[Causes and Countermeasures of Complications After Bariatric Surgery].

Roux-en-Y gastric bypass and laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy characterized by simple operation and few postoperative complications have gradually become the two most commonly used surgical methods in clinical practice.A series of complications often occur after bariatric surgery,including gallstone disease,anemia,malnutrition,gastroesophageal reflux disease,kidney stones,and birth defects in offspring of women of childbearing age.There are controversies regarding the causes and countermeasures of these complications.This article mainly reviews the risk factors and countermeasures for the complications after bariatric surgery.

[Expression of Cyclooxygenase-2 in Patients With Snow-White Sign of Advanced Colorectal Adenomas].

Objective To analyze the expression of cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) in the patients with snow-white sign of advanced colorectal adenoma (ACA) and explore its clinical significance.Method Western blotting was employed to determine the expression of COX-2 in the adenoma tissue and the normal tissue adjacent to the adenoma tissue (>5 cm away from the distal end of the adenoma tissue) of 40 ACA patients with snow-white sign and 40 ACA patients without snow-white sign.Results The appearance of snow-white sign in ACA patients was associated with patient age (P=0.001) and not associated with sex,smoking history,drinking history,ethnic groups,family history of colorectal cancer,abdominal pain,diarrhea,constipation,fecal occult blood,or tumor markers (all P>0.05).Snow-white sign mainly appeared in the ACA patients with multiple adenomas (P=0.004),large adenomas (P=0.006),adenomas in distal colon (P=0.015),protruding polyps (P=0.044),and late-stage pathology (P=0.010).The occurrence of snow-white sign showed no difference in the ACA patients with different results of Japan NBI Expert Team classification (P=0.502).The expression of COX-2 in the adenoma tissue was higher than that in the adjacent normal tissue in the patients with and without snow-white sign (P<0.001,P=0.004).The patients with snow-white sign had higher expression of COX-2 protein in the adenoma tissue than the patients without snow-white sign (P=0.001).The expression of COX-2 protein in the adjacent healthy tissue had no significant difference between the patients with and without snow-white sign (P=0.603).Conclusions Snow-white sign is more like to appear in the ACA patients with young age,multiple and large adenomas,adenomas in distal colon,protruding polyps,and late-stage pathology.Moreover,the expression of COX-2 in the ACA patients with snow-white sign is significantly higher than that in the ACA patients without snow-white sign.The adults with snow-white sign are prone to cancerization than those without snow-white sign.

Efficacy and Safety of Sevelamer Carbonate in Chinese Nondialysis Chronic Kidney Disease Patients with Hyperphosphatemia: A Randomized, Double-Blind, Parallel-Group Study.

Introduction: Previous studies suggested that sevelamer carbonate is well tolerated with a favorable efficacy and safety profile in both dialysis and nondialysis patients in Europe; however, the efficacy remains controversial, and few studies have examined sevelamer carbonate therapy in other ethnic nondialysis CKD patients. This study assessed the efficacy and safety of sevelamer carbonate in Chinese nondialysis CKD patients with hyperphosphatemia. Methods: The multicenter, randomized, double-blind, parallel-group, placebo-controlled, and phase 3 clinical trial enrolled 202 Chinese nondialysis CKD patients with serum phosphorus ≥1.78 mmol/L. Patients were randomly assigned 1:1 to receive sevelamer carbonate (2.4-12 g per day) or placebo for 8 weeks. The primary outcome was the change in serum phosphorous between baseline and week 8. Results: Totally 482 Chinese patients were screened and 202 were randomized (sevelamer carbonate, n = 101; placebo, n = 101). The mean serum phosphorous decreased significantly in patients treated with sevelamer carbonate compared with placebo (-0.22 ± 0.47 vs. 0.05 ± 0.44 mmol/L, p < 0.0001). Significantly (p < 0.0001), decreases of serum total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and calcium-phosphorus (Ca × P) product levels from baseline to week 8 were shown in sevelamer carbonate group compared with placebo group. Serum intact parathyroid hormone was not significantly changed in the sevelamer carbonate group (p = 0.83). Patients in the sevelamer carbonate group experienced similar adverse events as the placebo group. Conclusion: Sevelamer carbonate is an effective and well-tolerated phosphate binder in advanced nondialysis CKD Chinese patients with hyperphosphatemia.

