A recent publication in the BMJ indicates that surgery and immobilisation have similar outcomes on Achilles tendon tears. The review examined 29 studies with a total of 15,862 patients. The authors report that risk of re-rupture following surgery was 2.3%, whereas risk of re-rupture following immobilisation with specialised boot or cast was only slightly higher at 3.9%. Read more

That’s the message from a systematic review of 11 trials with 455 adult participants. Although these numbers are small, it’s an encouraging addition to the evidence-base, which has shown conflicting results. The reviewers focused on examining the methodologies of the trials they reviewed in order to reduce confounding effects and misleading results. Read more

Fifty-eight women aged between 63 and 75 years were randomly grouped into control and intervention groups each of 29 participants. The intervention group engaged in 8 weeks of walking meditation for 30 minutes per day, 3 days per week. This consisted of mindfully drawing attention to leg and foot movements while walking slowly in a peaceful environment. Read more

This piece by Deborah Smith takes a broad overview of the past, present and future of osteopathic practice. She explores current issues in the field, including the gradual erosion of “postural and structural diagnostic explanations”, the complexity of pain, and the “biopsychosocial” model. Read more

The authors of this systematic review identified 5 papers for their narrative synthesis. They report that maternal chocolate and coffee might be associated with increased infant colic and atopic dermatitis, although it remains unknown whether caffeine is a causative agent. They note that the quality of the studies reviewed was variable, and that evidence for any recommendations therefore remains scant and and inconclusive. Read more

This small study of 32 patients explored the effect of diaphragmatic stretching on some measures of asthmatic function, including respiratory pressures, rib-cage excursion, and spinal mobility. The authors found an increase in maximum inspiratory pressure 5 minutes after treatment, and increased flexibility and mobility of the rib-cage 20 minutes after treatment. Read more

The authors of this paper aimed to investigate the contention that consumption of whole-fat dairy products adversely affects blood lipids, and hence increases risk of cardiovascular disease and mortality. Their study enrolled 136,384 individuals aged 35–70 years from 21 countries in five continents. Read more

PAIN Journal recently published an article that addresses the accusation that “a substantial amount” of scientific publications are biased, distorted, and non-reproducible. This article examines examples from pain science and related research to explore issues of non-replicability, and gives an overview of potential solutions. Read more