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Cerebral ischemia-reperfusion injury (CIRI) refers to a pathological phenomenon that aggravates the injury after the restoration of blood perfusion and oxygen supply to the cerebral ischemia-induced tissues and organs, with a relatively high incidence. The traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) believes that Qi deficiency and blood stasis are the cause of CIRI. Therefore, Chinese medicine for tonifying Qi and activating blood is regarded as an important choice for the treatment of CIRI. In recent years, it has been found that many Chinese herbal medical ingredients and compound Chinese medicine (CCM) have significant anti-CIRI effects, and their mechanisms of action mainly include improving brain blood supply, neuroprotection, regulating signal pathways such as TLR4/HO-1/Bcl-2, protecting mitochondrial function, regulating related protein levels, and regulating oxidative molecule levels. This article summarizes and introduces the pharmacological mechanisms of Tonifying-Qi and activating-blood Chinese medicine and CCM which have the function of anti-CIRI. Our goal is to provide effective reference for further researches on the cerebral protection of related TCMs or compounds and their clinical application.

Background: Cereal grains are rich in carbohydrates and could trigger a hyperglycemic response which is closely linked to blood pressure status. We aim to examine the associations between the consumption of cereals with different cooking methods and hypertension risk. Methods: We conducted a prospective analysis utilizing the nationwide data of 11,080 adult participants who were free of hypertension at baseline. Cereal intake was assessed using 3-day 24 h dietary recalls with a weighing technique. Hypertension incidence was identified in adherence with the Seventh Joint National Commission guidelines during the follow-up. Cox proportional hazards regression models were used to extrapolate hazard ratios associated with hypertension risk. Results: Over an average follow-up span of 7 years (77,560 person-years), we identified 3643 new hypertension cases. The intake of total, fried, and baked cereals was associated with 15%, 20%, and 20% higher risk of hypertension, respectively. Whole grain consumers had an 8% lower risk of hypertension compared with non-consumers, while total refined grain consumers showed no significant association. Replacing one daily serving of fried or baked cereals with an equivalent serving of boiled cereals was related to a 28% or 14% lower risk, respectively. Conclusions: Total, fried, and baked cereal consumption was positively associated with hypertension risk, while consuming whole grains was related to a lower risk. Modifying cooking methods from frying or baking to boiling for cereals may be beneficial to lower risk. The current study underscores the significance of considering both the degree of processing and cooking methods applied to cereals in addressing hypertension prevention and management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim Methods Results Conclusions To investigate the association between fish oil supplementation and subsequent risk of chronic kidney disease (CKD) among patients with diabetes, and further evaluate the mediation effect of typical glycolipid and inflammatory biomarkers.In total, 24 497 patients with diabetes from the UK Biobank were included. Cox proportional hazards regression models were used to estimate the hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for CKD risk, and the rate advancement period was calculated to quantify and communicate the impact of fish oil upon that risk. In addition, we also used mediation analysis to assess the mediating role of plasma biomarkers.Overall, 7122 patients reported taking fish oil supplements. During a mean of 11.3 years of follow‐up, 3533 CKD cases occurred. In the fully adjusted model, fish oil use was inversely associated with the incidence of CKD (HR 0.90; 95% CI: 0.83, 0.97), which was mediated by serum levels of HbA1c (4.7%), C‐reactive protein (CRP) (3.4%) and high‐density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL‐C) (2.3%). Participants who took fish oil supplements displayed the same risk of CKD events, but that risk was delayed by approximately 2.79 years compared with non‐users of fish oil.Our findings advocate the beneficial role of fish oil use in preventing CKD among patients with diabetes, which may be mediated by serum levels of HbA1c, CRP and HDL‐C, and support public health policies aiming to promote fish oil supplementation for the prevention of diabetes complications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The abnormal deformation of urban surfaces threatens the human living environment, and extreme regional weather can affect the response law of surface deformation. To explore the changes in surface time series response after extreme weather and the causes of deformation in Zhengzhou, the MTInSAR was used to obtain the surface deformation from 2020 to 2022, and the time series changes of groundwater equivalent water height were retrieved by GRACE. The results show that: (a) There are three large subsidence bowls in Zhengzhou, and the maximum subsidence rate is −40.2 mm/yr. (b) The extreme rainstorm in Zhengzhou alleviated the surface deformation quickly, lasting approximately 6 months. However, surface subsidence still occurred after the extreme rainstorm. The water storage coefficient of the elastic skeleton in the Zhengzhou area showed an increasing trend. (c) Precipitation can lead to surface uplift by influencing the change of groundwater level. There is a delay time of 0.75–1 month between groundwater level change and surface uplift response in the characteristic region. These results provide scientific data support and causal analysis for disaster prevention