BACKGROUND: Without timely and effective rehabilitation, hearing loss may profoundly affect human life quality. China has a large population of hearing-impaired individuals, which imposes a heavy health burden on society. Moreover, this population is projected to increase rapidly owing to China's aging society. METHODS: We used data from a population-representative epidemiological investigation of hearing loss and ear diseases in four Chinese provinces. We estimated the national prevalence using multiple linear regression of the age-group proportions and prevalence in 31 provinces with clustering analysis. We used years lived with disability (YLDs) to analyze the disease burden and forecasted the prevalence of hearing loss by 2060 in China. RESULTS: An estimated 115 million people had moderate-to-complete hearing loss in 2015 across the 31 provinces of China (8.4% of 1.37 billion people). Of these, 85.7% were older than age 50 years (99 million people) and 2.4% were younger than 20 years old (2.8 million people). Of all YLDs attributable to hearing loss, 68.9% were attributable to moderate-to-complete cases. By 2060, a projected 242 million people in China will have moderate-to-complete hearing loss, a 110.0% increase from 2015. CONCLUSIONS The hearing loss prevalence in China is high. Population aging and socioeconomic factors substantially affect the prevalence and severity of hearing loss and the disease burden. The prevalence and severity of hearing loss are unevenly distributed across different provinces. Future public health policies should take these trends and regional variations into account.
Humans ; China/epidemiology* ; Hearing Loss/epidemiology* ; Prevalence ; Middle Aged ; Male ; Female ; Adult ; Aged ; Adolescent ; Young Adult ; Child ; Child, Preschool ; Infant ; Aged, 80 and over ; Cost of Illness

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the protective effect of achyranthes bidentata (AB) on sperm quality in mice with spermatogenic disorder through the glycolytic metabolic pathway and its action mechanism. METHODS: We equally randomized 40 Kunming mice into a normal control, a model control, a low-dose AB (3.5 g/kg) and a high-dose AB group (7.0 g/kg), and established the model of spermatogenic disorder in the latter three groups of mice by intraperitoneal injection of doxorubicin (30 mg/kg). Two days after modeling, we collected the testis and kidney tissues and blood samples from the mice for observation of the pathological changes in the testis tissue by HE staining, detection of perm motility with the sperm quality analyzer, examination of the apoptosis of testis cells by flow cytometry, measurement of the levels of testosterone (T), malondialdehyde (MDA), superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase (CAT) in the serum and testis tissue by ELISA, and determination of expressions of the key enzymes of glycolysis hexokinase Ⅱ (HK2), pyruvate kinase M2 (PKM2), platelet phosphofructokinase (PFKP), lactate dehydrogenase A (LDHA) and the meiosis proteins REC8 and SCP3 by Western blot, and the mRNA expressions of glycolytic phosphofructokinase 1 (PFK1), phosphoglycerate kinase 1 (PGK1), tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) and interleukin-1β (IL-1β) by fluorescence quantitative PCR (FQ-PCR). RESULTS: Compared with the model controls, the mice in the AB groups showed significant increases in the testis coefficient, kidney index, sperm concentration, sperm motility, spermatogonia, primary spermatocytes, spermatids, sperm count and the serum T level (P<0.05 or P<0.01), but dramatic decreases in the apoptosis of testis cells and percentage of morphologically abnormal sperm (P<0.01). Achyranthes bidentata also significantly elevated the levels of SOD and CAT, and down-regulated the mRNA expressions of MDA, TNF-α and IL-1β (P<0.05 or P<0.01), and up-regulated the protein expressions of HK2, PKM2, PFKP, LDHA, REC8 and SCP3, and expressions of the glycolysis key genes Pfk1 and Pgk1 (P<0.05 or P<0.01). CONCLUSION Achyranthes bidentata ameliorates doxorubicin-induced spermatogenic disorder in mice by regulating the glycolytic pathway and reducing oxidative stress and the expressions of inflammatory factors.
Glycolysis/drug effects* ; Doxorubicin/toxicity* ; Spermatogenesis/drug effects* ; Random Allocation ; Male ; Animals ; Mice ; Disease Models, Animal ; Achyranthes/chemistry* ; Spermatozoa/pathology* ; Oxidative Stress/drug effects* ; Primary Cell Culture ; Apoptosis/drug effects* ; Sperm Motility/drug effects* ; Testis/pathology* ; Infertility, Male/prevention & control* ; Medicine, Chinese Traditional/methods* ; Animals, Outbred Strains

