eng Science and Education Publishing Journal of Food and Nutrition Research 2333-1240 2016-03-05 4 2 108 114 10.12691/jfnr-4-2-7 JFNR2016427 article Lih-Hwa Lin 1 2 Jen-Huai Chiang 2 3 Pei- Chi Chou 3 Po-Chi Liao 4 San-Yuan Wu 4 Kao-Sung Tsai 4 4 5 Huey-Yi Chen 5 5 Yung-Hsiang Chen yhchen@mail.cmu.edu.tw,wgchen@mail.cmu.edu.tw 5 5 6 Wen-Chi Chen yhchen@mail.cmu.edu.tw,wgchen@mail.cmu.edu.tw 6 6 Graduate Institute of Chinese Medicine, School of Chinese Medicine, Graduate Institute of Integrated Medicine, Research Center for Chinese medicine & Acupuncture, China Medical University, Taichung 404, Taiwan Department of Urology, Taichung Veterans General Hospital, Taichung 407, Taiwan Safflower (Flos carthami; FC) has been used widely as a food additive, as a coloring and flavoring agent. It has also been used as a Chinese herbal medicine for improving blood flow and resolving thrombosis. This study investigated whether the risk of bleeding complications is increased among FC users. We conducted a retrospective study involving a test group that used FC and a control (non-FC users) group. The participants were aged 18 years and above, and were recruited from the 2000 - 2006. The participants were from beneficiaries of LHID2000. The FC cohort included participants who had been prescribed FC accumulated for more than 30 days, whereas the non-FC cohort included people who were not using FC prescriptions. The compared cohort individuals were randomly selected at a ratio of 1:4 and frequency matched by age, gender, and index year from FC user cohort group. The primary outcome was a new diagnosis of bleeding disorders including gastrointestinal (GI) bleeding (ICD-9-CM: 578.0, 578.1, 578.9), intracranial hemorrhage (ICD-9-CM: 432.0, 432.9), and blood transfusions (ICD-9-CM op-code: 99.0). The results showed that the proportions of participants with bleeding disorders were 2.6% and 2.3% in the FC and non-FC cohorts, respectively (P = 0.6675). In univariate and multivariate Cox's proportional hazard regression models, the adjusted hazard ratio for bleeding disorders was 0.86 for the FC cohort relative to the non-FC cohort (P = 0.6094). In conclusion, the risk of bleeding complications was not increased among Chinese herbal medicine FC users. http://pubs.sciepub.com/jfnr/4/2/7/jfnr-4-2-7.pdf bleeding disorder chinese herbal medicine safflower (Flos carthami) national health insurance database population-based cohort study