About the Authors

Shufei Fu

Affiliation Institute of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Evidence-Based Medicine Center and Tianjin State Key Laboratory of Modern Chinese Medicine, Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Tianjin, China

Junhua Zhang

Affiliation Institute of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Evidence-Based Medicine Center and Tianjin State Key Laboratory of Modern Chinese Medicine, Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Tianjin, China

Francesca Menniti-Ippolito

gaoxiumei@tjutcm.edu.cn (XG); francesca.menniti@iss.it (FMI)

Affiliation National Centre of Epidemiology, Surveillance and Health Promotion, National Institute of Health, Rome, Italy

Xiumei Gao

gaoxiumei@tjutcm.edu.cn (XG); francesca.menniti@iss.it (FMI)

Affiliation Institute of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Evidence-Based Medicine Center and Tianjin State Key Laboratory of Modern Chinese Medicine, Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Tianjin, China

Francesca Galeotti

Affiliation National Centre of Epidemiology, Surveillance and Health Promotion, National Institute of Health, Rome, Italy

Marco Massari

Affiliation National Centre of Epidemiology, Surveillance and Health Promotion, National Institute of Health, Rome, Italy

Limin Hu

Affiliation Institute of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Evidence-Based Medicine Center and Tianjin State Key Laboratory of Modern Chinese Medicine, Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Tianjin, China

Boli Zhang

Affiliation External Relations Office, National Institute of Health, Rome, Italy

Rita Ferrelli

Affiliation External Relations Office, National Institute of Health, Rome, Italy

Alice Fauci

Affiliation External Relations Office, National Institute of Health, Rome, Italy

Fabio Firenzuoli

Affiliation Centre for Natural Medicine, San Giuseppe Hospital, Empoli, Italy

Hongcai Shang

Affiliation Institute of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Evidence-Based Medicine Center and Tianjin State Key Laboratory of Modern Chinese Medicine, Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Tianjin, China

Ranieri Guerra

Affiliation External Relations Office, National Institute of Health, Rome, Italy

Roberto Raschetti

Affiliation National Centre of Epidemiology, Surveillance and Health Promotion, National Institute of Health, Rome, Italy

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: SF JZ XG LH BZ RF AF FMI FF RG RR HS. Performed the experiments: SF JZ FMI XG FG MM RR. Analyzed the data: SF JZ FMI FG MM RR HS. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: SF MM. Wrote the paper: SF JZ FMI XG FG MM FF RR.