Extensive evidence has demonstrated that glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1RAs) can ameliorate obesity. Our previous studies revealed that (Ex-4)₂-Fc, a long-acting GLP-1RA we developed, depends on the leptin pathway to treat obesity. However, the mechanisms linking (Ex-4)₂-Fc and leptin resistance remain largely unclear. To address this question, we explored the mechanism of GLP-1RAs from the perspective of the gut microbiota, as increasing evidence indicates an important link between the gut microbiota and obesity. This study aimed to explore the potential role of the gut microbiota in the treatment of GLP-1RAs. We found that (Ex-4)₂-Fc treatment reshaped obesity-induced gut microbiota disturbances and substantially increased the abundance of Akkermansia muciniphila (Am). In addition, (Ex-4)₂-Fc did not respond well in antibiotic-treated (ATB) Obese mice. Subsequent studies have shown that this defect can be overcome by gavage with Am. In addition, we found that Am enhanced (Ex-4)₂-Fc therapy by producing the metabolite inosine. Inosine regulates the macrophage adenosine A2A receptor (A2A) pathway to indirectly reduce leptin levels in adipocytes Thus, elucidating the role of metabolites in regulating the leptin pathway will provide new insights into GLP-1RAs therapy and may lead to more effective strategies for guiding the clinical use of antidiabetic agents.

Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are proposed to account for the progression, metastasis, and recurrence of diverse malignancies. However, the disorganized vasculars in tumors hinder the accumulation and penetration of nanomedicines, posing a challenge in eliminating CSCs located distantly from blood vessels. Herein, a pair of twin-like small-sized nanoparticles, sunitinib (St)-loaded ROS responsive micelles (RM@St) and salinomycin (SAL)-loaded GSH responsive micelles (GM@SAL), are developed to normalize disordered tumor vessels and eradicate CSCs. RM@St releases sunitinib in response to the abundant ROS in the tumor extracellular microenvironment for tumor vessel normalization, which improved intratumor accumulation and homogeneous distribution of small-sized GM@SAL. Sequentially, GM@SAL effectively accesses CSCs and achieves reduction-responsive drug release at high GSH concentrations within CSCs. More importantly, RM@St significantly extends the window of vessel normalization and enhances vessel integrity compared to free sunitinib, thus further amplifying the anti-tumor effect of GM@SAL. The combination therapy of RM@St plus GM@SAL produces considerable depression of tumor growth, drastically reducing CSCs fractions to 5.6% and resulting in 78.4% inhibition of lung metastasis. This study offers novel insights into rational nanomedicines designed for superior therapeutic effects by vascular normalization and anti-CSCs therapy.

