Traditional Chinese medicine for post-COVID: A retrospective cohort study, 2025, Kraft et al

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Traditional Chinese medicine for post-COVID: A retrospective cohort study

Kraft, Jana MSc; Hardy, Anne PhD; Baustädter, Verena MD; Bögel-Witt, Martina PhD; Krassnig, Katharina MD; Ziegler, Birgitb; Waibl, Paula J. BSa; Meissner, Karin MD, PhD

Abstract
Post-COVID syndrome affects at least 10% of individuals recovering from COVID-19. Currently, there is no causal treatment. This retrospective cohort study aimed to evaluate the potential of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) in treating post-COVID symptoms.

TCM physicians in Germany and Austria completed online questionnaires to retrospectively record symptoms, treatment approaches, and outcomes for patients diagnosed with post-COVID. Nine physicians collected data from 79 patients (65% female, 47 ± 16 SD).

The most common TCM treatments for post-COVID were acupuncture (n = 66; 85%), Chinese pharmacological therapy (n = 61; 77%), and Chinese dietary counseling (n = 32; 41%). After an average of 7 ± 4 TCM consultations, physicians rated global symptom improvement as 62% ± 29%. Significant alleviation from the start of TCM treatment was observed in major symptoms, such as fatigue (P < .001), impaired physical performance (P < .001), and exertional dyspnea (P < .001).

TCM treatment was associated with significant improvements in post-COVID symptoms, warranting further evaluation through randomized controlled studies.

link (Medicine)
https://doi.org/10.1097/MD.0000000000042275
 
The study was done and paid for by TCM organisations and practitioners.

The recruited physicians through their network. Only 11 out of 575 contacted physicians participated.

There is no mention of consent given by the patients to have their data included in the study.

In conclusion, the present study results suggest that TCM treatments focusing on acupuncture and Chinese pharmacotherapy could be helpful for a wide range of post-COVID symptoms, including mental, neurological, cardiovascular, and musculoskeletal conditions. However, the findings must be considered within the context of methodological limitations, such as the absence of a controlled study design and the possibility of recall and nonresponse biases. Further research, especially well-designed randomized controlled trials with large patient samples, is warranted to further evaluate the potential value of TCM approaches in the treatment of post-COVID symptoms.
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Acknowledging the limitations, but completely ignoring them when they say that TCM could help.
 
Its combining three different interventions, acupuncture, "chinese phamacological therapy" and dietary counselling. While the first might be a well defined intervention the other two are vast areas involving many different drugs and techniques. We have no idea what these people did to the patients.

Practitioners themselves not the patients reported benefits, which is about as biased as your going to get. Its not the usual trick where researchers write down the responses and interpret them its much much worse.

Despite their claim no one should be doing a random control trial of this design at all.
 
How biopsychosocial. It even features the new normal of "here's a bunch of random stuff we put together".

The future of medicine, folks. It used to be folk medicine, but now it's just all a mixed blur. Shaken, and distilled as needed. And at worst, they can simply add "Mindful" before anything and it's basically the same. Mindful acupuncture? Well, that's just your typical mind-body therapy stuff!

I really hope we see more of this. The standard "Imagine a world"-based medicine can be applied to literally anything and make the same boasts. They have to see the monster they have created.
 
They're going to have to up their statistics game, though. The data are not nearly massaged enough with the right packaging, getting the right language to pass review. Not that it makes any difference, but it's one distinction that will sink them in reviews. Everything else is basically the same, though, so clearly they haven't really noticed just how easy it is to abuse this system to make their quackery look exactly like officially promoted quackery.
 
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