Teeth U-Net: A segmentation model of dental panoramic X-ray images for context semantics and contrast enhancement.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: It is very significant in orthodontics and restorative dentistry that the teeth are segmented from dental panoramic X-ray images. Nevertheless, there are some problems in panoramic X-ray images of teeth, such as blurred interdental boundaries, low contrast between teeth and alveolar bone. METHODS: In this paper, The Teeth U-Net model is proposed in this paper to resolve these problems. This paper makes the following contributions: Firstly, a Squeeze-Excitation Module is utilized in the encoder and the decoder. And proposing a dense skip connection between encoder and decoder to reduce the semantic gap. Secondly, due to the irregular shape of the teeth and the low contrast of the dental panoramic X-ray images. A Multi-scale Aggregation attention Block (MAB) in the bottleneck layer is designed to resolve this problem, which can effectively extract teeth shape features and fuse multi-scale features adaptively. Thirdly, in order to capture dental feature information in a larger field of perception, this paper designs a Dilated Hybrid self-Attentive Block (DHAB) at the bottleneck layer. This module effectively suppresses the task-irrelevant background region information without increasing the network parameters. Finally, the effectiveness of the algorithm is validated using a clinical dental panoramic X-ray image datasets. RESULTS: The results of the three comparison experiments are shown that Accuracy, Precision, Recall, Dice, Volumetric Overlap Error and Relative Volume Difference for dental panoramic X-ray teeth segmentation are 98.53%, 95.62%, 94.51%, 94.28%, 88.92% and 95.97% by the proposed model respectively. CONCLUSION: The proposed modules complement each other in processing every detail of the dental panoramic X-ray images, which can effectively improve the efficiency of preoperative preparation and postoperative evaluation, and promote the application of dental panoramic X-ray in medical image segmentation. There are more accuracy about Teeth U-Net than others model in dental panoramic X-ray teeth segmentation. That is very important to clinical doctors to cure in orthodontics and restorative dentistry.

The potential of Lycium barbarum miR166a in kidney cancer treatment.

Predator species of animal can absorb plant microRNA that can regulate target gene expression and physiological function across species. The herb Lycium barbarum, a traditional Chinese medicine, has a wide range of antitumor effects. However, there are no reports on the effects of microRNA derived from it on the cross-border regulation of renal cell carcinoma (RCC). We performed in vitro and in vivo experiments to explore the role and mechanism of the L. barbarum-derived microRNA miR166a (Lb-miR166a) in cross-border regulation of RCC. Our mRNA sequencing analysis showed that Lb-miR166a regulates the expression of various genes in tumor cells, including 1232 upregulated genes and 581 downregulated genes, which were enriched to 1094 Gene Ontology entries and 43 Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes pathways. In vitro cell experiments confirmed that Lb-miR166a can inhibit the proliferation of RCC cells, promote the apoptosis of tumor cells, and inhibit the invasion and metastasis of tumor cells by regulating the expression of related genes. Furthermore, our in vivo tumor-bearing experiment showed that subcutaneous tumor formation volume decreased in Lb-miR166a mice, along with the number of liver metastases. This study elucidates the role and mechanism of Lb-miR166a in RCC treatment (Fig. 1). Our results further mechanistically confirm the antitumor properties of L. barbarum. Our study may contribute to the clinical development of a targeted drug for RCC treatment.

The influence of prostate volume on clinical parameters in prostate cancer screening.