BACKGROUND: Acupuncture has shown potential therapeutic benefits for individuals with simple obesity. However, some researchers argue that some of the effectiveness of acupuncture may be due to the placebo response. OBJECTIVE: To understand the placebo response of acupuncture treatment in simple obesity, a systematic review and meta-analysis was designed based on the comparison between sham acupuncture before and after treatment. SEARCH STRATEGY: Eight databases (PubMed, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, Embase, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wanfang Database, China Biology Medicine Database, and Chinese Scientific Journals Database) were searched from inception to August 1, 2023. The MeSH search terms comprised obesity and acupuncture. INCLUSION CRITERIA: Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) using sham or placebo acupuncture as a control in treating obesity were enrolled. DATA EXTRACTION AND ANALYSIS: Two researchers independently extracted data, and the results were cross-checked after completion. Each RCT's detailed sham/placebo acupuncture treatment protocol was assessed according to the SHam Acupuncture REporting guidelines. The revised Cochrane risk-of-bias tool for randomized trials and the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) system were used to determine the risk of bias and quality of evidence, respectively. Body mass index (BMI) was defined as the primary outcome. Anthropometric parameters and laboratory test parameters related to obesity were defined as secondary outcomes. We used standardized mean difference (SMD) with 95% confidence interval (CI) to calculate treatment effects of outcomes. RESULTS: Fifteen RCTs with a total of 1250 patients were included. The BMI significantly decreased after treatment in the sham acupuncture group compared to baseline (SMD 0.37, 95% CI 0.09-0.66; I² = 81%, random model; P < 0.01). Treatment duration (P = 0.02) and other interventions significantly impacted the placebo response rate (P = 0.00). CONCLUSION The placebo response of sham acupuncture was strong in the RCTs for simple obesity, and the effect sizes differed between various outcomes. The treatment duration and other interventions emerged as potential influencing factors for the placebo response of sham acupuncture. Please cite this article as: Liu KJ, Jiao RM, Ji J, Yao WW, Han CR, Zhao XY, Zhao JJ. Placebo response in sham acupuncture therapy trials for simple obesity: a systematic review and meta-analysis. J Integr Med. 2025; 23(3): 264-273.
Humans ; Acupuncture Therapy/methods* ; Obesity/therapy* ; Placebo Effect ; Placebos ; Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic

ABSTRACT OBJECTIVE To explore the correlation between HPLC fingerprint and analgesic efficacy of Zhejiang vinegar Corydalis Rhizoma, and to screen out the material basis of analgesic effect of Zhejiang vinegar Corydalis Rhizoma.METHODS Established HPLC fingerprint of Zhejiang vinegar Corydalis Rhizoma and dysmenorrhea model in rats. The weight loss rate, writhing response, serum malondialdehyde(MDA), estradiol(E2), prostaglandin E2(PGE2) and prostaglandin F2α(PGF2α) levels were used as the evaluation indexes of analgesic efficacy. Combined with chemometrics, the main active components of analgesic effect of Zhejiang vinegar Corydalis Rhizoma and the important components with great contribution to the content were screened.RESULTS The fingerprints of different batches of Zhejiang vinegar Corydalis Rhizoma were established, and nine components were identified; compared with the blank group, the weight loss rate, writhing reaction, MDA, E2 and PGF2α levels in the model group were significantly increased. Compared with the model group, the above indexs in the administration group was decreased. Compared with the blank group, the PGE2 level in the model group was significantly decreased. Compared with the model group, the PGE2 level in the administration group was significantly increased. The vinegar Corydalis Rhizoma produced in Zhejiang had a good analgesic effect, and the main active components of its analgesic effect were protopine, palmatine hydrochloride, and dehydrocorydaline. The important components with greater contribution to the content were tetrahydropalmatine, protopine, palmatine hydrochloride and stylopine.CONCLUSION The efficacy of Zhejiang vinegar Corydalis Rhizoma is the result of the combined action of multiple components, and each component has a strong correlation with the pharmacodynamic indexes. This study provides a reference for the screening of analgesic material basis of Zhejiang vinegar Corydalis Rhizoma.

Kirsten rat sarcoma viral oncogene homolog(KRAS)gene is one of the most commonly mutated oncogenes.It has been found that KRAS inhibitors have the potential therapeutic effect on cancer patients with this gene mutation.In this study,machine learning was applied to develop a QSAR(quantitative structure-activity relationship)model for KRAS small molecule inhibitors.A total of 1857data points of IC50 and SMILES(simplified molecular input line entry system)for KRAS inhibitors were collected from three databases:ChEMBL,BindingDB,and PubChem.And nine different classifiers were constructed using three different feature screening methods combined with three machine learning models,namely,random forest,support vector machine,and extreme gradient boosting machine.The results showed that the SVM model combined with mutual information feature selection exhibited the best performance:AUCtest=0.912,ACCtest=0.859,F1test=0.890.Moreover,it also demonstrated good predictive performance on the external validation set(AUCExt=0.944,RecallExt=0.856,FPRExt=0.111).This study provides a new technical route for KRAS inhibitor screening in natural product databases using artificial intelligence methods.

