Preseason drought controls on patterns of spring phenology in grasslands of the Mongolian Plateau.

Climate change has led to frequent drought events on the Mongolian Plateau; however, the pattern of preseason drought impacts on the start of the growing season (SOS) in grasslands is unclear. To determine how preseason drought controls the SOS in Mongolian Plateau grasslands, we quantitatively studied the sensitivity characteristics of the standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index-3 (SPEI-3) to the SOS and spatiotemporal differences based on meteorological and remote sensing datasets. The results show that: 1) in the past 34 years, the regions with a trend for earlier SOS in Mongolian Plateau grasslands were mainly distributed in the typical steppe region, accounting for 30% of the total area, while 13% of the pixels showed a delayed trend, mainly occurring in desert steppes, and the remaining 57% of the pixels did not show a significant change (P < 0.05); 2) preseason drought had an obvious inhibitory effect on grassland SOS, especially on typical steppes; 3) according to the SPEI-3, in the Mongolian Plateau grasslands, the SOS was advanced by 11 days when the SPEI-3 < 0.63, but the SOS was delayed by 3 days when the SPEI-3 > 0.63; and 4) the sensitivity of the SOS to preseason drought significantly decreased from 1982 to 2015 in Mongolian Plateau grasslands. Our results can be used to improve the interpretation of the SOS response to drought in the land surface model.

Study on the mechanism of the water extraction of Mongolian medicine Carthami flos in the treatment of chronic alcoholic liver injury based on metabonomics / 国际中医中药杂志

Objective:To explore the mechanism of the extraction of Carthami flos in the treatment of chronic alcoholic liver injury based on metabolomics. Methods:The rats were randomly divided into normal group, model group, positive control group and low, medium and high dose groups of the extraction of Carthami flos, with 10 rats in each group. In addition to the normal group, the other groups were gavaged with 8 ml/kg of 56° Niulanshan Baijiu to prepare the rat model with chronic alcoholic liver injury. After the successful modeling, the positive control group was gavaged with 0.36 mg/kg of Hugan tablet, and the low, medium and high dose groups were gavaged with 0.476 7, 1.430 1 and 4.290 3 g/kg of the extraction of Carthami flos respectively, once a day for 21 days. The contents of GPT, GOT, TG and ALP2 in serum were detected by automatic biochemical analyzer, and the effects of the extraction of Carthami flos on chronic alcoholic liver injury in rats were analyzed by Ultra High Performance Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (UPLC-MS), cluster analysis, Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Orthogonal Partial Least Squares Discriminant Analysis (OPLS-DA). Results:The levels of GPT [(42.11±6.58)U/L, (42.38±6.58)U/L vs. (49.96±10.70)U/L] and GOT [(104.81±14.70)U/L, (102.91±23.65)U/L vs. (159.66±53.69)U/L] decreased ( P<0.05 or P<0.01), while the levels of TG [(0.85±0.29)U/L, (0.85±0.23)U/L vs.(0.62±0.21)U/L] and ALP2 [(104.53±13.53)U/L, (100.30±17.28)U/L vs.(77.13±12.54)U/L] increased ( P<0.05 or P<0.01); The results of cluster analysis, PCA and OPLS-DA showed that the model group and the high-dose group of the extraction of Carthami flos could be distinguished obviously. A total of 20 chemical markers were obtained in the serum of rats with chronic alcoholic liver injury treated with the extraction of Carthami flos. Among them, the extraction of Carthami flos can down regulate the level of serum linolenic acid triglyceride in rats with chronic alcoholic liver injury and up regulate triglyceride, palmitic acid, lysophosphatidylcholine, palmitoyl ethanolamide, epinephrine, sphingosine, lysophosphingomyelin α-Linolenic acid, docosahexaenoic acid and eicosapentaenoic acid are 10 endogenous metabolites. Conclusion:The treatment of chronic alcoholic liver injury with the extraction of Carthami flos may be related to the regulation of endogenous metabolites docosahexadilute acid, docosapentadilute acid α- Linolenic acid.

Therapeutic effects of enteral nutrition support combined with rehabilitation therapy in senile dementia patients with malnutrition / 中华老年医学杂志

Objective To investigate changes in nutritional status in senile dementia patients with malnutrition treated with enteral nutrition combined with rehabilitation therapy evaluated by using the Mini Nutritional Assessment-Short Form(MNA-SF).Methods Fifty hospitalized patients with senile dementia and malnutrition at the internal medicine department of our hospital from July 2014 to July 2017 were enrolled and further divided into an enteral nutrition group(a control group,n =25)and an enteral nutrition combined with rehabilitation therapy group(an observation group,n=25).Anthropometric parameters including body mass index,biceps circumference,calf circumference,triceps skin-fold thickness,and blood biochemical parameters including hemoglobin,total cholesterol,triacylglycerol,albumin,lymphocyte count before and after treatment were compared between the groups.Results Anthropometric parameters such as body mass index,biceps circumference,calf circumference and triceps skin-fold thickness had no significant difference between the two groups before treatment (P ＞ 0.05),while after 30 days of treatment,anthropometric parameters saw improvement in both groups compared with those before treatment,and the improvement was greater in the observation group than in the control group(P ＜0.01).Blood biochemical parameters had no significant difference between the two groups before treatment(P＞0.05).After 30 days of treatment,levels of total cholesterol and triacylglycerol had no significant difference compared with those before treatment or between the two groups(P ＞0.05),while levels of hemoglobin,albumin and lymphocyte count improved compared with those before treatment (t =2.645,2.843,2.967,respectively,P ＜0.01),and had significant differences between the groups (t =2.548,2.864,2.976,respectively,P＜0.01).Conclusions Enteral nutrition combined with rehabilitation therapy has a measurable,positive influence on nutritional status in senile dementia patients with malnutrition.