PURPOSE: The purpose of the study was to evaluate the diagnostic significance of two new and a few clinical markers for prostate cancer (PCa) at various prostate volumes (PV). METHODS: The study subjects were divided into two groups. Among them, there were 70 cases in the PV ≤30 ml group (benign prostatic hyperplasia [BPH]: 32 cases, PCa: 38 cases) and 372 cases in the PV > 30 ml group (BPH: 277 cases, PCa: 95 cases). SPSS 26.0 and GraphPad Prism 8.0 were used to construct their receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves for diagnosing PCa and calculating their area under the ROC curve (AUC). RESULTS: In the PV ≤30 ml group, the diagnostic parameters based on prostate-specific antigen (PSA) had a decreased diagnostic significance for PCa. In the PV > 30 ml group, PSAD (AUC = 0.709), AVR (AVR = Age/PV, AUC = 0.742), and A-PSAD (A-PSAD = Age×PSA/PV, AUC = 0.736) exhibited moderate diagnostic significance for PCa, which was better than PSA-AV (AUC = 0.672), free PSA (FPSA, AUC = 0.509), total PSA (TPSA, AUC = 0.563), (F/T) PSA (AUC = 0.540), and (F/T)/PSAD (AUC = 0.663). Compared with AVR, A-PSAD exhibited similar diagnostic significance for PCa, but higher than PSA density (PSAD). CONCLUSIONS: Choosing appropriate indicators for different PVs could contribute to the early screening and diagnosis of PCa. The difference in the diagnostic value of two new indicators (A-PSAD and AVR), and PSAD for PCa may require further validation by increasing the sample size.

Performance evaluation of a laboratory-developed light-initiated chemiluminescence assay for quantification of egg white-specific IgE.

BACKGROUND: Specific IgE (sIgE) testing has become one of the most important tools for diagnosing IgE-mediated food allergy. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and dot-enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (Dot-ELISA) have been used to measure sIgE in clinical widely. Light-initiated chemiluminescence assay (LICA) is a new method for measuring allergen-sIgE. We aimed to establish a LICA method for quantitative detection of egg white-sIgE and evaluate its performances. METHODS: The best chemibeads coupling method in detecting egg white-sIgE was selected, and a LICA method for quantitative detection of egg white-sIgE was established. The precision study was performed according to Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) EP5-A2. Detection capability which contains limit of blank (LoB), limit of detection (LoD), and limit of quantitation (LoQ) was evaluated according to National Health Commission of the People's Republic of China (NHC) WS/T 514-2017. Linear range was evaluated according to CLSI EP6-A. All data were analyzed using SPSS software. RESULTS: Precision contains repeatability and intermediate precision. The CV of repeatability ranged from 2.72% to 7.29%, and the CV of intermediate precision ranged from 4.93% to 8.64%. The LoB, LoD, and LoQ of the assay were 0.000 kUA/L, 0.053 kUA/L, and 0.076 kUA/L. The assay linear range was 0.076-34.125 kUA /L (r = 0.9979 ≥ 0.9900). CONCLUSION: This laboratory-developed LICA method can detect egg white-sIgE, and performance meets clinical requirements. This method shows rapid turnaround cycles and high sensitivity. It can be used as an alternative method for clinical detection of egg white-sIgE.

Study on the Role and Mechanism of LncRNA ZFasL in Renal Carcinoma.

Background: Renal carcinoma is the 7th most common cancer in the world, with the 7th and 6th highest incidence and mortality rates worldwide. Although great progress has been made in the diagnosis and treatment of renal carcinoma, its prognosis is still unsatisfactory. It is important to study the molecular mechanisms of renal carcinoma occurrence and development and to find potential therapeutic targets. Objective: The main objective is to investigate the effects of long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) ZFAS1 (lncZFAS1) on the proliferation, apoptosis, and migration of renal carcinoma cells and to preliminarily explore its mechanism. Methods: A qRT-PCR method was used to detect the expression of lncZFAS1 in renal carcinoma tissues and renal carcinoma cells. After shRNA interference with lncZFAS1 expression, the effects of lncZFAS1 on cell proliferation, apoptosis, migration, and invasion were detected by CCK-8 method, flow cytometry, scratch test, and Transwell assay. The effect of the knockdown of lncZFAS1 on the growth of transplanted tumors was examined. The expression of lncZFAS1 in renal carcinoma tissues and renal carcinoma cells was significantly higher than that in paracancerous tissues and normal esophageal epithelial cells. Knockdown of lncZFAS1 significantly inhibited the proliferation, migration, and invasive ability of renal carcinoma cells; upregulated miR-150-5P expression and downregulated HMGA2 expression in renal carcinoma cells; and significantly inhibited the growth of transplanted tumors in nude mice. Conclusion: Upregulation of miR-150-5P expression was detected after knockdown of lncZFAS1 in renal carcinoma cells, while both mRNA and protein expression levels of HMGA2 were decreased. lncZFAS1 can promote the proliferation and migration of renal carcinoma cells, and the mechanism may be related to the regulation of the miR-150-5P/HMGA2 molecular axis.

