Individual differences in personality predict the use and perceived effectiveness of essential oils

Effects of Ethnic Medicinal Plant Extracts Versus Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs on Menstrual Pain in Women With Primary Dysmenorrhea: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Study

BACKGROUND

This study aimed to compare the pain reduction effects of ethnic medicinal plant extracts and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) in women with primary dysmenorrhea.

METHODS

The following databases were searched: CNKI, Wanfang Data Knowledge Service Platform (Wanfang), VIP Chinese Journal Service Platform (VIP), SinoMed, PubMed, and Web of Science. The retrieval period was from the time of database construction to December 2023.Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that compared the treatment of pain in women with primary dysmenorrhea using NSAIDs in the control group and plant extracts in the intervention group were identified. The literature was independently screened by two researchers, and the quality of the literature were evaluated using Cochrane's RCT Risk Assessment Manual for Bias. The evaluation includes several aspects including random sequence generation, assignment hiding, blind method and result data reporting. Meta-analysis was conducted using RevMan 5.4 software.

RESULTS

A total of 12 literature were included. Meta-analysis showed that there was no significant difference between ethnic medicinal plant extracts and NSAIDs in reducing the Visual Analog Scale (VAS) pain scores for primary dysmenorrhea (SMD = 0.32, 95% CI (-0.14, 0.78), p = .17). However, ethnic medicinal plant extracts were more effective than NSAIDs in reducing the proportion of people with pain, with a slight difference (OR = 1.75, 95% CI (1.02, 3.02), p < .05).

CONCLUSION

Ethnic medicinal plant extracts can effectively reduce the VAS pain scores in women with primary dysmenorrhea and the proportion of people with pain. The effect is comparable to or even better than that of NSAIDs, with fewer side effects. Therefore, ethnic medicinal plant extracts can be considered as a clinical option to alleviate menstrual pain.

Bullshit can be harmful to your health: Bullibility as a precursor to poor decision--making

Bullshitting is characterized by sharing information with little to no regard for truth, established knowledge, or genuine evidence. It involves the use of various rhetorical strategies to make one's statements sound knowledgeable, impressive, persuasive, influential, or confusing in order to aid bullshitters in explaining things in areas where their obligations to provide opinions exceed their actual knowledge in those domains. Distinct from gullibility (i.e., a propensity to accept a false premise in the presence of untrustworthiness cues), we highlight the research on bullibility (i.e., believing bullshit even in the face of social cues that signal something is bullshit) and its links to erroneous judgments and decisions. A deeper understanding of bullibility is critical to identifying and correcting poor decision-making.

Health literacy in dietary supplement use among working-age groups: systematic review and meta-analysis

Background

Globally, dietary supplement use (DSU) is very popular against COVID19. This study aims to investigate the characteristics of research on health literacy (HL) in DSU and compare HL among working-age groups by reviewing related research between 2011 and 2021 in PubMed, SCOPUS, ClinicalKey, Google Scholar and ThaiJO.

Methods

Twenty-five articles that met the inclusion criteria were selected for study and analyzed using Cohen's d.

Results

The results showed that HL affected dietary supplement (DS) consumption behavior among working-age groups with an average effect size of 0.423 (95% CI = 0.249-0.598), followed by disclosure of DSU with an average effect size of 0.220 (95% CI = 0.087-0.353). No effect was found on awareness of dietary supplement advertisements.

Conclusion

The discovery of such knowledge is a significant contribution to public health, leading to the development of interventions and policies for enhancing HL in DSU e.g. organizing knowledge-sharing workshops on DSU and building support networks across all sectors.

Relaxing and stimulating effects of odors on time perception and their modulation by expectancy

Although several studies have reported relaxing and stimulating effects of odors on physiology and behavior, little is known about their underlying mechanisms. It has been proposed that participant expectancy could explain these activation effects. Since emotional stimuli are known to modulate time perception, here we used the temporal bisection task to determine whether odors have objective relaxing and stimulating effects by respectively slowing down or speeding up the internal clock and whether prior expectancy could alter these effects. In Experiment 1, 118 participants were presented either with a strawberry odor or an odorless blank. In Experiment 2, 132 participants were presented either with a lemon odor or an odorless blank. In both experiments, expectancy was manipulated using suggestion (verbal instructions). The stimulus was either described as relaxing or stimulating, or was not described. In the absence of prior suggestion, findings showed that, compared to participants presented with an odorless blank, participants presented with the strawberry odor underestimated sound durations (i.e., a relaxing effect) whereas participants presented with the lemon odor overestimated them (i.e., a stimulating effect). These results confirm that pleasant odors can have objective relaxing and stimulating effects by themselves, which are better explained by arousal-based mechanisms rather than attentional distraction. Furthermore, in both experiments, incongruent suggestions undid the effects of both odors without reversing them completely (i.e., strawberry did not become stimulating even if participants were told so). Both these bottom-up and top-down influences should be considered when investigating the emotional impact of odors on human behavior.

“Quick and dirty”: Intuitive cognitive style predicts trust in Didier Raoult and his hydroxychloroquine-based treatment against COVID-19

In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, French public opinion has been divided about Pr. Didier Raoult and his hydroxychloroquine-based treatment against COVID-19. In this paper, our aim is to contribute to the understanding of this polarization of public opinion by investigating the relationship between (analytic vs. intuitive) cognitive style and trust in Didier Raoult and his treatment. Through three studies (total N after exclusion = 950), we found that a more intuitive cognitive style predicted higher trust in Didier Raoult and his treatment. Moreover, we found that Trust in Raoult was positively associated with belief that truth is political, belief in conspiracy theories, belief in pseudo-medicines and pseudo-medical and conspiratorial beliefs regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. We also found a negative association with knowledge of scientific methods and regard for scientific method over personal experience. However, higher trust in Didier Raoult was not associated with self-reported compliance with official regulations concerning the COVID-19 pandemic.