Objective To evaluate the association between maternal serum levels of vitamin B12 and folate and neural tube defects (NTD) in Shanxi Province which with the extremely high prevalence of NTD in China. Methods A case-control study was conducted in five counties of Shanxi Province, China. Maternal concentrations of vitamin B12 and folate [expressed as G (P5-P95)]in NTD-affected pregnancies were dichotomized at a cut-off of 10th percentile of the mean values of control women to calculate the risk of NTD for the lower level group. Results The mean levels of serum vitamin B12 and folate in the NTD pregnancies were significantly lower than in the control [vitamin B12 83. 8 pmol/L(30. 5-209. 1) pmol/L vs 102. 6 pmol/L(51. 9-269. 7) pmol/L, P<0. 05; folate:10. 5 pmol/L(4. 4-24. 5) nmol/L vs 12. 9 pmol/L(6. 3-32. 7) nmol/L, P<0. 01]. In cases complicated with spina bifida, lower maternal serum vitamin B12 and folate levels were detected compared with the control group. While, in those complicated with anencephaly, only lower levels of maternal folate were shown. There was no statistical significance in maternal serum concentrations of vitamin B12 and folate between those cases with encephalocele and controls. Higher risk of NTDs were found in pregnant women with lower level of vitamin B12 and folate (AOR = 2. 58, 95% CI: 1. 20-5. 51; AOR= 2. 76, 95%CI: 1. 30-5. 87). Conclusions Deficiency or insufficiency of folate or vitamin B12 is associated with the increased risk of NTD, especially in high risk population.

Objective To study the effect of transcatheter arterial chemoembolization(TACE) combined with three-dimensional conformal radiotherapy(3DCRT) for inoperable primary liver cancer.Methods Ninety-six such patients were prospectively randomized to TACE therapy alone group(TACE group-,47 patients) and TACE+3DCRT group(combined group-,49 patients).Results The overall 1-,2-,3-year survival rate was 82%,63%,43% in the combined group.It was 55%,28%,15% in the TACE group.The difference between the two groups was significant(P0.05).Conclusion Transcatheter arterial chemoembolization combined with three-dimensional conformal radiotherapy is more effective than transcatheter arterial chemoembolization therapy alone for inoperable primary liver cancer,without inflicting more treatment-related toxicities.

Object To research on genetic relationship among the main populations of Salvia miltiorrhiza Bge. and the genuineness of the herb. Methods From main distributed places, 44 samples (including nine populations) were analyzed by RAPD. The data of amplified bands were analyzed by the software NTSYS-pc and AMOVA. Results (1) From more than 100 primers, 11 primers producing polymorphism and reproduceable bands were selected, 129 bands were amplified. (2) The percentage of polymorphic bands within different populations were 20.9%-55.0%. (3) The cluster map including all samples were obtained by UPGMA. In the map, there were six cluster groups and three individuals outside the groups. The branch with five samples of Zhongjiang Sichuan population were far from other samples in genetic distance. (4) According to the distribution provinces five groups were divided in genetic variance analysis. Genetic variance 80.44% existing within population, 8.29% among populations and 11.27% among groups. Conclusion (1) The genetic diversity within population of S. miltiorrhiza is plentiful. (2) The seeds of the cultivated population in Shandong and Henan Provinces come from the wild ones of same places. The cultivated plants lack artificial selection. The decrease of chemical compound is mainly due to the undesired condition of cultivating. (3) The genetic differentiation among the populations from different provinces is unbalance. Two population from Zhongjiang Sichuan and Chengde Hebei are far from the other population. (4) The genuineness of Radix Salviae Miltiorrhizae should be decided according to modern evaluation system. The herbs from some places of Shandong and Henan should be genuine ones.

With the development of business of manned spaceflight, the body damage of astronauts on the space en-vironment has received growing concern. Weight loss is the most important cause of various diseases, and the weightlessness muscle atrophy is one of urgent problems to be solved in aerospace medicine. Although there is no concept of weightlessness or weightlessness muscle atrophy in the theory of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), TCM can grasp the pathogenesis of complex diseases, and provide important theoretical references for the prevention and management of weightlessness diseases, especially weightlessness muscle atrophy. In this paper, TCM Cognition of weightlessness and the pathogenesis of weightlessness muscle atrophy was studied by the sight of TCM theory of qi hoisting. The discussion was made from aspects of circulation of qi and blood, zang-fu function. This work is wished to be beneficial to apply the TCM theory in aerospace medicine.

