Intra-Articular Injection of (-)-Epigallocatechin 3-Gallate to Attenuate Articular Cartilage Degeneration by Enhancing Autophagy in a Post-Traumatic Osteoarthritis Rat Model.

(-)-Epigallocatechin 3-gallate (EGCG) is the main active green tea catechin and has a wide variety of benefits for health. Post-traumatic osteoarthritis (PTOA) occurs as a consequence of joint injuries that commonly happen in the young population. In this study, we investigated the effects of EGCG on PTOA prevention by using the anterior cruciate ligament transection (ACLT)-OA model and further investigated the roles of autophagy in OA treatment. Our results showed that intra-articular injection of EGCG significantly improved the functional performances and decreased cartilage degradation. EGCG treatment attenuated the inflammation on synovial tissue and cartilage through less immunostained cyclooxygenase-2 and matrix metalloproteinase-13. We further noted EGCG may modulate the chondrocyte apoptosis by activation of the cytoprotective autophagy through reducing the expression of the mTOR and enhancing the expression of microtubule-associated protein light chain 3, beclin-1, and p62. In conclusion, intra-articular injection of EGCG after ACL injury inhibited the joint inflammation and cartilage degradation, thereby increasing joint function. EGCG treatment also reduced the chondrocyte apoptosis, possibly by activating autophagy. These findings suggested that EGCG may be a potential disease-modifying drug for preventing OA progression.

(-)-Epigallocatechin-3-Gallate Decreases Osteoclastogenesis via Modulation of RANKL and Osteoprotegrin.

Osteoporosis is the second most common epidemiologic disease in the aging population worldwide. Previous studies have found that frequent tea drinkers have higher bone mineral density and less hip fracture. We previously found that (-)-epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) (20⁻100 µmol/L) significantly suppressed receptor activator of nuclear factor-kB ligand (RANKL)-induced osteoclastogenesis and pit formation via inhibiting NF-κB transcriptional activity and nuclear transport of NF-κB in RAW 264.7 cells and murine primary bone marrow macrophage cells. The most important regulation in osteoclastogenesis is the receptor activator of nuclear factor-kB/RANKL/osteoprotegrin (RANK/RANKL/OPG) pathway. In this study, we used the coculture of RAW 264.7 cells and the feeder cells, ST2, to evaluate how EGCG regulated the RANK/RANKL/OPG pathway in RAW 264.7 cells and ST2 cells. We found EGCG decreased the RANKL/OPG ratio in both mRNA expression and secretory protein levels and eventually decreased osteoclastogenesis by TRAP (+) stain osteoclasts and TRAP activity at low concentrations-1 and 10 µmol/L-via the RANK/RANKL/OPG pathway. The effective concentration can be easily achieved in daily tea consumption. Taken together, our results implicate that EGCG could be an important nutrient in modulating bone resorption.

Rivaroxaban in preventing venous thromboembolism after arthroplastic surgery in Taiwan.

Venous thromboembolism (VTE) is one of the severe complications of total hip arthroplasty (THA) and total knee arthroplasty (TKA). The incidence of VTE could be reduced if preventive antithrombotic medicines are used; however, the incidence of bleeding may increase. Rivaroxaban is a factor Xa inhibitor that prevents VTE after THA or TKA. This study is designed to confirm the efficacy and safety of rivaroxaban in Taiwan. This is a retrospective database study based on the data of 6996 patients provided by the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database from 2008 to 2012. The data included the number of prescription, the cost of prescription, and case number for patients treated with antithrombotic agents for the prevention or treatment of joint arthroplasty complications (including THA, TKA, partial hip arthroplasty, revision THA and TKA), and the incidence of thrombosis and hemorrhage from year 2008 to 2012. The overall postoperative VTE rate was 0.49%. Compared with other antithrombotic drugs, rivaroxaban and heparin analogs can reduce the percentage of thrombosis. We also found that the expenditure and hospitalization was less in the rivaroxaban group than in the heparin analogs group. Because some benefits of rivaroxaban were found in our study, further cost-effective and drug safety studies are warranted. It is important to consider the cost-effective principle for the use of antithrombotic drugs in preventing thromboembolic complications after total joint arthroplasty.

Polysaccharides of Trametes versicolor Improve Bone Properties in Diabetic Rats.