Clinical research analysis based on prostate cancer screening diagnosis.

This study aimed to analyse the clinical characteristics and risk factors of patients with positive prostate biopsy at 4-20 ng/mL of prostate-specific antigen (PSA), construct a new parameter based on this characteristics and assess its diagnostic value for prostate cancer (PCa). Logistic regression analysis was used to clarify the risk factors of PCa, and a new parameter based on the results was constructed. Compare the diagnostic value of various diagnostic parameters for PCa. Logistic multivariate regression analysis revealed that age (OR, 5.269; 95%CI, 2.762-10.050), comorbid diabetes (OR, 2.437; 95%CI, 1.162-5.111), PSA (OR, 2.462; 95%CI, 1.198-5.059) and prostate volume (PV) (OR, 0.227; 95%CI, 0.100-0.516) are risk factors for PCa. The age, PSA and PV of patients were combined to construct a new parameter, that is A-PSAD = (age × total PSA [TPSA])/PV]. The area under the receiver-operating characteristic curve(AUC) of A-PSAD (0.728) for PCa diagnosis was higher than the AUCs of TPSA (0.581), free prostate-specific antigen (0.514), (F/T)PSA (0.535) and PSAD (0.696), with significant differences. Age, history of diabetes, TPSA and PV are risk factors for PCa(PSA:4-20ng/mL); in addition, A-PSAD has a moderate diagnostic value for PCa and may become a new indicator for PCa screening.

A brief review and case report of urothelial carcinoma and metachronous leiomyosarcoma of the bladder at the same anatomic region.

One patient with bladder leiomyosarcoma and urothelial carcinoma is very rare. Only 10 cases have been reported in the literature. A 70-year-old patient was admitted due to bladder tumor. Two TURBTs were performed confirming the patient was free of tumor, and pathology reported low-grade urothelial carcinoma. Three years later, a tumor was also found on the right anterolateral wall of urinary bladder and was diagnosed as leiomyosarcoma by pathological examination. Radical cystectomy was performed. With 45 months follow-up, the patient has no recurrence. Two malignancies in the same anatomic region at different time has never been reported to date.

The influence of age on prostate cancer screening index.

PURPOSE: This study aimed to identify parameters with a higher diagnostic value for early screening of prostate cancer (PCa) at different ages. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 294 patients were included and divided into two groups according to the age of patients (≤66 and >66 years). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves of total prostate-specific antigen (TPSA), free PSA (FPSA), (F/T)PSA, PSA density (PSAD), PSA-AV score, the ratio of patients' age to prostate volume (AVR) and (F/T)/PSAD were constructed. The area under the ROC curve (AUC) was calculated, and differences in the AUC values among the above-mentioned parameters were compared. RESULTS: There were 121 patients in the ≤66 years age group (benign prostatic hyperplasia BPH, 103 patients; PCa 18 patients) and 173 patients in the >66 years age group (BPH, 100 patients; PCa, 73 patients). In the ≤66 years age group, the AUC value of AVR for PCa diagnosis was the highest; however, there was no statistically significant difference compared with the AUC values of PSAD and (F/T)/PSAD; compared with TPSA, FPSA, (F/T)PSA and PSA-AV, the differences were statistically significant. In the >66 years age group, the AUC values of PSAD and PSA-AV for PCa diagnosis were higher than those of TPSA, FPSA, (F/T)PSA and (F/T)/PSAD, and the difference was statistically significant; however, the difference was not statistically significant when compared with the AUC value of AVR. CONCLUSION: In different age groups, screening indices for PCa diagnosis should be selected according to the age of patients.

