OBJECTIVETo observe the clinical effects of acupuncture method of "Huoxue Sanfeng, Shugan Jianpi" (activating blood and eliminating wind, soothing liver and strengthening spleen) on morning blood pressure in patients with cerebral infraction combined with essential hypertension.

METHODSSixty-eight patients were randomly divided into an observation group and a control group, 34 cases in each one. The patients in the two groups were treated with acupuncture method of "Xingnao Kaiqiao" (consciousness-restoring resuscitation) and oral administration of nifedipine. In addition, patients in the observation group were treated with acupuncture method of "Huoxue Sanfeng, Shugan Jianpi" that met the criteria of standard manipulation, in which bilateral Renying (ST 9), Quchi (LI 11), Hegu (LI 4), Zusanli (ST 36) and Taichong (LR 3) were selected. The treatment was given once a day, five times a week, for totally six weeks. The improvement and control rate of morning blood pressure in the two groups were observed.

RESULTS(1) After treatment, the morning blood pressures were decreased significantly in the two groups (all P < 0.05); after 15 treatments, the reduction of systolic pressure and diastolic pressure in the observation group was superior to that in the control group, but the difference was not significant (both P > 0.05); after 30 treatments, the reduction of systolic pressure and diastolic pressure in the observation group was significantly superior to that in the control group (both P < 0.05). (2) After 30 treatments, the control rate of morning blood pressure in the observation group was significantly higher than that in the control group [82.4% (28/34) vs 58.8% (20/34), P < 0.05].

CONCLUSIONAcupuncture method of "Huoxue Sanfeng, Shugan Jianpi", characterized with standard manipulation criteria, can effectively control morning blood pressure in patients with cerebral infraction combined with essential hypertension.

Acupuncture Points ; Acupuncture Therapy ; Adult ; Aged ; Blood Pressure ; Cerebral Infarction ; physiopathology ; therapy ; Essential Hypertension ; Female ; Humans ; Hypertension ; physiopathology ; therapy ; Liver ; physiopathology ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Spleen ; physiopathology ; Treatment Outcome

Objective To compare the energy expenditure of a hemicorporectomy amputee moving with different mobility devices. Methods A middle-aged male hemicorporectomy amputee was measured with cardiopulmonary exercise test when moving with 4 kinds of transport: socket, cart, wheelchair, and prosthesis. Results The patient moved the slowest with prosthesis, fastest with wheelchair. The heart rate was the highest with prosthesis and lowest with cart. The absolute oxygen consumption, the relative volume of oxygen consumption and metabolic (Mets) were the most when hand walking with socket, and lowest with cart. Conclusion Hand walking with socket costs the largest energy when walking, and the rest are prosthesis, wheelchair, and cart.

The low-risk mild hypertension constitutes a considerable proportion in hypertension. Through searching CNKI, Wanfang database, VIP database and PubMed database, literature during the last 10 years was collected and reviewed. It was indicated that excessive diagnosis, insufficient evidence of drug treatment, and poor drug adherence existed in low-risk mild hypertension, however, acupuncture at Renying (ST 9) and other therapies had remarkable effects. This paper mainly expounded the diagnosis and treatment status of low-risk mild hypertension as well as the research summary of acupuncture for low-risk mild hypertension.
Acupuncture Points ; Acupuncture Therapy ; trends ; Humans ; Hypertension ; therapy ; PubMed ; statistics & numerical data

Objective To describe the self-management behaviors and self-efficacy in patients with chronic low back pain (CLBP) and to explore the relationship between them. Methods The Chronic Disease Self-Management Study Measures and the Chronic Disease Self-Efficacy Scale were used to investigate a total of 113 patients with chronic low back pain. Results The average score of self-management behavior of CLBP patients was 21.42 ± 8.11. The average time for exercise was (168.72 ± 148.97) min/week;the average level of cognitive symptoms management practice and communication with physicians were 1.70 ± 0.74 and 2.10 ± 1.05 respectively. The self-efficacy was achieved the average level of 7.10 ± 1.88. There was a positive and significant correlation between the self-management behaviors and self-efficacy (P<0.05 or 0.01). Conclusions The self-management behaviors among patients with chronic low back pain was poor and was related with self-efficacy. Individualized health education was needed for improving self-efficacy, which would be benefit for self-management behaviors.

