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Introduction Gender differences are important intrinsic factors in wrist arterial pulse assessment in traditional Chinese and Korean medicine. The current study aimed to examine gender differences in wrist pulse waves at the Cun, Guan, and Chi positions of the wrist and to identify associations between physical indices and anatomical properties at all three positions. Methods One hundred thirty-nine middle-aged Korean men and women participated in this cross-sectional study. A blood analysis was performed, and blood pressure and medical history were recorded. Artery diameter and depth, blood flow velocity, and pulse wave were measured. Results The pulse power index (PPI), pulse depth index (PDI), and power spectrum density at the third harmonic frequency/first harmonic frequency (PSD_w3_w1) showed highly significant differences according to gender. Men exhibited larger PPI values than women at all three positions. The PDI and PSD_w3_w1 in men were higher at the Cun position than those in women, whereas the PDI at the Chi position was higher in women than in men. Gender differences in the spectral harmonic energy ratio were greater at the Guan and Chi positions than those at the Cun position. The subendocardial viability ratio differed significantly between genders. In women, the PDI was highly positively correlated with radial artery depth at all positions; however, in men, the PDI was only marginally correlated with artery depth at the Guan and Chi positions. Conclusion We suggest that gender differences should be considered in wrist artery pulse diagnosis, including those related to pulse diagnostic positions and anatomical properties.

Introduction Obesity is a chronic disease risk factor. The objective of this study was to assess the association of obesity with anatomical and physical indices at the Cun, Guan, and Chi positions related to the radial artery. Methods A total of 109 healthy subjects aged 30–50 years participated in this study. Binary logistic regression was performed to examine differences in physical and anatomical indices between normal and obese subject groups. Results The arterial diameter was associated with obesity at the Guan (adjusted p = 0.0441, adjusted OR = 1.65 [1.013–2.687]) and Chi positions (adjusted p = 0.0028, OR = 2.277 [1.327–3.908]) but not the Cun position. No association between the arterial blood flow velocity and obesity were observed at the three positions. The pulse depth index (PDI) was related to obesity at the Cun (adjusted p = 0.0038, OR = 2.119 [1.274–3.526]) and Guan positions (adjusted p = 0.0422, OR = 1.595 [1.017–2.503]). The high-frequency spectral energy proportion of the total pulse energy (HSEP) was significantly different only at the Chi position (adjusted p = 0.0418, OR = 0.571 [0.333–0.979]), and the spectral energy ratio (SER) was related to obesity only at the Guan position (adjusted p = 0.0468, OR = 1.76 [1.008–3.073]). Conclusion Our study demonstrated that the arterial diameter, PDI, HSEP, and SER were associated with obesity at one or more positions. Our findings suggest that obesity may be considered in arterial pulse diagnosis and anatomical characteristics.

Introduction: In traditional East Asian medicine, the color and shape features of a tongue reflect the health of the body. The repeatability of computerized tongue diagnosis is highly dependent on the image acquisition process. In this study, a method for providing frontal and profile feedback gridlines for the tongue image acquisition process was proposed and the resulting color and shape repeatability was assessed. Methods: Eight subjects were recruited and 120 images were acquired. For each subject, 15 tongue images were acquired with three different gridline types, including no gridline (Group I), frontal gridlines (Group II), and frontal and profile gridlines (Group III) in a pseudo-randomized order. To evaluate repeatability, intra-class correlation coefficients (ICCs) were calculated from the mean values and histogram fitting parameters for Commission Internationale de l’Eclairage L*a*b*, profile angles, and tongue area ratios (TARs) of four edge regions, respectively. Results: The ICCs for all the color features in Group I were lower as compared with those in Group II and additionally, the ICCs for all the color features in Group III were larger compared with those in Group II. The ICCs of the shape features were lower than those of the color features. The ICCs of TARs in Group I were lower than those in Groups II and III. From the tip to the root of the tongue region, the ICCs of mean luminance tended to decrease in all the groups, but the intensity of the decline in Group III was lower than those in Group I and Group II. Conclusions: The proposed tongue image acquisition process with frontal and profile gridlines improved the repeatability of color and shape features and potentially improve diagnostic accuracy of computerized tongue diagnosis. © 2014 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.

Sphingosine, a potent inhibitor of protein kinase C, was found to block membrane fusion of chick embryonic myoblasts in culture. This effect was dose-dependent and could be reversed upon removal of the drug. Treatment with 12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol 13-acetate, which is a powerful activator of protein kinase C and capable of preventing myoblast fusion, further potentiated the inhibitory effect of sphingosine. Thus, the sphingosine-mediated inhibition of myoblast fusion appears to be independent of protein kinase C. Sphingosine also decreased the phosphorylation state of the 100-kDa protein when given to the cell extracts, and this inhibition was competitive with calmodulin. Thus, sphingosine seems to act as a calmodulin antagonist. These results suggest that the sphingosine-mediated inhibition of myoblast fusion may be associated with the inhibitory effect of the drug against the calmodulin-dependent phosphorylation of the 100-kDa protein.