AIM: To find out whether different dosage of rare earth element-lanthanum can influence the expression of aquaporin 7(AQP 7) in the testis of rats. METHODS:Rats were fed with lanthanum nitrate [La(NO 3) 3] and killed 6 months later. Testes were then removed immediately to extract total RNA. Northern blot analysis is performed finally. RESULTS:0.1 mg/kg La(NO 3) 3 depressed the expression of AQP 7 in rat testis, while 20 mg/kg La(NO 3) 3 had no significant effect on it. CONCLUSION: AQP 7 expession is found in the rat testis; La(NO 3) 3 can depress the expression of AQP 7 in the rat testis.

Objective To investigate the prevalence of hyperuricemia in health check-up population of Beijing suburb.Methods Total 1 336 rural residents in Nankou Township of Beijing received health check-up from July to Aug 2014,including 686 subjects aged 20-59 years (young/middle-aged group) and 650 subjects aged 60-96 years (elderly group).The blood pressure and body mass index (BMI) were measured;serum uric acid (SUA),fasting blood glucose (FBG) and blood lipids (TG,TC,HDL-C,LDL-C) were determined.The SUA levels ＞ 420 μmol/L for male and ＞ 360 μmol/L for female were defined as hyperuricemia.Results The four quartiles of SUA levels were 27.00-254.59 μmol/L (Q1),254.60-302.35 μmol/L (Q2),302.36-359.78 μmol/L(Q3) and 359.79-702.0 μmol/L (Q4).The prevalence of hyperuricemia was significantly higher in young/middle-aged group than that in elderly group [20.41％ (140/686) vs.13.85％ (90/650),x2 =10.08,P =0.001 5],the systolic blood pressure [SBP,(126.8±15.7) vs.(116.7±12.0)mmHg(1 mmHg=0.133 kPa),t=2.76,P=0.008],FBG [(7.40±4.10) vs.(6.11 ±2.03)mmol/L,t=2.12,P=0.036],TC [(5.52±1.10) vs.(5.23±1.00)mmol/L,t =2.04,P =0.045],LDL-C [(3.5 ±0.7) vs.(2.4 ±0.9)mmol/L,t =2.21,P =0.029]in young/middle-aged group were significantly higher than those in elderly group.BMI,FBG were significantly higher in Q4 than those in other quartiles [BMI:(26.44 ± 3.88) vs.(24.19 ± 3.37),(25.49±3.42) and (25.61 ±3.49)kg/m2,t =2.78,P=0.008;FBG:(8.19 ±1.52) vs.(6.34±1.34),(6.09 ± 1.51) and (6.40 ± 1.98) mmol/L,t =2.80,P =0.007].The triglyceride (TG) levels in group Q3 and Q4 [(1.85 ± 0.90) and (1.92 ± 0.44) mmol/L] were higher than those in Q1 and Q2 [(1.37 ±0.76) and (1.70 ±0.84) mmol/L,t =2.1,P =0.035].Only 9.57％ subjects (22/230)with hyperuricemia was not combined with metabolic disorder;subjects combined with one and two metabolic disorders accounted for 20.87％ (48/230) and 69.57％ (160/230),respectively.Conclusion Screening for hyperuricemia is important for comprehensiye treatment and management of hyperuricemia in rural residents,especially in the young and middle-aged population.

AIM: To find out whether different dosage of rare earth element-lanthanum can influence the expression of aquaporin 7(AQP 7) in the testis of rats. METHODS:Rats were fed with lanthanum nitrate ［La(NO3)3］ and killed 6 months later. Testes were then removed immediately to extract total RNA. Northern blot analysis is performed finally. RESULTS:0.1 mg/kg La(NO3)3 depressed the expression of AQP 7 in rat testis, while 20 mg/kg La(NO3)3 had no significant effect on it. CONCLUSION: AQP 7 expession is found in the rat testis; La(NO3)3 can depress the expression of AQP 7 in the rat testis.