Objective To observe the clinical efficacy of warm needling in treating chronic prostatitis due to kidney-yang deficiency.Method Seventy-eight patients with chronic prostatitis due to kidney-yang deficiency were randomized into a treatment group of 40 cases and a control group of 38 cases. The treatment group was intervened by warm needling, while the control group was by oral administration of Terazosin hydrochloride tablets. The National Institutes of Health Chronic Prostatitis Symptom Index (NIH-CPSI) and white blood cell (WBC) count in prostatic fluid were observed before and after treatment, and the clinical efficacies were compared.Result The total effective rate was 92.5% in the treatment group versus 76.3% in the control group, and the difference was statistically significant (P<0.05). The NIH-CPSI scores and WBC counts were significantly changed in both groups after treatment (P<0.05). After treatment, the NIH-CPSI score of the treatment group was significantly different from that of the control group (P<0.05). There was no significant difference in comparing the WBC count between the two groups after treatment (P>0.05).Conclusion Warm needling is an effective approach in treating chronic prostatitis due to kidney-yang deficiency.

To understand the personality characteristics and temperament type of medical students in Xi'an Jiao tong University,and to provide scientific evidence for their targeted mental intervention by analyzing graphs about Eysenck personality questionnaire revised in China.,310 medical students were investigated by using EPQ(adult version).We found that there were more male students with typical psychoticism personality than female students with the same personality,and there was statistical significant difference in the distribution of the type of temperament between male and female students.Medical students with stable personality probably accounted for two-thirds of the total.Female students were mainly manifested unstable personality with extraversion,while male students were unstable introvents.In future we should take targeted psychological intervention measures.We are supposed to focus on each student's personality characteristic,temperament type and other specific conditions for a variety of education.

Neural prosthesis control system is based on brain-computer interface and functional electrical stimulation technology, by an-alyzing the electroencephalograph control commands directly into the muscle system or an external device, which compensated efferent pathway from the brain-spinal cord, and recovered motor function of patients with cervical spinal cord injury. This paper described the basic structure, working principle and key technology of neural prosthetic system, summarized the application, problems and prospects of neural prosthetic technology in the rehabilitation of cervical spinal cord injury.

Objective To investigate the effect of adenovirus-mediated IL-24 (Ad-IL-24)gene expression on the apoptosis in a human squamous cell carcinoma cell line COLO 16, and to explore the underlying molecular mechanism. Methods Cultured COLO 16 cells were divided into two groups to be transfected with an adenovirus vector carrying the IL-24 gene (Ad-IL-24 group)or green fluorescent protein (Ad-GFP group), while those receiving no treatment served as the control group. After culture for different durations, qPCR was performed to quantify IL-24 gene expression, methyl thiazolyl tetrazolium (MTT) assay to evaluate the proliferative activity of COLO 16 cells, flow cytometry to detect the apoptosis of COLO 16 cells, laser scanning confocal microscopy (LSCM) to observe the morphological changes of COLO 16 cells, Western blot to determine the levels of Bax and Bcl-2 proteins and to evaluate the activation of caspase-3, qPCR to determine the levels of Bax and Bcl-2 mRNAs, an immunofluorescence assay to observe the expression of Bax and Bcl-2 proteins. Statistical analysis was carried out by a two-sample t-test with the SPSS 19.0 software. Results MTT assay showed that the proliferation of COLO 16 cells in the Ad-IL-24 group was significantly inhibited as early as 4 days after the transfection; thereafter, the inhibitory effect increased in a time-dependent manner, and peaked on day 6(P<0.05). However, there was no significant difference in cellular proliferative activity between the Ad-GFP group and control group (P>0.05). Flow cytometry revealed that the apoptosis rate was significantly higher in the Ad-IL-24 group(13.10%± 0.92%)than in the control group(3.69%± 0.36%, P<0.05)and Ad-GFP group(3.39%± 1.06%, P<0.05), but no significant difference was observed between the control group and Ad-GFP group (P>0.05). LSCM demonstrated that the apoptosis of COLO 16 cells was accelerated in the Ad-IL-24 group. The immunofluorescence assay, Western blot and qPCR all showed that the mRNA and protein expressions of Bax were increased, but those of Bcl-2 were decreased in the Ad-IL-24 group compared with the Ad-GFP group and control group. Moreover, Western blot showed a protein band that could specifically bind to the anti-cleaved caspase-3 antibody in the Ad-IL-24 group, but not in the Ad-GFP group or control group. Conclusions Ad-IL-24 can induce apoptosis in human COLO 16 squamous cell carcinoma cells, probably by up-regulating Bax expression, down-regulating Bcl-2 expression, and activating caspase 3.

