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Ulcerative colitis (UC) is a chronic non-sp ecific inflammatory disease of the colorectal mucosa. Researchers have associated UC onset with familial genetics, lifestyle behavior, inflammatory immune factors, intestinal microbiota, and the integrity of the intestinal mucosal barrier. The primary therapeutic interventions for UC consist of pharmacological management to control inflammation and promote mucosal healing and surgical interventions. The available drugs effectively control and decelerate the progression of UC in most patients; nonetheless, their long-term administration can exert adverse effects and influence the therapeutic effect. Plant essential oils (EOs) refer to a group of hydrophobic aromatic volatile substances. EOs have garnered considerable attention in both domestic and international research because of their anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, and antioxidant properties. They include peppermint, peppercorns, rosemary, and lavender, among others. Researchers have investigated the role of EOs in medicine and have elucidated their potential to mitigate the detrimental effects of UC through their anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, antidepressant, and anti-insomnia properties as well as their ability to regulate the intestinal flora. Furthermore, EOs exert minimal toxic adverse effects, further enhancing their appeal for therapeutic applications. However, these speculations are based on theoretical experiments, thereby warranting more clinical studies to confirm their effectiveness and safety. In this article, we aim to provide an overview of the advancements in utilizing natural medicine EOs for UC prevention and treatment. We will explore the potential pathogenesis of UC and examine the role of EOs therapy in basic research, quality stability, and management specification of inadequate EOs for UC treatment. We intend to offer novel insights into the use of EOs in UC prevention and management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Detection of safety signals based on multiple comparisons of adverse events (AEs) between two treatments in a clinical trial involves evaluations requiring multiplicity adjustment. A Bayesian hierarchical mixture model is a good solution to this problem as it borrows information across AEs within the same System Organ Class (SOC) and modulates extremes due merely to chance. However, the hierarchical model compares only the incidence rates of AEs, regardless of severity. In this article, we propose a three-level Bayesian hierarchical non-proportional odds cumulative logit model. Our model allows for testing the equality of incidence rate and severity for AEs between the control arm and the treatment arm while addressing multiplicities. We conduct simulation study to investigate the operating characteristics of the proposed hierarchical model. The simulation study demonstrates that the proposed method could be implemented as an extension of the Bayesian hierarchical mixture model in detecting AEs with elevated incidence rate and/or elevated severity. To illustrate, we apply our proposed method using the safety data from a phase III, two-arm randomized trial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND: Maternal exposure to environmental chemicals during pregnancy can influence various maternal and offspring health parameters. Modification of maternal metabolism by environmental exposure may be an important pathway for these impacts. However, there is limited evidence regarding exposure to a wide array of chemicals and the metabolome during pregnancy. OBJECTIVES: We investigated the relationship between the urinary exposome and metabolome during pregnancy. METHODS: Urine samples were collected in the first and third trimesters from 1,024 pregnant women recruited in prenatal clinics in Jiangsu Province, China. The exposome was analyzed using the first trimester sample with ultra-high performance liquid chromatography-high resolution accurate mass spectrometry (UHPLC-HRMS) and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. The metabolome was analyzed using the third trimester sample with UHPLC-HRMS. We evaluated associations between each of 106 exposures in the first trimester with 139 metabolites in the third trimester. RESULTS: We identified 1,245 significant associations (p DISCUSSION: This high-dimensional analysis of the urinary exposome and metabolome identified many associations between chemical exposures and maternal metabolism during pregnancy. Integration of these associations with the literature on health outcomes of exposure suggests that environmental modulation of the maternal metabolome may play a role in the association between prenatal exposure on pregnancy and child health outcomes. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP9745, Introduction Pregnancy is a critical period for maternal and offspring health. The developing fetus and the pregnant mother are both especially susceptible to exposure to environmental chemicals (Barr et al. [...]

Direct fluorination utilizing F2/N2 was confirmed to be one of the most efficient approaches to decorate graphene. The conventional opinion holds the view that direct fluorination is a molecular fluorination process, which often makes for the preparation of fluorinated graphene (FG) with heterogenous fluorine distribution. Herein, a fluorination strategy with an atomic fluorination mechanism was developed to modify graphene through thermal predissociation of molecular fluorine into atomic fluorine. By means of theoretical simulation, the thermal dissociation process of F2 was disclosed, and dissociation temperature was determined to be about 140–180 °C. Consequently, an ingenious thermal annealing at 180 °C was employed to splitting F2 into fluorine atoms before the fluorination reaction. Distinguished from the traditional molecular fluorination, atomic fluorination using fluorine atoms enables the preparation of FG with a higher fluorination degree and relatively homogeneous fluorine distribution because of the zero-energy barrier reaction, which was validated by aberration-corrected transmission electron microscopy directly. Furthermore, FG with homogeneous fluorine distribution possesses several advantages over the heterogenous fluorine distribution samples including higher thermal stability, higher thermal conductivity, and better electrical insulation, thereby demonstrating the possibility of their application in the field of thermal conduction and electrical insulation for microelectronics. We believe that this unique fluorination approach and corresponding mechanism can be extended to other carbon materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why does a beneficial treatment effect on a longitudinal biomarker not translate into overall treatment benefit on survival, when the biomarker is in fact a prognostic factor of survival? In a recent exploratory data analysis in oncology, we were faced with this seemingly paradoxical result. To address this problem, we applied a theoretically principled methodology called dynamic path analysis, which allows us to perform mediation analysis with a longitudinal mediator and survival outcome. The aim of the analysis is to decompose the total treatment effect into a direct treatment effect and an indirect treatment effect mediated through a carefully constructed mediation path. The dynamic nature of the underlying methodology enables us to describe how these effects evolve over time, which can add to the mechanistic understanding of the underlying processes. In this paper, we present a detailed description of the dynamic path analysis framework and illustrate its application to survival mediation analysis using simulated and real data. The use case analysis provides clarity on the specific exploratory question of interest while the methodology generalizes to a wide range of applications in drug development where time‐to‐event is the primary clinical outcome of interest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]