The predictive value of the ratio of the product of neutrophils and hemoglobin to lymphocytes in non-muscular invasive bladder cancer patients with postoperative recurrence.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to explore the predictive value of the ratio of the product of neutrophils and hemoglobin to lymphocytes (NHL) in patients with non-muscular invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC). MATERIALS AND METHODS: We retrospectively collected clinical and pathological data of patients with NMIBC who underwent transurethral resection of bladder tumor (TURBT) at our hospital between 2013 and 2018. The ratio of neutrophils to lymphocytes (NLR), the Systemic Immune Inflammation Index (SII), and NHL were obtained based on routine blood settlement within a week before surgery. The receiver operating characteristic curve was used to determine the optimal cutoff value of each index, and different groups were grouped accordingly. Kaplan-Meier survival curve and Cox regression model were used to study the factors affecting the prognosis of NMIBC patients. RESULTS: There was significant difference in recurrence-free survival (RFS) rate between the high NLR group and the low NLR group, the high SII group and the low SII group, and the high NHL group and the low NHL group. Cox univariate regression analysis showed that tumor number, tumor size, tumor pathological grade, tumor pathological stage, NLR, SII, and NHL were related to postoperative RFS in patients with NMIBC. The tumor number, tumor pathological grade, SII, and NHL were independent predictors of RFS in multivariate analysis. CONCLUSIONS: The preoperative clinical inflammatory indexes NLR, SII, and NHL have certain predictive value for postoperative RFS in NMIBC patients.

The meta-analysis of the effect of 68Ga-PSMA-PET/CT diagnosis of prostatic cancer compared with bone scan.

BACKGROUND: 68Ga-PSMA-PET/CT (positron emission tomography/computed tomography) is a promising method for prostate cancer (PC) detection. However, the ability of 68Ga-PSMA-PET/CT to detect malignant bone lesions, and whether this method is superior to the existing bone imaging methods are still lack of systematic analysis. PURPOSE: To evaluate the value of 68Ga-PSMA-PET/CT and bone scan in clinical diagnosis of prostatic cancer from the perspective of evidence-based medicine. METHODS: PubMed, The Cochrane Library, EMBASE, Springer Link, Sinomed, CNKI, Wanfang database, and CQVIP database were searched to find the satisfactory studies that needed systematic review of trials and compared the value of 68Ga-PSMA-PET/CT and bone scan. All studies published from inception to March 31, 2020. According to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 2 reviewers independently evaluated and extracted the literature. Review Manager 5.3 was applied to evaluate the included literature quality. The heterogeneity of the included literature was tested by Meta Disc 1.4, and the effect model was selected according to the heterogeneity test results, and the sensitivity (SEN), specificity (SPE), PLR, NLR and diagnostic odds ratio (DOR) were analyzed. After testing the heterogeneity results of literature by using the 95% confidence interval and the forest map. RESULTS: A total of 4 studies were eligible for inclusion in the meta-analysis, which included 318 patients, 120 cases with bone metastasis and 198 cases without bone metastasis. The results of summary evaluation for 68Ga-PSMA-PET/CT and bone scan in diagnosis of prostatic cancer as follow respectively: The SEN were 0.97 and 0.86; the SPE were 1.00 and 0.87; the DOR were 1468.33 and 36.23; PLR were 88.45 and 6.67; NLR were 0.05 and 0.19; and the area under curve (AUC) and 95% CI were 0.9973 (1.0000-0.9927) and 0.8838 (0.9584-0.8092). CONCLUSION: By comparing the diagnostic results of 68Ga-PSMA-PET/CT and bone scan imaging diagnosis methods, the 68Ga-PSMA-PET/CT has a higher SEN and SPE than bone scan, and it has a higher diagnostic efficiency for prostate cancer bone metastasis, which is worthy of clinical application.

Pooled analysis of the efficacy and safety of intraoperative dexmedetomidine on postoperative catheter-related bladder discomfort.

