ArticleNeuropsychiatric disease and treatment2024
Therapeutic Potential of Combined Herbal Medicine and Electroacupuncture in Mild Cognitive Impairment Through Cytokine Modulation: An Observational Study.
Article in Neuropsychiatric disease and treatment, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
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3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Effects ofFrontiers in nutrition · 2026Trial
- IL-4 in Alzheimer's Disease-Mechanisms and Therapeutic Potential.Molecular neurobiology · 2026Review
- Herbal medicine and acupuncture for mild cognitive impairment: a retrospective study of 2,242 for older adults in Republic of Korea.Frontiers in neurology · 2025Article
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9 authors.
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Abstract
Purpose: We aimed to investigate the efficacy of a combined herbal formula and electroacupuncture (EA) for mild cognitive impairment (MCI), a neurodegenerative disease leading to dementia, and its underlying mechanisms of action. Patients and Methods: This was a prospective open-label observational pilot study at Daejeon Korean Medicine Hospital of Daejeon University in South Korea from March 2022 to March 2023. We included six Korean patients (50% male) aged ≥ 45 years and < 85 years with MCI, a clinical dementia rating score of 0.5, and a Montreal Cognitive Assessment-Korea (MoCA-K) score ≤ 22. The exclusion criterion was impaired cognitive function. Patients received combined therapy, including a herbal formula and EA, for 12-24 weeks. We prescribed the herbal formulas Gamiguibi-tang, Yukmijihwang-tang, and Banhasasim-tang to the patients for at least 70% of the treatment period, in combination with EA. Moreover, we investigated changes in cognitive and cognition-related symptoms and cytokine expression in the blood following combined traditional medicine therapy. At baseline and after 12 and 24 weeks, we administered the MoCA-K and cognitive-related questionnaires. We analyzed network pharmacology to reflect the herbal formula intervention mechanism comprehensively. Results: The median score [interquartile range] of MoCA-K at baseline was 19.5 [16.0, 22.0], which improved significantly (24.5 [24.0, 26.0], Conclusion: Combined herbal medicine and EA improved cognitive function in patients with MCI. We assume the underlying mechanism of herbal formulas to be antioxidative and anti-inflammatory changes in cytokine expression. Combined traditional medicine has potential therapeutic application in preventing MCI progression to dementia.
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