Objective To explore the influences of proliferation and differentiation of preadipocytes on high fat diet-induced obesity and obesity prevention through exercises in rats.Methods Forty male Sprague-Dawley rats were divided into a normal diet control group (C,n=8),a normal diet with exercises group (E,n=8),a high fat diet control group (H,n=14) and a high fat diet with exercises group (HE,n=10).Group C and group H kept sedentary,while group E and group HE underwent treadmill exercises at about 75％VO2max level.After 12 weeks of intervention,the body weight,epididymal,perirenal and retroperitoneal fat mass were recorded,and the total fat mass was determinated.Stereology method was used to calculate the number and average diameter of fat cells.Western Blotting was conducted to measure the expression of PPARγ and C/EBPα protein in adipose tissues.Results (1) The body weight and total fat mass of group H were significantly higher than those of group C (P＜0.01).Perirenal,retroperitoneal fat and total fat mass of group E and HE were significantly lower than those of group C and H respectively (P＜0.01).(2) The total fat cell number of group H was significantly higher than that of group C.The average diameter of fat cells in perirenal and retroperitoneal fat pads of group E were significantly lower than that of group C (P＜0.05,P＜0.01),while that of group HE in epididymal,perirenal and retroperitoneal fat pads was significantly lower than that of group H (P＜0.01).(3) Compared with group C,the expression of PPARγ protein of group E and H increased significantly in epididymal,perirenal and retroperitoneal fat pads (P＜0.01).The expression of C/EBPα protein of group H was significantly higher than that of group C in epididymal and perirenal fat pads (P＜0.01),the expression of C/EBPα protein of group E was significantly higher than that of group C in perirenal and retroperitoneal fat pads (P＜0.01),while the expression of C/EBPα protein of group HE was significantly lower than that of group H in perirenal fat pads(P＜0.01).Conclusion The proliferation and differentiation of preadipocyte was enhanced in the development of high fat diet induced obesity and exercises to prevent obesity,but its role and mechanisms were different.The high fat diet increases the number of fat cells which is a compensatory mechanism for the body to adapt to fat accumulation,while exercises might promote cell renewal and decrease the average size of fat cells which is an adaptive mechanism to improve fat storage.

Objective To investigate the effects of initiating oral-medication and insulin-treatment to residual islet function in adult patients with latent autoimmune diabetes in adults (LADA).Methods Fifty nice inpatients and 11 outpatients of LADA were enrolled from the Peking Union Medical College Hospital from January 1981 to October 2014,including 34 cases with initiating insulin therapy and 36 cases with initiating oral medication.Patients were followed up at least twice and with a 6-month interval.The age,body mass index (BMI),diagnosis time,fasting C peptide (FCP),2-hour postprandial C peptide (2 hCP),glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c) were compared between two groups.Results The age of disease onset in insulin-treatment group was significantly lower than that in oral-medication group (t =2.049,P =0.045).The proportion of patients complicated with other autoimmune diseases in oralmedication group were higher than that in insulin-treatment group [24％ (8/34) vs.47％ (17/36),x2=4.275,P=0.039].The FCP and 2 hCP in insulin-treatment group were significantly higher than those in oral-medication group [FCP:0.25 (0.00-0.80) vs.0.00 (0.00-0.60) μg/L,Z =3.498,P =0.030,2 hCP:0.42(0.02-1.20) vs.0.14(0.02-0.19) μg/L,Z =3.235,P=0.001] on 6 month after treatment;however,there were no significant differences on 6-12 months,13-36 months or 37-60 months after treatment between two groups.No antibody negative conversion was detected in 10 inpatients,who were reexamined with glutamic acid decarboxylase antibody (GADA) more than twice.The detection rate of diabetes retinopathy was 4％ (1/26) in insulin-treatment group and 28％ (8/29) in oralmedication group (x2 =6.179,P =0.013).Conclusion Initiating insulin therapy at first diagnosis of LADA can protect the residual islet function,and may reduce the rate of diabetic retinopathy.

Abstract A new method was established to determine the free inorganic cadmium ion ( Cd2+) in marine bivalves using high performance liquid chromatography and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry ( HPLC-ICP-MS) . The free Cd2+ in shellfish was ultrasonic extracted for 40 min by 10 mmol/L Tris buffer solution ( with 0. 1 mol/L NaCl, pH=7. 5), and the separation of Cd2+ was achieved using an IonPac CS5A analytical column with an IonPac CG5A guard column. The mobile phase consisted of 50 mmol/L C2 H2 O4 and 95 mmol/L LiOH. The new method had a good linear relationship with the correlation coefficient of 0. 999 and the standard recoveries of Cd2+ were all above 84. 6%. The free Cd2+ content in several kinds of marine bivalves was determined using the method and the results showed that the percentage of free inorganic Cd2+ to the total Cd content in samples with high Cd content was higher than those with low Cd content.