The fibrous roots are the residues of production of cut crude drug of Danshen (Salvia miltiorrhiza). Enzymatic pretreatment and ultrasonic extraction are beneficial to extract effective constituents from fibrous roots more effectively. The present research was to optimize the enzymatic parameters by the central composite design and response surface method. Under the best conditions, the yields of total tanshinones and total salvianolic acids in the extracts of enzymatic pretreatment increased by 113.92% and 30.64%, comparing with the non-enzymatic extraction, respectively. TLC analysis also showed that the types of effective constituents in the two samples were not affected by enzymatic hydrolysis. Meanwhile, the complex correlation coefficients of the mathematical models were high, which provided a good prediction.
Diterpenes, Abietane ; Drugs, Chinese Herbal ; chemistry ; Phenanthrenes ; chemistry ; Plant Roots ; chemistry ; Salvia miltiorrhiza ; chemistry

OBJECTIVEYoga is becoming more and more popular in the female society while the concomitant sports injury is seldom mentioned. Many clinicians have noted that yoga may result in knee problems, which though requires more researches to corroborate. This investigation was conducted to ascertain the relationship between yoga and meniscus injury as well as the extent of impairment according to variant yoga practice periods.

METHODSTotally 819 women aged 20-49 years who practiced yoga or other popular sports including badminton, jogging, climbing hills, etc for at least one hour per day were selected to participate in this research. These subjects were required to complete a questionnaire and receive relevant physical examination. Magnetic resonance (MR) scan of the knee was recommended for the suspicious subjects for ultimate diagnosis. The subject with abnormal meniscus MR signals was defined as a case and matched with two controls in terms of age and body mass index (BMI). Altogether there were 273 cases and 546 controls. The nested case-control model was adopted to assess the risk of meniscus injury between variant exposures in practicing yoga and several other popular sports. Moreover, the 181 yoga subjects were subdivided into three groups according to different exercise durations, followed by further analysis with the variables of age, BMI and Lysholm score.

RESULTSYoga was found associated with a higher risk (P equal to 0.008, OR equal to 1.621) of meniscus injury compared with badminton, jogging and climbing hills. The three yoga subgroups showed statistical difference between each other in terms of Lysholm score (P equal to 0.027) and BMI (P equal to 0.003). The subjects with longer-term yoga practice had lighter weight but lower Lysholm scores.

CONCLUSIONSYoga perhaps exerts destructive impact on the meniscus for Chinese women, yet it needs further verifications. Furthermore, the female yoga players with longer exercise duration are more susceptible to meniscus injury though they can become leaner.

Body Mass Index ; Female ; Humans ; Knee Joint ; Motor Activity ; Tibial Meniscus Injuries ; Yoga

To introduce the application of Stata software to heterogeneity test in meta-analysis.A data set was set up according to the example in the study,and the corresponding commands of the methods in Stata 9 software were applied to test the example.The methods used were Q-test and Ⅰ2statistic attached to the fixed effect model forest plot,H statistic and Galbraith plot.The existence of the heterogeneity among studies could he detected hy Q-test and H statistic and the degree of the heterogeneity could be detected by,Ⅰ2 statistic.The outliers which were the sources of the heterogeneity could be spotted from the Galbraith plot.Heterogeneity test in Meta-analysis can be completed by the four methods in Stata software simply and quickly.H and Ⅰ2 statistics are more robust,and the outliers of the heterogeneity can be clearly seen in the Galbraith plot among the four methods.

OBJECTIVETo observe the changes in pulmonary artery protein kinase C (PKC) activity in rats with chronic inflammatory pulmonary hypertension (PHT).

METHODSChronic inflammatory PHT was induced in rats with monocrotaline. The PKC activities in the rat pulmonary arteries were measured by radioactive assay during the development of PHT.

RESULTSWith the development of chronic inflammatory PHT, the total and cytosolic fractions of PKC activity in PHT rat pulmonary arteries increased initially with subsequent decrease (Plt;0.05), but the membranous fraction of PKC activity and the membrane-to-cytosol PKC activity ratio increased continuously (P<0.05).

CONCLUSIONThe up-regulation of PKC activity and the translocation of PKC might be associated with the development of chronic inflammatory PHT in rats.

Animals ; Chronic Disease ; Hypertension, Pulmonary ; chemically induced ; enzymology ; Inflammation ; chemically induced ; enzymology ; Male ; Monocrotaline ; Protein Kinase C ; metabolism ; Pulmonary Artery ; enzymology ; Rats ; Rats, Wistar

OBJECTIVETo observe the preventive and therapeutic effect of tanshinone (TA) on artery restenosis in the rat carotid injury model and explor the mechanism.

METHODMale SD rats were randomly divided into model control group, and low dose, moderate dose and high dose TA groups. Each group had 10 rats. The rats in the high, moderate and low dose groups were respectively fed with TA 120, 40,13.3 mg x kg(-1) x d(-1) by gast rogavage; the rats in the model control group were fed with the same volume solvent. Two days later, the rat's right carotid artery was injuried by balloon dilatation to induce intimal thickening for establishing the restenosis model. After 2 weeks of treatment, the artery was harvested and stained by hematoxylin-elsin (HE) and immunohistochemistry of PCNA, NF-kappaB and iNOS. The morphological changes were checked under microscope. The area of the intimal and medial layer of the vessels, and their ratios were analyzed with image analysis software. The expression level of PCNA, NF-kappaB and iNOS were used as the positive index.

RESULTThe intimal area and intima-to-media ratio of the injuried artery increased obviously, suggesting the model was successful. Compared with the model group, TA significantly decreased the intimal area and intima-to-media ratio (P < 0.05), and also decreased the positive index of PCNA and the positive ratio of NF-kappaB and iNOS (P < 0.05).

