Protective effect of Acai berries on chronic alcoholic hepatic injury in rats and their effect on inflammatory cytokines / 中国中药杂志

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To study the protective effect of Acai berries(Euterpe oleraceae) on chronic alcoholic hepatic injury in rats and their mechanism.</p><p><b>METHOD</b>Wistar rats were fed for 1 week and randomly divided into blank group, model group, Dongbao Gantai group, Acai 1.6, 0.8, 0.4 g . kg-1 groups. The blank group was given distilled water, and the other groups were orally given 56% white spirit (Erguotou) for eight weeks at the dosages of 8 mL . kg-1 in the 1st week, which increased by 0.1 mL week by week till to 15 mL . kg-1, in order to establish the chronic hepatic injury model, and observe the effect of Acai berry freeze-dried powder on hepatocyte membrane permeability, liver lipid peroxidation, changes in inflammatory cytokines and pathological changes in hepatocytes.</p><p><b>RESULT</b>Acai berries could significantly reduce serum ALT and AST(P<0.05), MDA(P<0.05), TG(P<0.05) and serum TNF-α and IL-6(P <0.05) and increase GSH and SOD(P <0.05). According to liver histopathological observation, livers in the model group were dominated by steatosis, some livers suffered spotty necrosis and inflammatory cell infiltration; The positive drug and Acai groups showed different changes in pathologic changes in rat livers.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>Acai berries show s specific protective effect on alcoholic hepatic injury. Its mechanism may be correlated with the inhibition of such inflammatory factors as TNF-α and IL-6.</p>

Mortality trend on chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in Liaoning province, 1984-2010 / 中华流行病学杂志

Objective To evaluate the mortality trend or chromc obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) among residents in Liaoning province during the period of 1984-2010.Methods The cut-points were ascertained by Monte Carlo Permutation test in COPD mortality trend lines of Poisson regression with Joinpoint Regression Program.The annual percent changes (APC) before and after the cut-points and the average annual percent change(AAPC) of COPD mortality were examined during the period.Results Significant declining trends on COPD mortality among the urban population during 1984-2010 and that of rural population during 1999-2009 were found.The standardized urban COPD mortality rate by Chinese population declined from 243.93 per 100thousand in 1984 to 33.13 per 100 thousand in 2010.The urban 26 years AAPC was -5.8％.While the mortality in the rural population decreased from 251.33 per 100 thousand in 1999 to 102.25 per 100 thousand in 2009 in the same population.The rural 10 years' AAPC was-6.8％.The total trend of COPD mortality reduction was mainly resulted from the fast decline of bronchitis mortality.The AAPC of COPD mortality of the urban population was-9.0％ and greater than that of the rural population (-6.8％) from 1999 to 2009.The urban population had a lower COPD mortality than that of the rural population.In urban area,males had a higher COPD mortality than females,however,in the rural area,males had a lower COPD mortality than the females.Conclusion The COPD mortality among the residents of Liaoning province declined significantly from 1984 to 2010.Further studies are needed to confirm the viewpoint of WHO that the prevalence of COPD would have a continuous increasing trend in China.

Presence and determination of manure-borne estrogens from dairy and beef cattle feeding operations in northeast China.

Four estrogens in cattle feces collected from 24 dairy and beef feeding operations located in the northeast of China were investigated. The average concentration of 17α-estradiol, 17ß-estradiol and estrone in dairy feces was 194.6, 104.4, and 262 µg/kg, respectively. While as to beef waste the mean content of 17α-estradiol, 17ß-estradiol and estrone was 104.5, 67.7 and 216.4 µg/kg, respectively. Estriol was below the detection limit in all samples. The 17ß-estradiol equivalents of all samples ranged from 45.8 to 926.1 µg/kg and dairy together with beef probably generated 16 times more estrogens than the human population in the study area.

Decomposition of life expectancy at birth by age and causes of death among residents of Liaoning province,1975-2005 / 中华流行病学杂志

Objective To analyze the impact of mortality by age and causes of death on life expectancy at birth among residents of Liaoning province.Methods The study included mortality data of urban and rural residents in two periods (1973-1975 and 2004-2005).Both Abridged Life Table and Arriaga method were used to calculate and to decompose life expectancy changes by age and causes of death.Results From 1975-2005,the life expectancy increased by 4.68 years in urban residents and 4.91 for rural residents with a higher increment among females than males.Most part of the increase (76.27% and 82.81% for urban and rural male,58.76% and 62.13% for urban and rural female) in life expectancy within the last 30 years could be explained by the decrease of mortality in the populations at age 0-4 and 55-74.Diseases related to respiratory system and infectious disease were contributing the most to the gap in life expectancy between the two periods.Mortality of heart disease was a negative contributor to the changes in life expectancy among both rural and urban residents while the mortalities of cerebro-vascular diseases and malignant tumors were the negative contributors for rural residents.Conclusion The increase of life expectancy in the last 30 years was mainly resulted from the decrease of mortality on both respiratory and infectious diseases.Control of chronic diseases is the key point to increase the life expectancy among the residents of Liaoning province.

Increase in complexation ability of humic acids with the addition of ligneous bulking agents during sewage sludge composting.

Wood sawdust and maize straw were selected to co-compost sewage sludge to investigate the effects of organic bulking agents on the formation and molecular transformation of humic substances. The results showed that composting process increased humic acids (HA) while decreased fulvic acids (FA), and the wood sawdust and maize straw promoted the formation of HA by 25.6% and 16.1%, respectively. Results from fluorescence titration demonstrated that organic bulking agents also increased the binding ability of HA with the heavy metal ions, Cu(II) and Cd(II), but had little influence on that of FA. These findings indicate that organic materials especially wood sawdust may be used as bulking agents to reduce the mobility and bioavailability of toxic metals in solid waste composts.

AMWFA method applied to research on changes of essential components and extractive ratioes of herbal pair Cinnamomum cassia and Poria cocos / 中国中药杂志

Gas chromatography/mass spectrometry, chemometric resolution method-Alternative movingwindow factor analysis that were proposed recently and the Kovats retention index were used to analyze the essential components of herbal pair Cinnamomum cassia Presl and Poria cocos (CCP-PC) and compare them with those of single herbal Cinnamomum cassia Presl (CCP). 46 and 42 essential components in essential oil of CCP and CCP-PC have been identified individually. Results shows that the number of essential components of CCP and CCP-PC were almost the same, but extractive ratioes of them have changed significantly, some of them were increased obviously, most of them were declined notably instead and even several ingredients of CCP-PC were disappeared due to CCP PC's interaction probably. The main pharmacodynamic ingredients of CCP-PC, 3-phenyl-2-propenal and Cinnamaldehyde were obviously higher contents than that of single CCP. It suggested that there exist certain interactions of the chemical ingredients in compound medicine rather than their sum effect of single medicines. There is a litter difference in quality and quantity between single medicines and pair medicines, so the application of pair medicines can expand single medicine's adaptive disease and has a good clinical referenced valuation.