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Background Chronic atrophic gastritis (CAG) with intestinal metaplasia (IM) is an independent risk factor for gastric cancer. Long-term inflammation and oxidative stress response stimulate the physical and mental state of patients. Under the modern medical model, proton pump inhibitors and gastric mucosal protective agents are increasingly unable to meet the high drug resistance of patients. It is urgent to seek effective new Chinese medicine treatments and multiple methods to treat CAG and IM. Objective To evaluate the clinical efficacy and safety of modified Piwei Peiyuan Decoction combined with acupuncture in the treatment of CAG with IM. Methods From January 2022 to September 2023, 202 patients with CAG and IM diagnosed by gastroscopy and pathological examination in the Department of Spleen and Stomach, the Center for Preventive Treatment of Disease, the Second Affiliated Hospital of Anhui University of Traditional Chinese Medicine and the Third Affiliated Hospital of Beijing University of Traditional Chinese Medicine were selected. The patients were divided into control group (n=67), treatment group A (n=68) and treatment group B (n=67) by random number table method. All patients participated in 6 weeks of treatment: (1) Control group: aluminum magnesium suspension combined with folic acid tablets (3 times/d) ; (2) Treatment group A: to add and subtract syndrome types of Piwei Peiyuan Decoction (2 times/d) ; (3) Treatment group B: Piwei Peiyuan Decoction (the same as group A) combined with acupuncture (1 time/d), with Zusanli, Liangqiu, Gongsun, Neiguan, Zhongwan as the main points, according to the syndrome type selection of acupoints. Before and 6 weeks after treatment, OLGA, OLGIM staging, gastric mucosal pathological efficacy, gastric mucosal pathological score, clinical symptom score, PRO scale score, drug-related adverse events (AE) and adverse drug reactions (ADR) were recorded. Results A total of 192 patients completed the 6-week course of treatment (62 in the control group, 66 in the treatment group A, and 64 in the treatment group B). The effective rate of the control group was 48.39% (30/62), the effective rate of the treatment group A was 69.70% (46/66), and the effective rate of the treatment group B was 71.88% (46/64). There was a statistically significant difference in the effective rate among the three groups (χ2=9.144, P=0.01). After treatment, the gastric mucosal pathological score, clinical symptom score and PRO scale score in the three groups were lower than those in the same group before treatment (P0.05) . Conclusion The overall clinical efficacy of Piwei Peiyuan Decoction combined with acupuncture is better than that of aluminum magnesium suspension combined with folic acid tablets, which is better than that of traditional antacids and gastric mucosal protective agents.

BACKGROUND: There are emerging studies suggesting that non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a heterogeneous disease with multiple etiologies and molecular phenotypes. Fibrosis is the key process in NAFLD progression. In this study, we aimed to explore molecular phenotypes of NAFLD with a particular focus on the fibrosis phenotype and also aimed to explore the changes of macrophage subsets in the fibrosis subset of NAFLD. METHODS: To assess the transcriptomic alterations of key factors in NAFLD and fibrosis progression, we included 14 different transcriptomic datasets of liver tissues. In addition, two single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) datasets were included to construct transcriptomic signatures that could represent specific cells. To explore the molecular subsets of fibrosis in NAFLD based on the transcriptomic features, we used a high-quality RNA-sequencing (RNA-seq) dataset of liver tissues from patients with NAFLD. Non-negative matrix factorization (NMF) was used to analyze the molecular subsets of NAFLD based on the gene set variation analysis (GSVA) enrichment scores of key molecule features in liver tissues. RESULTS: The key transcriptomic signatures on NAFLD including non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) signature, fibrosis signature, non-alcoholic fatty liver (NAFL) signature, liver aging signature and TGF-β signature were constructed by liver transcriptome datasets. We analyzed two liver scRNA-seq datasets and constructed cell type-specific transcriptomic signatures based on the genes that were highly expressed in each cell subset. We analyzed the molecular subsets of NAFLD by NMF and categorized four main subsets of NAFLD. Cluster 4 subset is mainly characterized by liver fibrosis. Patients with Cluster 4 subset have more advanced liver fibrosis than patients with other subsets, or may have a high risk of liver fibrosis progression. Furthermore, we identified two key monocyte-macrophage subsets which were both significantly correlated with the progression of liver fibrosis in NAFLD patients. CONCLUSION: Our study revealed the molecular subtypes of NAFLD by integrating key information from transcriptomic expression profiling and liver microenvironment, and identified a novel and distinct fibrosis subset of NAFLD. The fibrosis subset is significantly correlated with the profibrotic macrophages and M2 macrophage subset. These two liver macrophage subsets may be important players in the progression of liver fibrosis of NAFLD patients.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fendo.2022.1075986.].

Obesity is an increasingly prevalent and costly public health problem. Many people regard exercise as an effective weight loss strategy, even superior to dieting. However, the effectiveness and safety of exercise for weight loss in obese individuals need to be carefully weighed. This paper briefly discusses the view that "Exercise is not the foundation of weight loss" in the combination of evidence-based medicine, from the aspects of mild effect of exercise on weight loss, poor adherence to long-term high-intensity exercise, safety of high-intensity exercise in obese individuals, and the mechanism of poor weight loss effect of exercise.