CONCLUSIONTA can effectively inhibit intimal thickening and inflammation. This result suggestes that TA may play a positive role in the prevention of restenosis after PTCA.

Angioplasty, Balloon, Coronary ; adverse effects ; Animals ; Carotid Artery Injuries ; complications ; Carotid Artery, Common ; metabolism ; pathology ; Carotid Stenosis ; etiology ; metabolism ; pathology ; Diterpenes, Abietane ; Male ; NF-kappa B ; metabolism ; Nitric Oxide Synthase Type II ; metabolism ; Phenanthrenes ; isolation & purification ; pharmacology ; Plants, Medicinal ; chemistry ; Proliferating Cell Nuclear Antigen ; metabolism ; Random Allocation ; Rats ; Rats, Sprague-Dawley ; Salvia miltiorrhiza ; chemistry ; Tunica Intima ; metabolism ; pathology

Adult ; Arthropathy, Neurogenic ; etiology ; immunology ; pathology ; Female ; Granuloma, Plasma Cell ; complications ; immunology ; pathology ; Humans ; Lung Neoplasms ; complications ; immunology ; pathology

OBJECTIVETo preliminarily research the formular about the Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) syndrome of adolescent neck pain.

METHODSAn observation table of adolescent neck pain syndromes was formulated,and 1 397 patients with adolescent neck pain were investigated to establish a database of adolescent neck pain. The Descriptive Statistical Analysis and Hierarchical Cluster Analysis were performed by statistical software.

RESULTSTotally 60 TCM symptoms was clustered into 4 TCM syndromes by Hierarchical Cluster Analysis. The expert panel of TCM syndromes preliminarily formulate 4 TCM syndromes of adolescent neck pain by analyzing the result of Cluster Analysis and discussing their clinical experience.

CONCLUSIONAdolescent neck pain is a category of Tendon Trauma's Bi-syndrome of TCM. Ying, Wei, Qi and blood block caused by exopathy, strains, and internal injury is considered as the main pathogenesis of adolescent neck pain. Base on statistical result and expert's opinions, 4 TCM syndromes about adolescent neck pain were formulated: cold-dampness syndrome, dampness-heat blockage syndrome, liver-stagnation and spleen-deficiency syndrome, Qi and Yin deficiency of both heart and kidney syndrome.

Adolescent ; Adult ; China ; epidemiology ; Diagnosis, Differential ; Female ; Humans ; Male ; Medicine, Chinese Traditional ; Neck Pain ; diagnosis ; epidemiology ; Young Adult

OBJECTIVETo study and establish the GC fingerprint of essential oils of 10 batches the flower of Lonicera japonica.

METHODThe essential oils were extracted by steam distillation from ten batches of the flowers, then separated by capillary gas chromatography.

RESULTThe similarity of 10 batches of the flower of L. japonica was high.

CONCLUSIONThe method was reliable, and can be used to evaluate the quality of the flower of L. japonica.

Chromatography, Gas ; Drugs, Chinese Herbal ; chemistry ; isolation & purification ; Flowers ; chemistry ; Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry ; Lonicera ; chemistry ; classification ; Oils, Volatile ; chemistry ; isolation & purification ; Phylogeny ; Reproducibility of Results

OBJECTIVETo study the temporal trend and spatial distribution of premature mortality burden due to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in terms of years of life lost (YLL) in an urban region of Kunming for the years 1998-2003.

METHODSPan Long district was selected as the study region. YLL was used to measure premature mortality burden due to COPD. The tate of YLL per 1000 residents was calculated without age-weighting but with 3% discounting rate and broken down by year. Geographic information system (GIS) technique was used to display the spatial distribution of premature mortality burden due to COPD during the six years of study.

RESULTSDuring the years from 1998 to 2003, the premature mortality burden due to COPD decreased by years while males seemed to have a higher YLL rate of COPD than females. Central areas remained to have higher YLL/1000 population values of COPD for the six years, whereas remote areas tended to have a decreasing trend of YLL/1000 population values of COPD in the same period.

CONCLUSIONCentral areas of the city should be emphasized in further control of COPD in the urban region of Kunming.

Cause of Death ; trends ; China ; epidemiology ; Female ; Geographic Information Systems ; Humans ; Male ; Pulmonary Disease, Chronic Obstructive ; epidemiology ; mortality

Objective To evaluate the clinical application of laparoscopic local resection for gastric tumors.Methods Twenty-three patients with gastric tumors who were performed laparoscopic gastric local resection were retrospectively analyzed with the size of tumor,location of tumor,operative time,blood loss during the operation,time for passage of flatus,post-operative hospital stay,operative complications,post-operative pathological findings and result of follow-up.Results Twenty-three patients were successfully performed laparoscopic local resection,including 8 laparoscopic wedge resection(LWR)and 15 intragastric mucosal resections(IGMR),with no conversion to open surgery.The mean size of gastric tumor was(2.8?1.3)cm,the mean operative time was(82.2?35.5)min,the mean blood loss was(26.5?15.3)mL,the length of incision was(3.1?1.1)cm,the time for passage of flatus was(2.1?0.9)d,and the mean post-operative hospital stay was(7.8?2.0)d.Two patients(8.7%)were found with postoperative gastric mucosal blee-ding and were recovered well through non-operative treatment.The median time of follow-up was 12 months(2-45 months),and no recurrent tumor was observed.Conclusion Laparoscopic local resection is a feasible,safe,effective and less invasive procedure for gastric tumors.