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The harm of tobacco is one of the most serious public health issues nowadays, and the social cost produced by smoking is increasing year by year. There are about 6 million people dying from smoking-related diseases each year, and the number of death will surpass 8 million by 2030. Helping smokers quit is the most direct and effective method to reduce the burden of disease caused by tobacco. M-health based on smartphone shows huge potential in prompting health behavior. Progress of studies on smartphone applications (APP), a new way of tobacco control, is reviewed to provide reference for future tobacco control practice and exploration.
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Objective To investigate and characterize the serum metabolite profile of patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA),a common autoimmune disease,which will be of help for early diagnosis in clinic.Methods Serum specimens from 26 patients with RA and 19 age-matched healthy volunteers were collected from the First Affiliated Hospital of Hunan University of Chinese Medicine from January through April 2015.Samples were detected on the gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS),and serum metabolites were identified by the chemometric methods.Discriminative model of RA and healthy volunteers was established using partial least squares-linear discriminant analysis (PLS-LDA),and furthermore the established model was evaluated with double cross validation (DCV) for predicting ability.Finally,differential metabolites with clinical diagnostic potential were screened out by using subwindow permutation analysis (SPA).Results The established PLS-LDA discriminative model identified 48 metabolites.The total accuracy of the model approached 97.73％,in which the accuracy of the model for predicting RA and healthy volunteers was 96.15％ and 100％,respectively.Our studies screened out 3-hydroxy butyric acid,phosphoric acid,isoleucine,mannose and hexadecanoic acid with clinical diagnostic potential based on the SPA.Conclusions Metabolomics with the application of GC-MS combined with the PLS-LDA method can distinguish patients with RA and healthy volunteers,and can aid in potential early diagnosis of RA.
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Aim Kadsuraheteroclita ( Roxb ) Craib ( Schizandraceae) is a medicinal plant termed Xuetong in Chinese Tujia ethnomedicine. Xuetong possesses therapeutic effects of, in the terms of Chinese medical theories, reinforcing vital energy, promoting blood cir-culation, expelling wind-evil, and removing damp-e-vil, and has been long used for the prevention and treatment of rheumatic and arthritic diseases, especial-ly in the southern China. The HPLC analysis has iden-tified that the ethanol extract of Xuetong contains large-ly biologically active lignans and triterpenoids. Our previous studies have shown that KHS exhibits very fa-vorable safety profile and potent anti-inflammatory and analgesic activities. In the present study, we investiga-ted anti-arthritic effects and the possible mechanisms of Xuetongon adjuvant-induced arthritis ( AIA ) in rats. Methods AIA was established in male Sprague-Daw-ley ( SD ) rats as described previously, and animals were daily treated by gavage with Xuetong ethanol ex-tract ( 1. 0 g · kg-1 ) or vehicle ( 0. 3% CMC-Na ) throughout the 30-day experiment. The incidence and severity of arthritis were evaluated using clinical pa-rameters. On day 30, bone destruction of the arthritic joints was assessed by computed tomography( CT) and histopathological analyses. The serum levels of pro-in-flammatory cytokines TNF-α, IL-1β, and IL-6 were measured by ELISA. Results Treatment with 1. 0 g/kg Xuetong significantly inhibited the onset and pro-gression of AIA. The vehicle-treated rats all developed severe arthritis, while the incidence of AIA in the Xue-tong-treated rats was as low as 55%( P=0. 035 ) . The Xuetong -treated rats exhibited 1. 8 to 2. 3 fold reduc-tion of paw swelling, and gained 10 to 20% more body weight than the vehicle-treated AIA rats throughout the experiment. CT and histopathological examinations re-vealed that Xuetong markedly protected AIA rats from cartilage and bone destruction of joints. Moreover, the serum levels of TNF-α, IL-1β, and IL-6 were signifi-cantly decreased in the Xuetong-treated rats than the vehicle-treated AIA rats. Conclusions These data strongly support the clinical use of Xuetong for rheu-matic and arthritic diseases, and suggest that Xuetong is a valuable candidate for further investigation to be a new anti-arthritic drug with favorable safety profile.