This study investigates the effects of Trametes versicolor (L.:Fr.) Pilát (TVP, also known as Yunzhi) on bone properties in diabetic rats. Forty-five male Wistar rats (8 weeks old) were fed either a chow diet (control) or a high-fat diet throughout the study period of 28 days. Animals in the high-fat-diet group were injected with nicotinamide and streptozotocin to induce diabetes mellitus (DM). The DM rats were divided into a group receiving distilled water (vehicle) and another group receiving TVP at 0.1 g/kg weight by gavage. Relative to the vehicle group, TVP gavage lowered postprandial blood sugar (225 ± 18 mg/dL for TVP vs 292 ± 15 mg/dL for vehicle, p < 0.001) on day 26. Compared to the vehicle group, TVP mitigated DM-induced bone deterioration as determined by increasing bone volume of proximal tibia (22.8 ± 1.4% for TVP vs 16.8 ± 1.3% for vehicle, p = 0.003), trabecular number (p = 0.011), and femoral bone strength (11% in maximal load, 22% in stiffness, 14% in modulus, p < 0.001), and by reducing loss of femoral cortical porosity by 25% (p < 0.001). Our study demonstrates the protective effect of TVP on bone properties was mediated through, in part, the improvement of hyperglycemic control in DM animals.

Work stress and subsequent risk of internet addiction among information technology engineers in Taiwan.

Work stress, as defined by the Demand-Control-Support (DCS) model and the Effort-Reward Imbalance (ERI) model, has been found to predict risks for depression, anxiety, and substance addictions, but little research is available on work stress and Internet addiction. The aims of this study are to assess whether the DCS and ERI models predict subsequent risks of Internet addiction, and to examine whether these associations might be mediated by depression and anxiety. A longitudinal study was conducted in a sample (N=2,550) of 21-55 year old information technology engineers without Internet addiction. Data collection included questionnaires covering work stress, demographic factors, psychosocial factors, substance addictions, Internet-related factors, depression and anxiety at wave 1, and the Internet Addiction Test (IAT) at wave 2. Ordinal logistic regression was used to assess the associations between work stress and IAT; path analysis was adopted to evaluate potentially mediating roles of depression and anxiety. After 6.2 months of follow-up, 14.0% of subjects became problematic Internet users (IAT 40-69) and 4.1% pathological Internet users (IAT 70-100). Job strain was associated with an increased risk of Internet addiction (odds ratio [OR] of having a higher IAT outcome vs. a lower outcome was 1.53); high work social support reduced the risk of Internet addiction (OR=0.62). High ER ratio (OR=1.61) and high overcommitment (OR=1.68) were associated with increased risks of Internet addiction. Work stress defined by the DCS and ERI models predicted subsequent risks of Internet addiction.

Deceased Donor Kidney Transplantation in Taiwan in 2015.

There were 1997 deceased donor renal transplants reported to the Taiwan Organ Registry and Sharing Center between April 1, 2005, and December 31, 2014. The median age of transplant recipients was 45 years, with most patients between 35 and 64 years old. The number of male patients was comparable to that of female patients. There were more blood type O patients than any other blood type. The 1-, 3-, and 5-year patient survival rates were 96%, 93%, and 89%, respectively. Graft survival rates at 1, 3, and 5 years were 94%, 88%, and 82%, respectively. Overall patient survival was significantly worse in patients with hepatitis B surface antigen (P = 0.0058). However, with respect to overall graft survival, there was no significant difference between patients with or without hepatitis B surface antigen (P = 0.100). Overall patient survival was significantly worse in patients with hepatitis C virus antibody (HCV Ab) compared to patients without HCV Ab (P < 0.0001). Likewise, overall graft survival was significantly worse in patients with HCV Ab compared to patients without HCV Ab (P < 0.0001). In order to promote willingness to be an organ donor, the following law was passed: if any person becomes a deceased organ donor, up to three of his or her blood relatives would have priority to receive a deceased donor organ should they be on the waiting list for transplantation. We do wish this organ allocation priority will be an incentive for deceased organ donors' families to think "to give is to take".

Automatic quality control for wavelet-based compression of volumetric medical images using distortion-constrained adaptive vector quantization.

The enormous data of volumetric medical images (VMI) bring a transmission and storage problem that can be solved by using a compression technique. For the lossy compression of a very long VMI sequence, automatically maintaining the diagnosis features in reconstructed images is essential. The proposed wavelet-based adaptive vector quantizer incorporates a distortion-constrained codebook replenishment (DCCR) mechanism to meet a user-defined quality demand in peak signal-to-noise ratio. Combining a codebook updating strategy and the well-known set partitioning in hierarchical trees (SPIHT) technique, the DCCR mechanism provides an excellent coding gain. Experimental results show that the proposed approach is superior to the pure SPIHT and the JPEG2000 algorithms in terms of coding performance. We also propose an iterative fast searching algorithm to find the desired signal quality along an energy-quality curve instead of a traditional rate-distortion curve. The algorithm performs the quality control quickly, smoothly, and reliably.