Safety of Chuna Manipulation Therapy in 289,953 Patients with Musculoskeletal Disorders: A Retrospective Study.

Studies have reported that mild adverse events (AEs) are common after manual therapy and that there is a risk of serious injury. We aimed to assess the safety of Chuna manipulation therapy (CMT), a traditional manual Korean therapy, by analysing AEs in patients who underwent this treatment. Patients who received at least one session of CMT between December 2009 and March 2019 at 14 Korean medicine hospitals were included. Electronic patient charts and internal audit data obtained from situation report logs were retrospectively analysed. All data were reviewed by two researchers. The inter-rater agreement was assessed using the Cohen's kappa coefficient, and reliability analysis among hospitals was assessed using Cronbach's Alpha coefficient. In total, 2,682,258 CMT procedures were performed in 289,953 patients during the study period. There were 50 AEs, including worsened pain (n = 29), rib fracture (n = 11), falls during treatment (n = 6), chest pain (n = 2), dizziness (n = 1), and unpleasant feeling (n = 1). The incidence of mild to moderate AEs was 1.83 (95% confidence interval [CI] 1.36-2.39) per 100,000 treatment sessions, and that of severe AEs was 0.04 (95% CI 0.00-0.16) per 100,000 treatment sessions. Thus, AEs of any level of severity were very rare after CMT. Moreover, there were no instances of carotid artery dissection or spinal cord injury, which are the most severe AEs associated with manual therapy in other countries.

Development of transdermal vitamin D3 (VD3) delivery system using combinations of PLGA nanoparticles and microneedles.

Although vitamin D3 (VD3), which is the main form of vitamin D, can be produced in human skin under the sunlight, vitamin D deficiency emerged as a major public health problem worldwide. Mainly, oral supplements or vitamin D-fortified foods are distributed to help supplementation of vitamin D. However, those oral methods are limitedly supplied in the Middle East countries, and oral absorption has low efficiency due to many barriers and various changes of conditions along the route. Then, it is recommended to take them every day in order to maintain the adequate serum level of vitamin D. Alternatively, transdermal delivery system could provide a convenient way to get sustained supplement of vitamin D by its advantages like avoiding first-pass effect of the liver and providing release for long periods of time. In this study, we introduced transdermal delivery system for sustained vitamin D release using coating microneedles that easily pierce the skin layer with enough mechanical strength and allow the localization of drugs within the dermal region. According to the experimental results, poly (lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) successfully encapsulated VD3 as a nanoparticle form with appropriate properties for transdermal delivery such as size distribution, skin compatibility, and effective release of encapsulated compound. Finally, PVD3 layers coated on solid microneedles were completely dissolved into intradermal region in porcine skin model and revealed better performance for VD3 release into plasma compared to ointment base transdermal method.

Volatile fatty acid recovery by anaerobic fermentation from blue-green algae: Effect of pretreatment.

The aims of this study were to quantify how pretreatment affects production of volatile fatty acids (VFAs) from cyanobacterial biomass and production of subsequent microbial lipid by an oleaginous microorganism that uses the VFAs as carbon sources. The highest biomass solubilization was obtained using thermal-alkaline (th-alkaline) pretreatment (33.1%), followed by alkaline pretreatment (29.1%), and thermal pretreatment (7.2%), but the highest VFA yield was obtained using alkaline pretreatment (0.54±0.02g/gVS), followed by the untreated condition (0.47±0.03g/gVS), and th-alkaline pretreatment (0.44±0.02g/gVS). Although VFA yield was higher using alkaline pretreatment condition than in the untreated condition, the difference was not great. However, lipid productivity by Cryptococcus curvatus after the alkaline pretreatment condition was 2.0-fold higher than that under the untreated condition. This study confirmed the feasibility of using biologically produced VFAs from cyanobacterial biomass for microbial lipid production by the oleaginous microorganism.

Influence of temperature on volatile fatty acid production and microbial community structure during anaerobic fermentation of microalgae.

The objectives of this study were to investigate the effect of operating temperature on volatile fatty acids (VFAs) production from microalgal biomass, and to clarify the relationships between VFAs accumulation at different temperatures and the corresponding bacterial communities. The VFA yields were 0.10±0.017, 0.12±0.008, and 0.34±0.009 g/g VS at 35, 45, and 55 °C, respectively. The proportion of acetic acid decreased from 85.6% to 65.8% as operating temperature increased, whereas that of propionic acid increased from near 0% to 15.5% and that of iso-valeric acid remained relatively stable (10.2-11.2%). Bacterial communities at different operating temperatures consisted mostly of the phyla Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, and Firmicutes, which can degrade organic compounds effectively. Bacillus sp. was more predominant at 55 °C than at mesophilic temperatures, suggesting that this microorganism contributed significantly to the higher hydrolysis rate and VFA yield at this operating temperature.

Sensory characteristics and consumer acceptance of frozen cooked rice by a rapid freezing process compared to homemade and aseptic packaged cooked rice.

Descriptive analysis and consumer acceptance tests were conducted with frozen (FCR), homemade (HCR), and aseptic-packaged (ACR) cooked rice products from two cultivars-IM and SD. FCR was prepared using a rapid freezing process, which may provide consumers with a quality similar to that of HCR. The intensity of the flavors of roasted, glutinous rice, rice cake, and rice starch and the textures of glutinousness, moistness, chunkiness, adhesiveness, and squishiness were all greater in the FCR as compared to the HCR and ACR (p<0.05) in IM and SD cultivars. The differences in sensory characteristics between the FCR and ACR were larger than the equivalent differences between the FCR and HCR. Overall consumer acceptance ratings for FCR in overall aspect, appearance, aroma, and texture were not significantly different compared to those for HCR (p>0.05); however, in most cases these factors showed significant differences when compared with ACR (p<0.05). From partial least square regression analysis, cooked rice was positively related to sweet, transparency, glossiness, roasted, glutinousness, chunkiness, moistness, glutinous rice, adhesiveness, rice shape, rice starch, and squishiness attributes but negatively related to raw rice, old rice, old rice aroma, a particle feeling, off-aroma, white color, scatteredness, slickness, size of cooked rice, and firmness attributes.