OBJECTIVES: The goal of the pooled analysis was to demonstrate the efficacy and safety of intraoperative dexmedetomidine in postoperative catheter-related bladder discomfort (CRBD). METHODS: MEDLINE, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, and the Excerpta Medica Database (Embase) were used to pick out randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that used intraoperative dexmedetomidine in postoperative CRBD. This study was carried out using the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and pooled analysis. We used RevMan version 5.3.0. to analyze the data. RESULTS: Seven RCTs involving 607 patients were brought into in the analysis. The incidence of CRBD and the incidence of moderate to severe CRBD were assessed at 0 hours, 0.5 or 1 hour, 2 or 3 hours, 6 hours, and 12 or 24 hours postoperatively. The analysis proved that both the incidence of CRBD (P < .00001) and the incidence of moderate to severe CRBD had a statistically significant reduction at 0 hours, 0.5 or 1 hours, 2 or 3 hours, and 6 hours postoperatively (P < .00001, P <.00001, P <.00001, P = .003, respectively). The postoperative pain score was lower in the dexmedetomidine group at 0 hours (P < .00001) and 1 hour (P = .002). Safety assessments indicated that there were no statistical differences between dexmedetomidine and control for side effects, mainly including dry mouth (P = .99) and postoperative vomiting and nausea (P = .77). CONCLUSIONS: The pooled analysis demonstrates that intraoperative dexmedetomidine administration decreases the rate and severity of early postoperative CRBD without causing significant side effects.

Reactive Sintering of Cu Nanoparticles at Ambient Conditions for Printed Electronics.

A new approach is presented to overcome the disadvantages of oxidation and harsh sintering conditions of Cu nanoparticle (Cu NP) conductive inks simultaneously. In this process, oleylamine (OAM) adsorbed on particles was effectively eliminated via the reactive desorption by formic acid in alcohols; meanwhile, Cu ion was generated on the surface. The desorption of OAM resulted in more severe surface oxidation of Cu NPs. The oxide (Cu2O) and Cu2+ distributed on the Cu NP surface could be reduced to Cu(0) by NaBH4 solution and take on the role of soldering flux to weld particles into a blocky structure. With the compact coalescence of particles without oxides, the resistivity of metal patterns could fall below 20 µΩ·cm and exhibit proper adhesion. Thanks to the sintering of Cu NPs at ambient conditions, the conductive patterns could be facilely formed on thermosensitive substrates. As the oxide state of Cu would be reduced during sintering, the partially oxidized Cu nanoparticles could be directly applied to conductive inks.

The efficacy and safety of Vibegron in treating overactive bladder: A systematic review and pooled analysis of randomized controlled trials.

OBJECTIVE: Vibegron is a new kind of ß3-adrenergic receptor agonist. We performed a systematic review and pooled analysis to assess the efficacy, safety, and tolerability of Vibegron for treating overactive bladder (OAB). METHODS: MEDLINE, the Cochrane Controlled Trial Register and EMBASE were used to pick out randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of Vibegron in treating OAB. The reference lists of the retrieved articles were also studied. We used RevMan version 5.3.0. to analyze the data. RESULTS: Three high-quality RCTs involving a total of 2120 OAB patients were adopted in the systematic review and pooled analysis. The mean number of micturitions episodes/d (mean difference [MD] = -0.77; 95% confidence interval [CI] = -1.0 to -0.55; P < .00001); the mean number of urgency episodes/d (MD = -0.77; 95% CI = -1.03 to -0.52; P < .00001); mean number of urgency incontinence episodes/d (MD = -0.50; 95% CI = -0.64 to -0.35; P < .00001); mean number of incontinence episodes/d (MD = -0.45; 95% CI = -0.66 to -0.25; P < .0001); and mean volume voided/micturition (MD = 22.22; 95% CI = 17.36 to 27.07, P < .00001) showed that Vibegron was more efficacy in treating OAB than placebo. Dry mouth, drug-related treatment-emergent adverse event (TEAE), serious adverse event (SAE), and discontinuations due to adverse event (AE) suggested that Vibegron was well tolerated. CONCLUSIONS: Our systematic review and pooled analysis demonstrate that Vibegron 75 mg or 100 mg/d statistically significant improved OAB symptoms. The treatment was well-tolerated, with a favorable safety profile.

Raw garlic consumption is inversely associated with prehypertension in a large-scale adult population.