Objective To explore the significance in judging the different clinical stages of relapsing polychondritis (RP) patients through examining the changes of aggrecanase and metabolic fragments of aggrecan.MethodsIn comparison with the control group (20 cases),40 patients were divided into the stable stage group (22 cases) and the active stage group (18 cases).The aggrecanase-generated neoeptitopes in cartilage matrix were analysed by immunohistochemistry and Western blot(WB) respectively.The mRNA and protein levels of aggrecanase-1,2 expressed in cartilage cells were measured by real-time reverse transcriptional polymerase chain reaction(RT-PCR) and WB respectively.The difference of these results among these three groups was analyzed accordingly.ResultsThe expression of aggrecanase-1,2 in mRNA level was measured by real-time RT-PCR.The values of aggrecanase-1,2 mRNA 2 -ΔΔC1 were 1.00 ± 0.26 and 1.00 ± 0.27 in control group,1.47 ± 0.11 and 1.57 ± 0.13 in stable stage group,2.09 ±0.12 and 2.09 ± 0.19 in active stage group respectively.By one-way ANOVA analysis,the difference between every two groups was statistically significant (F was 299.113 and 459.013,P ＜ 0.01 ).In comparison with control group,aggrecanase-1,2 increased significantly in both stable and active stage group (P ＜ 0.01 ) and aggrecanase-1,2 increased more significantly in active stage group than in stable stage group (P ＜ 0.01 ).The results from WB analysis indicated that aggrecanase-1,2 could not be detected in control group,and they were detectable in stable stage group and increased in active stage group at the relative molecular of 68 000 Da or 73 000 Da respectively.The aggrecanase-generated neoeptitopes were analyzed by WB as well.The results indicated that NITEGE and ARGSV could be detected in stable stage group and increased in active stage group at the relative molecular of 70 000 Da or 48 000 Da respectively,but there were no signals in control group.Similar with the previous WB results,no signals of NITEGE or ARGSV eptitopes were detected in normal cartilage matrix ( no red staining) by use of immunohistochemical staining.However,in stable stage group and active stage group,these eptitopes were apparently detected (obviously red staining).ConclusionWith the progression of the RP,the activity of the aggrecanase is enhanced,and the degradation of the aggrecan is increased,associated with the severity of the disease.

Objective To investigate the bioavailability and pharmacokinetics of silybin A and silybin B in rats,respectively.Methods Following iv and ig administration of silybin to 20 Wistar rats,the plasma samples were collected at different time points up to 12 h.Sample pretreatment was involved in one-step protein precipitation with acetonitrile.Silybin A and silybin B were simultaneously determined by LC-MS/MS.Results After ig dosing silybin 28,56,and 112 mg/kg to rats,the t1/2β values were 5.48,5.08,and 5.73 h for silybin A,and 4.56,4.12,and 5.53 h for silybin B; The Cmax were 674.3,1349.4,and 2042.5 ng/mL for silybin A,and 671.0,1365.4,and 2066.2 ng/mL for silybin B; The Tmax were 0.20,0.23,and 0.20 h for silybin A,and 0.20,0.23,and 0.20 h for silybin B; The AUC were 454.4,845.9,and 1219.5 h·ng/mL for silybin A,and 432.0,817.1,and 1153.6 h·ng/mL for silybin B.The absolute bioavailabilities of silybin A and silybin B were 2.86％ and 1.93％,respectively.Conclusion Silybin A and silybin B have very low bioavailability after ig administration,and there is no significant difference in the pharmacokinetic parameters between silybin A and silybin B,which indicates that the two diastereoisomers have similar pharmacokinetic behavior in rats.