Clinical Evidence and Potential Mechanisms of Complementary Treatment of Ling Gui Zhu Gan Formula for the Management of Serum Lipids and Obesity

Table 4

Grade evidence quality evaluation of included studies.

Outcomes	No. of participants (studies)	Relative effect  (95% CI)	Factors that may decrease certainty of evidence					Quality of the evidence  (GRADE)
			Risk of bias	Indirectness	Inconsistency	Imprecision	Publication bias
Effective rate	1169 (13 studies)	1.24 [1.17, 1.32]	Serious^a	No serious	Not serious	No serious	Serious^d	⨁⨁◯◯
								Low
TG	1716 (19 studies)	−0.40 [−0.64, −0.16]	Not serious	Serious^b	Not serious	No serious	None	⨁⨁⨁◯
								Moderate
TC	1716 (19 studies)	−0.68 [−1.11, −0.25]	Not serious	Serious^b	Not serious	Not serious	None	⨁⨁⨁◯
								Moderate
LDL-c	1135 (13 studies)	−0.31 [−0.49, −0.13]	Serious^a	Serious^b	Not serious	Not serious	None	⨁⨁◯◯
								Low
HDL-c	1260 (14 studies)	0.12 [0.06, 0.19]	Serious^a	Serious^b	Not serious	Not serious	None	⨁⨁◯◯
								Low
BMI	764 (9 studies)	−1.76 [−2.59, −0.94]	Serious^a	Serious^b	Not serious	Serious^c	None	⨁◯◯◯
								Very low
BW	285 (4 studies)	−2.12 [−3.95, −0.28]	Serious^a	Not serious	Not serious	Serious^c	None	⨁⨁◯◯
								Low
WC	233 (3 studies)	−2.64 [−5.50, 0.22]	Serious^a	Serious^b	Not serious	Serious^c	None	⨁◯◯◯
								Very low

^aThis outcome was not reported in all studies; ^bI² > 50%; ^cwide range of 95% confidence interval; ^dp<0.001 in Begg's regression analyses.