Research Complementary/Alternative Medicine

It’s still not always clear if real acupuncture is better than sham acupuncture, because the largest study of 1007 patients found no difference while a smaller but still quite large study of 570 did. One study of 132 patients found that sham acupuncture was initially the same and then worse, so perhaps the followup wasn't long enough.

Diet:
- Diet decreases perioperative infections (206 patients)
http://archsurg.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=390270
- Weight loss diet decreases inflammation (316 patients)
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/79/4/544.short
- Mediterranean diet decreases inflammation (180 patients)
http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=199488
- Pre-/postoperative diet therapy (“improved outcome”) (randomised controlled trial, 305 patients)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016508502000094
- Review: diet decreases inflammation:
http://ncp.sagepub.com/content/25/6/634.short

Physiotherapy:
- Craniosacral better than placebo for fibromyalgia (92 patients)
http://cre.sagepub.com/content/25/1/25.short
- Preoperative exercise therapy reduces postoperative pain (12 trials)
http://cre.sagepub.com/content/25/2/99.short
- Exercise therapy reduces chronic back pain (43 randomised controlled trials)
http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=718376
- Pre-/postoperative exercise therapy for prostate cancer surgery (various symptoms reduced) (25 randomised controlled trials)
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00520-011-1271-0#/page-1

Acupuncture:
- Acupuncture better than sham acupuncture for neck pain (123 patients)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304395906003605
- Acupuncture better than sham acupuncture for chronic back pain, initially same (132 patients)
http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S0192415X00000052
- Acupuncture better than sham acupuncture for osteoarthritis (570 patients)
http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=718021
- Acupuncture better than sham acupuncture for postoperative pain (39 patients)
http://archotol.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=509422
- Acupuncture better than sham acupuncture as adjunct for osteoarthritis (97 patients) http://www.bmj.com/content/329/7476/1216?ecoll=
- Pre-/postoperative acupuncture better than sham acupuncture for pain (15 randomised controlled trials)
http://bja.oxfordjournals.org/content/101/2/151.short
- Real acupuncture and sham acupuncture both better than conservative therapy for osteoarthritis (1007 patients):
http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=724996

Traditional Chinese herbs:
- Postoperative Chinese herbs better than saline for gastric surgery (60 patients)
http://en.cnki.com.cn/Article_en/CJFDTOTAL-AHZY200601003.htm
- Chinese herbs better than placebo improved immunity during cancer treatment with chemo-/radiotherapy (105 patients)
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ptr.2623/abstract
- Chinese herbs better than placebo for hepatocellular cancers (45 randomised controlled trials)
http://jeccr.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1756-9966-28-112
- Chinese herbs better than placebo for postoperative constipation (136 patients)
http://en.cnki.com.cn/Article_en/CJFDTOTAL-NFHL200510019.htm

Cupping:
- Cupping better than usual care for neck pain (98 patients)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0965229908000630
- Cupping better than usual care for pain (7 randomised controlled trials)
http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ecam/2011/467014/abs/