and reduction of abnormal deformation in Zhengzhou. Key Points: Impact of extreme rainstorm on surface in Zhengzhou from 2020 to 2022There are three subsidence bowls in Zhengzhou area, and the uneven deformation is obviousExtreme rainstorm weather can alleviate the occurrence of surface subsidence in short term [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ozone trends in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere (UTLS) remain highly uncertain because of sharp spatial gradients and high variability caused by competing transport, chemical, and mixing processes near the upper-tropospheric jets and extratropical tropopause as well as inhomogeneous spatially and temporally limited observations of the region. Subtropical jets and the tropopause act as transport barriers, delineating boundaries between atmospheric regimes controlled by different processes; they can thus be used to separate data taken in those different regimes for numerous purposes, including trend assessment. As part of the Observed Composition Trends And Variability in the UTLS (OCTAV-UTLS) Stratosphere-troposphere Processes And their Role in Climate (SPARC) activity, we assess the effectiveness of several coordinate systems in segregating air into different atmospheric regimes. To achieve this, a comprehensive dynamical dataset is used to reference every measurement from various observing systems to the locations of jets and tropopauses in different coordinates (e.g., altitude, pressure, potential temperature, latitude, and equivalent latitude). We assess which coordinate combinations are most useful for dividing the measurements into bins such that the data in each bin are affected by the same processes, thus minimizing the variability induced when combining measurements from different dynamical regimes, each characterized by different physical processes. Such bins will be particularly suitable for combining measurements with different sampling characteristics and for assessing trends and attributing them to changing atmospheric dynamics. Overall, the use of equivalent latitude and potential temperature leads to the most substantial reduction in binned variability across the UTLS. This coordinate pairing uses potential vorticity (PV) on isentropic surfaces, thus aligning with the adiabatic transport of tracers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The in-stent restenosis (IRS) after the percutaneous coronary intervention contributes to the major treatment failure of stent implantation. MicroRNAs have been revealed as powerful gene medicine to regulate endothelial cells (EC) and smooth muscle cells (SMC) in response to vascular injury, providing a promising therapeutic candidate to inhibit IRS. However, the controllable loading and eluting of hydrophilic bioactive microRNAs pose a challenge to current lipophilic stent coatings. Here, we developed a microRNA eluting cardiovascular stent via the self-healing encapsulation process based on an amphipathic poly(ε-caprolactone)-poly(ethylene glycol)-poly(ε-caprolactone) (PCL-PEG-PCL, PCEC) triblock copolymer spongy network. The miR-22 was used as a model microRNA to regulate SMC. The dynamic porous coating realized the uniform and controllable loading of miR-22, reaching the highest dosage of 133 pmol cm−2. We demonstrated that the sustained release of miR-22 dramatically enhanced the contractile phenotype of SMC without interfering with the proliferation of EC, thus leading to the EC dominating growth at an EC/SMC ratio of 5.4. More importantly, the PCEC@miR-22 coated stents showed reduced inflammation, low switching of SMC phenotype, and low secretion of extracellular matrix, which significantly inhibited IRS. This work provides a simple and robust coating platform for the delivery of microRNAs on cardiovascular stent, which may extend to other combination medical devices, and facilitate practical application of bioactive agents in clinics.

This study aimed at implementing practice to build a standardized protocol to test the performance of computer-aided detection (CAD) algorithms for pulmonary nodules. A test dataset was established according to a standardized procedure, including data collection, curation and annotation. Six types of pulmonary nodules were manually annotated as reference standard. Three specific rules to match algorithm output with reference standard were applied and compared. These rules included: (1) “center hit” [whether the center of algorithm highlighted region of interest (ROI) hit the ROI of reference standard]; (2) “center distance” (whether the distance between algorithm highlighted ROI center and reference standard center was below a certain threshold); (3) “area overlap” (whether the overlap between algorithm highlighted ROI and reference standard was above a certain threshold). Performance metrics were calculated and the results were compared among ten algorithms under test (AUTs). The test set currently consisted of CT sequences from 593 patients. Under “center hit” rule, the average recall rate, average precision, and average F1 score of ten algorithms under test were 54.68, 38.19, and 42.39%, respectively. Correspondingly, the results under “center distance” rule were 55.43, 38.69, and 42.96%, and the results under “area overlap” rule were 40.35, 27.75, and 31.13%. Among the six types of pulmonary nodules, the AUTs showed the highest miss rate for pure ground-glass nodules, with an average of 59.32%, followed by pleural nodules and solid nodules, with an average of 49.80 and 42.21%, respectively. The algorithm testing results changed along with specific matching methods adopted in the testing process. The AUTs showed uneven performance on different types of pulmonary nodules. This centralized testing protocol supports the comparison between algorithms with similar intended use, and helps evaluate algorithm performance.