Acupuncture for the treatment of urinary incontinence: A review of randomized controlled trials.

The aim of this study was to examine the effects of acupuncture on urinary incontinence and to discuss why these acupoints were selected. Seven databases were searched for any randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that investigated the use of acupuncture or acupressure as a treatment for urinary incontinence, and the Cochrane risk of bias tool was utilized to evaluate the risk of bias in each study. Four RCTs met all the inclusion criteria.

Association between subclinical hypothyroidism and Sasang constitution in a Korean population.

Serum thyroid-stimulating hormone screening of asymptomatic individuals to diagnose subclinical hypothyroidism remains controversial. We evaluated the potential role of Sasang constitutional discrimination and ryodoraku testing as an alternative and complementary diagnostic tool for subclinical hypothyroidism. Among 1,105 potential subjects, 1,073 were included in this study.

Impact of the -675 4G/5G polymorphism of the plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 gene on childhood IgA nephropathy.

Plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1) is an important regulator of the fibrinolytic pathway and extracellular matrix (ECM) turnover. The -675 4G/5G polymorphism in the PAI-1 promoter is associated with altered PAI-1 transcription, suggesting that this polymorphism may be a candidate risk factor for diseases characterized by ECM accumulation, such as immunoglobulin A nephropathy (IgAN) and mesangial proliferative glomerulonephritis (MesPGN). We genotyped childhood patients with biopsy-confirmed IgAN (n=111) and MesPGN (n=47), and healthy control subjects (n=230) for the -675 4G/5G PAI-1 polymorphism by polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism methods.