Statistical analysis
The baseline, demographic, and clinical characteristics of the two groups were compared using the independent t-test and Fisher’s exact test (χ2). Paired t-test was used for the comparison of changes before and after treatment within each study group. Independent t-tests were used to compare the mean differences of the celery and placebo groups. All p-values were two-sided, without adjustment of multiple comparisons, and a p-value of less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant. The analyses were performed using R software (version 4.0.5, R Foundation for Statistical Computing).