) have a long tradition in certain regions of the world, and their use has been increasing worldwide. Current data on the use of WP in different subgroups of the German population are missing.

Objective: To estimate the current prevalence of WP use and associated socio-demographic characteristics, tobacco smoking status and e-cigarette usage behaviour in the German population aged ≥14 years; to describe the frequency of use and starting age in current WP users.

Placebos and the Placebo Effect in Drug Trials.

In this review, we explored different ways of controlling the placebo effects in clinical trials and described various factors that may increase/decrease the placebo effect in randomized placebo-controlled trials. These factors can be subdivided into four groups, and while not all factors are effective in every study and under all clinical conditions, they show on the whole that - even under the ideal condition of drug therapy, where blinded placebo provision is much easier and warranted than in, e.g.

Does Sex/Gender Play a Role in Placebo and Nocebo Effects? Conflicting Evidence From Clinical Trials and Experimental Studies.

Sex has been speculated to be a predictor of the placebo and nocebo effect for many years, but whether this holds true or not has rarely been investigated. We utilized a placebo literature database on various aspects of the genuine placebo/nocebo response. In 2015, we had extracted 75 systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and meta-regressions performed in major medical areas (neurology, psychiatry, internal medicine).

Different Disclosed Probabilities to Receive an Antiemetic Equally Decrease Subjective Symptoms in an Experimental Placebo Study: To Be or Not to Be Sure.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine whether the disclosed probability of receiving an antiemetic affects nausea.

Methods: Forty-eight healthy participants (mean [SD] age, 26.8 [5.

Unsolved, Forgotten, and Ignored Features of the Placebo Response in Medicine.

Purpose: We aimed to identify topics of research that have been neglected, undervalued, or overseen in the past 2 decades of placebo/nocebo research.

Methods: A highly specialized literature database containing >3200 articles on the placebo or nocebo effects or response was screened for articles covering placebo effects in nutrition, sports medicine, physical therapy, and psychotherapy; for article covering gender, age, and culture as influencing factors; for articles dealing with long-term outcome, multimodality; and for articles related to technical (eHealth, mHealth) aspects of placebo effects.

Findings: Although placebo research has gained substantial progress over the past 2 decades, it has not resolved all its puzzles, it has ignored some obvious and some less obvious facets of the placebo topic, and it has overlooked that during these years, medicine has further developed and progressed, as has the doctor-patient relationship and the social environment in which this communication happens.

Overshadowing and latent inhibition in nausea-based context conditioning in humans: Theoretical and practical implications.

Volunteer participants underwent nausea-inducing body rotation in a distinctive context, and the acquired ability of the contextual cues to evoke nausea was subsequently assessed by a symptom rating scale. One group received prior exposure to the context (a latent inhibition procedure); a second consumed a novel flavour prior to rotation (an overshadowing procedure); a third group experienced both procedures; and a control group received neither. When tested in the context in the absence of rotation, all groups reported an increase in nausea-related symptoms at the time when rotation had previously occurred, an outcome consistent with the occurrence of conditioned nausea.

Are all placebo respondents non-smokers?

Background: In smoking cessation trials, placebo response rates are reported to be rather low, and they are lowest when compared to the placebo response rates of treatment of other addictions. We hypothesized that high placebo response rates in trials outside of cessation treatment may predict low participation of smokers, and that non-smoking may be a behavioral marker of the placebo response.

Methods: We re-analyzed raw data from a randomized controlled drug trial in functional dyspepsia (n=315) for the number of smokers and non-smokers in both treatment arms (drug, placebo) and varied the responder definition in a sensitivity analysis.

Effects of overshadowing on conditioned and unconditioned nausea in a rotation paradigm with humans.

We examine whether overshadowing by salient stimuli is effective in reducing the ability of a certain environment (the putative conditioned stimulus) to evoke conditioned nausea in healthy humans that experience nausea-evoking rotation (as the unconditioned stimulus, US) in that environment. Twenty-four rotation-susceptible subjects (12 males, 12 females) were randomly assigned to receive either overshadowing by salient tasting beverages (OS+), or a control treatment (a familiar beverage, water; OS-) prior to rotation on three consecutive days (acquisition). To control for taste experiences, the alternative beverage was consumed 12 h later in the home environment (OS+: water, OS-: salient beverage).

Chocolate and the brain: neurobiological impact of cocoa flavanols on cognition and behavior.

Cocoa products and chocolate have recently been recognized as a rich source of flavonoids, mainly flavanols, potent antioxidant and anti-inflammatory agents with established benefits for cardiovascular health but largely unproven effects on neurocognition and behavior. In this review, we focus on neuromodulatory and neuroprotective actions of cocoa flavanols in humans. The absorbed flavonoids penetrate and accumulate in the brain regions involved in learning and memory, especially the hippocampus.

[The improvement of the transfer into daily life of progressive relaxation after an inpatient psychosomatic rehabilitation].

Aim Of The Study: The aim of the current study was the identification of predictors for a successful transfer of progressive relaxation (PR) into clinical and daily life. Furthermore the development of tension-related symptoms dependening of the frequency of continuous practise was detected.

Methods: 411 patients of a psychosomatic rehabilitation clinic attended a 6-h-course of progressive relaxation and were interviewed at 3 different times by a modified version of the "diagnostisches und evaluatives Instrumentarium für Entspannungstraining und Entspannungstherapie (ET-EVA)": at the beginning of therapy (T1), at discharge (T2) and 3 months after discharge by postal service (T3).

Reduction of motion sickness with an enhanced placebo instruction: an experimental study with healthy participants.

Objective: Expectancy and conditioning are underlying mechanisms of placebo and nocebo responses. In previous studies with motion sickness, we could induce nocebo responses by both methods, but no placebo responses.

Methods: In Experiment 1, 64 volunteers (50% women, mean age = 23.

Nicotine stimulus expectancy differentially affects reaction time in healthy nonsmokers and smokers depending on sex: a pilot study.

Effects of nicotine on neurocognitive performance have been shown but are influenced by nonpharmacological expectancies in smokers, whereas there is little knowledge about expectancy effects in nonsmokers. A half balanced placebo design provides no drug but only placebo and tests the effects of expectations elicited by the information that nicotine was given. Sixty-four healthy participants balanced for smoking status and sex were told that a chewing gum may contain either nicotine or is a placebo in a double-blinded and randomized fashion.