OBJECTIVE: To investigate the clinical efficacy of moxibustion (Mox) combined with low-dose tadalafil (TAD) in the treatment of diabetes mellitus-induced erectile dysfunction (DMED) with the syndrome of Qi deficiency and blood stasis. METHODS: According to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, we selected 90 patients with DMED for this trial and equally randomized them into a Mox, a TAD, and a Mox combined with TAD (Mox+TAD) group to be treated by mild Mox applied to the acupoints Zusanli, Sanyinjiao and Yinlingquan qd alt, oral medication with low-dose TAD at 5 mg per dose qd, and combination of the above two therapies, respectively, all for 4 weeks. We obtained from the patients their IIEF-5 scores, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) symptoms scores, Erectile Hardness Scale (EHS) scores, corpus cavernosal hemodynamic indexes, and the peak systolic velocity (PSV), end diastolic velocity (EDV) and resistance index (RI) of the corpus cavernosal arteries before and after treatment, and compared them among the three groups. RESULTS: The total effectiveness rate was significantly higher in the Mox+TAD (90.0%) than in the Mox (46.7%) and TAD groups (60.0%) (P< 0.05). Compared with the baseline, the IIEF-5 and EHS scores were increased, while the TCM symptoms scores decreased in all the three groups after treatment, more significantly in the Mox+TAD group than in the other two (P< 0.05). And the PSV and RI were remarkably increased, while the EDV decreased (P< 0.05) in all the three groups (P< 0.05) after treatment, with PSV even higher in the Mox+TAD than in the Mox and TAD groups (P< 0.05). CONCLUSION Moxibustion combined with tadalafil has a definite efficacy and safety for the treatment of DMED, which can effectively improve the erectile function of the patients by increasing penile blood supply, benefiting qi and activating blood circulation.
Humans ; Male ; Tadalafil ; Erectile Dysfunction/etiology* ; Moxibustion ; Middle Aged ; Prospective Studies ; Adult ; Carbolines/administration & dosage* ; Diabetes Complications/therapy* ; Aged ; Treatment Outcome ; Combined Modality Therapy

Heat-sensitive moxibustion is the appropriate technique of the external treatment in traditional Chinese medicine and it is widely used in community because of its "easy learning, simple operation and clear curative effect". Pragmatic randomized controlled trial is a main intervention design in the real world study, which provides a high-level evidence for the effectiveness assessment of heat-sensitive moxibustion in community management. Focusing on the key links of randomization, e.g. block randomization, stratified randomization, cluster randomization, sample size allocation, allocation concealment and blinding, the paper elaborates the advantages, disadvantages and technical details of two-stage randomization with consideration of patient preference in pragmatic randomized controlled trials of heat-sensitive moxibustion in community. It facilitates improving the quality of evidence, reproducibility and methodological homogeneity among different trials.
Hot Temperature ; Humans ; Moxibustion ; Patient Preference ; Random Allocation ; Reproducibility of Results

Based on the community research experience of heat-sensitive moxibustion, this study explained technical recommendations for pragmatic randomized controlled trials (pRCTs) of heat-sensitive moxibustion in community from 7 aspects: selection of community research sites, ethical approval and registration, patient recruitment, training of standard operating procedures, ensuring patient compliance, quality control of follow-up visits and patient safety, which aimed to reduce the difficulty of research execution and improve the quality of pRCTs implementation and follow-up visits of heat-sensitive moxibustion.
Follow-Up Studies ; Hot Temperature ; Humans ; Moxibustion/methods* ; Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic

Aim To investigate the role of Nampt in regulating ERK1/2 in cardiac hypertrophy and its mechanisms. Methods The primary neonatal rat cardiomyocytes were stimulated by phenylephrine (PE) (100 μmol · L

Objective:To investigate the effects of naringenin on oxidative stress and Tau protein phosphorylation of adrenal pheochromocytoma（PC12） cells injured by β-amyloid（Aβ）_25-35 and its relationship with estrogen receptor（ER） and phosphatidylinositol -3 kinase/protein kinase B（PI3K/Akt） signaling pathway. Method:The PC12 cells were intervened with Aβ_25-35 to prepare the injury model. The experiment was divided into blank group， model group， naringenin（400，40，4，0.4，0.04，4×10^-3，4×10^-4，4×10^-5 μmol·L^-1）group， positive drugs estradiol（E₂）（1 nmol·L^-1）+Aβ_25-35 group， naringenin（0.4，0.04，4×10^-3，4×10^-4，4×10^-5 μmol·L^-1）+Aβ_25-35 group， E₂+Aβ_25-35+ER antagonist（ICI182780）（1 μmol·L^-1） group， naringenin+Aβ_25-35+ICI182780 group， E₂+Aβ_25-35+PI3K blocker（LY294002）（50 μmol·L^-1） group， naringenin+Aβ_25-35+LY294002 group. Methye thiazolye telrazlium（MTT）method was used to detect the cell proliferation index， 2'，7'-Dichlorodi -hydrofluorescein diacetate（DCFH-DA） was used as a fluorescent probe to detect the content of reactive osygen species（ROS）， the content of malondialdehyde（MDA） and the activity of superoxide dismutase（SOD） were measured by thiobarbituric acid（TBA） and oxidase methods， Western blot was used to detect the expression of phosphorylated Tau protein/total Tau protein（p-Tau/t-Tau）. Result:According to the results of MTT experiment， 0.4 μmol·L^-1 was selected as the best effective concentration of naringenin， compared with the blank group， the cell proliferation index of model group decreased significantly （P<0.01）， compared with model group， the cell proliferation index of naringenin+Aβ_25-35 group increased significantly （P<0.01）. In addition， compared with blank group， the content of ROS， MDA and the expression of p-Tau/t-Tau in the model group increased significantly （P<0.01）， and the activity of SOD decreased significantly （P<0.01）， compared with model group， the content of ROS， MDA and the expression of p-Tau/t-Tau in naringenin+Aβ_25-35 group decreased significantly （P<0.01）， and the activity of SOD increased significantly （P<0.01）， compared with naringenin+Aβ_25-35 group， the addition of ICI182780 and LY294002 significantly reversed the role of naringenin in the above indicators （P<0.01）. The effect of naringenin was similar to that of E₂. Conclusion:Naringenin can improve the cell proliferation index and protect PC12 cells from Aβ_25-35 injury， which may be achieved by activating ER and PI3K/Akt signaling pathway to reduce ROS， MDA content， p-Tau/t-Tau expression and promote SOD activity.