Bevacizumab as adjuvant therapy in the management of pterygium: a systematic review and Meta-analysis.

AIM: To evaluate the clinical effect of bevacizumab in pterygium treatment. METHODS: A systematic review and quantitative Meta-analysis was performed. PubMed, EMBASE, Web of Science and Cochrane database were searched for eligible literatures published in English until June 2016. The endpoint was recurrence rate and pooled risk ratio (RR) was calculated. RESULTS: Nine eligible studies were included and Meta-analysis results showed no significantly difference in patients treated with bevacizumab in short term follow-up [3mo: RR=0.70 (0.34, 1.45); 6mo: RR=0.55 (0.23, 1.32)] compared with control groups. No significant effects were observed in favor of bevacizumab in subgroup analyses: patients with subconjunctival injection of bevacizumab [3mo: RR=0.95 (0.70, 1.29); 6mo: RR=0.83 (0.55, 1.28)], primary pterygium [3mo: RR=0.59 (0.23, 1.54; 6mo: RR=0.59 (0.23, 1.53)], simple pterygium excision [3mo: 0.32 (0.05, 2.04), P=0.23; 6mo: 0.27 (0.05, 1.53)] and excision with conjunctival autograft [3mo: 1.51 (0.25, 9.15); 6mo: 1.11 (0.06, 21.69)]. CONCLUSION: In this Meta-analysis, we did not found the significant effect of bevacizumab in pterygium treatment, at least in short term follow-up (3mo and 6mo).

The Salutary Influence of Forest Bathing on Elderly Patients with Chronic Heart Failure.

The aim of the current study was to test the hypothesis that forest bathing would be beneficial for elderly patients with chronic heart failure (CHF) as an adjunctive therapy. Two groups of participants with CHF were simultaneously sent to the forest or an urban control area for a four-day trip, respectively. Subjects exposed to the forest site showed a significant reduction of brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) in comparison to that of the city group and their own baseline levels. The values for the cardiovascular disease related pathological factors, including endothelin-1 (ET-1), and constituents of the renin-angiotensin system (RAS), including renin, angiotensinogen (AGT), angiotensin II (ANGII), and ANGII receptor type 1 or 2 (AT1 or AT2) in subjects exposed to the forest environment were lower than those in the urban control group. Obviously, a decreased level of inflammatory cytokines and improved antioxidant function was observed in the forest group rather than in the city group. The assessment of the profile of mood states (POMS) indicated that the negative emotional mood state was alleviated after forest bathing. As anticipated, a better air quality in the forest site was observed according to the detection of PM2.5 (particulate matter <2.5 µm) and negative ions. These results provided direct evidence that forest bathing has a beneficial effect on CHF patients, and thus may pave the way for potential development of forest bathing as an effective adjunctive therapy on cardiovascular disorders.

Therapeutic effect of forest bathing on human hypertension in the elderly.

OBJECTIVE: To provide scientific evidence supporting the efficacy of forest bathing as a natural therapy for human hypertension. METHODS: Twenty-four elderly patients with essential hypertension were randomly divided into two groups of 12. One group was sent to a broad-leaved evergreen forest to experience a 7-day/7-night trip, and the other was sent to a city area in Hangzhou for control. Blood pressure indicators, cardiovascular disease-related pathological factors including endothelin-1, homocysteine, renin, angiotensinogen, angiotensin II, angiotensin II type 1 receptor, angiotensin II type 2 receptor as well as inflammatory cytokines interleukin-6 and tumor necrosis factor α were detected. Meanwhile, profile of mood states (POMS) evaluation was used to assess the change of mood state of subjects. In addition, the air quality in the two experimental sites was monitored during the 7-day duration, simultaneously. RESULTS: The baselines of the indicators of the subjects were not significantly different. Little alteration in the detected indicators in the city group was observed after the experiment. While subjects exposed to the forest environment showed a significant reduction in blood pressure in comparison to that of the city group. The values for the bio-indicators in subjects exposed to the forest environment were also lower than those in the urban control group and the baseline levels of themselves. POMS evaluation showed that the scores in the negative subscales were lowered after exposure to the forest environment. Besides, the air quality in the forest environment was much better than that of the urban area evidenced by the quantitative detection of negative ions and PM10 (particulate matter < 10 µm in aerodynamic diameter). CONCLUSION: Our results provided direct evidence that forest bathing has therapeutic effects on human hypertension and induces inhibition of the renin-angiotensin system and inflammation, and thus inspiring its preventive efficacy against cardiovascular disorders.

Antiaging effect of pine pollen in human diploid fibroblasts and in a mouse model induced by D-galactose.

The present paper was designed to investigate the effect of pine pollen against aging in human diploid fibroblast 2BS cells and in an accelerated aging model, which was established by subcutaneous injections with D-galactose daily for 8 weeks in C57BL/6J mice. Pine pollen (1 mg/mL and 2 mg/mL) is proved to delay the replicative senescence of 2BS cells as evidenced by enhanced cell proliferation, decreased SA-ß-Gal activity, and reversed expression of senescence-associated molecular markers, such as p53, p21(Waf1), p16(INK4a), PTEN, and p27(Kip1) in late PD cells. Besides, pine pollen reversed D-galactose-induced aging effects in neural activity and inflammatory cytokine levels, as indicated by improved memory latency time and reduced error rate in step-down test and decreased concentrations of IL-6 and TNF-α in model mice. Similar to the role of AGEs (advanced glycation endproducts) formation inhibitor aminoguanidine (AG), pine pollen inhibited D-galactose-induced increment of AGEs levels thus reversed the aging phenotypes in model mice. Furthermore, the declined antioxidant activity was obviously reversed upon pine pollen treatment, which may account for its inhibitory effect on nonenzymatic glycation (NEG) in vivo. Our finding presents pine pollen as an attractive agent with potential to retard aging and attenuate age-related diseases in humans.