Subjects were recruited from the primary day care clinic at
Shanghai Baoshan District Hospital. One hundred and twenty
subjects aged 30e60 years were screened based on defecation
using the Rome III diagnostic criteria (Drossman, 2006; Drossman
& Dumitrascu, 2006). The subjects had been suffering from constipation
for about 1 year and all the subjects defecated fewer than
three times per week.
All of the subjects were instructed to cease using probiotic and
emplastic products 2 weeks prior to the experiment. The clinical
researchers explained the study to all of the recruited subjects, and
the subjects' written informed consent was obtained prior to their
enrolment in the trial. This study was approved by the hospital's
Ethics Committee and New Trial Drug Committee. This study is
registered under ClinicalTrials.gov, number NCT02116101.