Objective To analyze the hot spots,rules and distribution on safety research of inhalation preparations at home and abroad in the past 20 years,and to summarize the current status of safety and risk control research on inhalation preparations.Methods This reaserch is based on the literature related to the safety and risk control of inhalation preparations in the core collection database of the Web of Science.With the help of Excel 2021 and CiteSpace6.1.R3,visualized processing and analysis were carried out on the annual number of publications,countries,institutions,authors,co-occurrence of keywords,clustering and prominence.Results A total of 365 articles were included,the annual publication number in the field of the safety and risk control of inhalation preparations was less than 30 per year from 2002 to 2018.But since 2019,the number of articles published this year has exceeded 30.Through the analysis of the cooperation network of countries and institutions,the top four countries in terms of publication volume are the United States,the United Kingdom,Germany,and China,and the top three institutions are AstraZeneca,GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer.Through the analysis of the author cooperation network,the cooperation network between European and American authors was formed earlier,and a certain research group has appeared in 2002.In contrast,a more concentrated cooperation network has been formed in China in 2020.Conclusions In the past 20 years,the research on inhalation preparations has mainly focused on their safety and efficacy,while there are few studies on their risk control.There is a disconnect between safety assessment and risk assessment,and the future focus maybe focused on the adverse reaction assessment and risk management research of inhalation preparations.

Objective To analyze the domestic antibody drug safety and risk research status,the latest research hotspots and frontiers in the current ten years.Methods CiteSpace 6.2.R2 software was used to analyze all literature related to the safety and risk of antibody drugs in CNKI,WanFang data and Vip database from 2012 to 2022.Results A total of 2 773 pieces of literature were obtained from the three databases,which were imported into CiteSpace after deduplication,and finally,1 870 pieces were included in the analysis.In the past decade,the number of articles published in the field of antibody drugs safety and risk research has remained at about 100 articles per year from 2012 to 2019,since 2020,the number of articles published has started to increase,and the annual number of articles published has increased to around 300 articles from 2021 to 2022.The network graph of domestic institutional cooperation showed that there was a lack of cooperation among the research institutions of antibody drug safety and risk research,mainly due to the fact that hospitals were conducting research in this field,and the types of research subjects were relatively single.The author collaboration network graph showed that the core teams in this research field,such as Li Bo,Yang Yanwei,and Lin Zhi,had the closest collaboration,while there was less collaboration among high-yield authors,additionally,some experts and scholars conducted research on their own as individuals or small groups,the research focused on adverse reactions,safety,bevacizumab,Rituximab,Meta-analysis,etc.Conclusion In the past decade,domestic research has mainly focused on the clinical efficacy and safety of antibody drugs,with few scholars exploring the risk of antibody drugs,therefore,in the future,it is necessary to pay attention to the research on the risks of antibody drugs.

Electroencephalography (EEG), as a convenient and non-invasive technique, is highly sensitive to brain function abnormalities and has been widely applied in the diagnosis and treatment of epilepsy and other neurological diseases (applied research in stroke field has a history of decades). In recent years, with the deepening of related research and rapid development of artificial intelligence technology, EEG has shown new potential in early diagnosis, disease monitoring and prognosis assessment of stroke. This review discusses the recent advance in EEG in evaluating the diagnosis, therapeutic efficacy, and prognoses of stroke in the last 5 years, so as to provide references for improving the diagnosies, treatments and prognoses of stroke patients.