Previous studies have shown that allicin can lower blood pressure (BP) by reducing oxidative stress and inflammation. However, the association between habitual raw garlic intake (as allicin source) and prehypertension are unclear. The aim of this study was to investigate how raw garlic consumption is associated with prehypertension in an adult population. A cross-sectional study was conducted with 22,812 adults (mean [standard deviation] age: 39.4 [10.7] years; males, 47.7%) in Tianjin, China. Raw garlic consumption was assessed using a validated food frequency questionnaire. BP was measured at least twice by trained nurses using an automatic device. Prehypertension was defined as systolic BP of 120-139 mmHg and/or diastolic BP of 80-89 mmHg without taking antihypertensive medication. Multiple logistic regression models were used to assess the association between raw garlic consumption and prehypertension. The prevalence of prehypertension was 49.9%. After fully adjusting for potential confounders, the ORs (95% confidence intervals) of having prehypertension by increasing frequency of raw garlic consumption were 1.00 (reference) for ≤3 times/week, 0.96 (0.87, 1.06) for 4 times/week to 1 time/day, and 0.69 (0.52, 0.90) for ≥2 times/day (p for trend = 0.06). In contrast, no associations were observed between other kinds of allium vegetables consumption and prehypertension. In conclusion, our results suggested that a more frequent consumption of raw garlic was inversely associated with prehypertension. This is the first large-scale study on the association between raw garlic consumption and prehypertension in the general population.

Association between dietary raw garlic intake and newly diagnosed nonalcoholic fatty liver disease: a population-based study.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: The protective effect of garlic against nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) has been reported in animal studies. However, in humans, the association between garlic consumption and NAFLD is unclear. The study sought to explore the association between habitual raw garlic intake and newly diagnosed NAFLD among Chinese adults. METHODS: We performed a study of 11,326 men and 12,780 women aged 20-90 years. Habitual food intake was assessed using a validated and standardized 100-item food frequency questionnaire. Diagnosis of NAFLD was based on the liver ultrasonography and self-reported alcohol intake. Multiple logistic regression was used to evaluate the association of raw garlic intake with newly diagnosed NAFLD. RESULTS: The prevalence of newly diagnosed NAFLD was 28.9% in men and 10.1% in women, respectively. In men, the fully adjusted odds ratios (95% confidence interval) of having NAFLD across increasing frequency of raw garlic intake were 1.00 (reference) for <1 time/week, 0.81 (0.73, 0.90) for 1-3 times/week, 0.66 (0.54, 0.80) for 4-6 times/week, and 0.71 (0.55, 0.90) for ≥7 times/week (P for trend <0.0001). The odds ratio for NAFLD associated with each 1 g of raw garlic/1000 kcal was 0.93 (0.90, 0.97) in men. In women, no significant association between raw garlic intake and NAFLD was identified. These associations between raw garlic intake and NAFLD were consistent in several sensitivity analyses. CONCLUSIONS: Frequent consumption of raw garlic is inversely associated with NAFLD in Chinese men. Further investigations are needed to confirm this finding.

Raw orange intake is associated with higher prevalence of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease in an adult population.

OBJECTIVES: Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is one of the most common public health issues worldwide. Oranges are the most popular fruit consumed in the world. Admittedly, flavonoids in oranges act as antioxidants and improve liver steatosis. However, oranges also are rich in fructose, which is a risk factor in the progress of NAFLD. Therefore, we hypothesize that orange intake may be a double-edged sword in the development of NAFLD. To our knowledge, there currently is little evidence of the effect of dietary orange intake on NAFLD. The aim of this study was to investigate how orange intake is related to NAFLD in a general adult population. METHODS: We randomly recruited 27,214 adults into the Tianjin Chronic Low-Grade Systemic Inflammation and Health Cohort Study. NAFLD was diagnosed by liver ultrasonography. Raw orange intake was assessed by a validated self-administered food frequency questionnaire. Multiple logistic regression analysis was used to evaluate the association between orange intake and the prevalence of NAFLD. RESULTS: There was a 27.18% prevalence of NAFLD among the participants. Consumption of orange was positively associated with the prevalence of NAFLD after adjustment for all potential confounding factors (Ptrend = 0.04). The odds ratios (95% confidence interval) of the categories of orange intake in the NAFLD were 1.00 (reference) for less than once per week, 1.02 (0.95-1.11) for 1 to 6 times per week, and 1.17 (1.03-1.33) for ≥7 times per week, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: The present study demonstrated that orange intake is positively associated with the prevalence of NAFLD.