BACKGROUND: Metabolic Dysfunction-associated Steatotic Liver Disease (MASLD) has become a global epidemic, and air pollution has been identified as a potential risk factor. This study aims to investigate the non-linear relationship between ambient air pollution and MASLD prevalence. METHOD: In this cross-sectional study, participants undergoing health checkups were assessed for three-year average air pollution exposure. MASLD diagnosis required hepatic steatosis with at least 1 out of 5 cardiometabolic criteria. A stepwise approach combining data visualization and regression modeling was used to determine the most appropriate link function between each of the six air pollutants and MASLD. A covariate-adjusted six-pollutant model was constructed accordingly. RESULTS: A total of 131,592 participants were included, with 40.6% met the criteria of MASLD. "Threshold link function," "interaction link function," and "restricted cubic spline (RCS) link functions" best-fitted associations between MASLD and PM_2.5, PM₁₀/CO, and O₃ /SO₂/NO₂, respectively. In the six-pollutant model, significant positive associations were observed when pollutant concentrations were over: 34.64 µg/m³ for PM_2.5, 57.93 µg/m³ for PM₁₀, 56 µg/m³ for O₃, below 643.6 µg/m³ for CO, and within 33 and 48 µg/m³ for NO₂. The six-pollutant model using these best-fitted link functions demonstrated superior model fitting compared to exposure-categorized model or linear link function model assuming proportionality of odds. CONCLUSION Non-linear associations were found between air pollutants and MASLD prevalence. PM_2.5, PM₁₀, O₃, CO, and NO₂ exhibited positive associations with MASLD in specific concentration ranges, highlighting the need to consider non-linear relationships in assessing the impact of air pollution on MASLD.
Humans ; Nitrogen Dioxide ; Cross-Sectional Studies ; Air Pollution/analysis* ; Air Pollutants/analysis* ; Particulate Matter/analysis* ; Liver Diseases ; Environmental Exposure/analysis*

Humans ; Obesity/epidemiology*

Humans ; Obesity/epidemiology*

Metabolic dysfunction-associated fatty liver disease (MAFLD) is an increasingly common liver disease worldwide. MAFLD is diagnosed based on the presence of steatosis on images, histological findings, or serum marker levels as well as the presence of at least one of the three metabolic features: overweight/obesity, type 2 diabetes mellitus, and metabolic risk factors. MAFLD is not only a liver disease but also a factor contributing to or related to cardiovascular diseases (CVD), which is the major etiology responsible for morbidity and mortality in patients with MAFLD. Hence, understanding the association between MAFLD and CVD, surveillance and risk stratification of MAFLD in patients with CVD, and assessment of the current status of MAFLD management are urgent requirements for both hepatologists and cardiologists. This Taiwan position statement reviews the literature and provides suggestions regarding the epidemiology, etiology, risk factors, risk stratification, nonpharmacological interventions, and potential drug treatments of MAFLD, focusing on its association with CVD.

INTRODUCTION: Despite reports suggesting an association between COVID-19 mRNA vaccination and pericarditis and myocarditis, detailed nationwide population-based data are sparsely available. We describe the incidence of pericarditis and myocarditis by age categories and sex after COVID-19 mRNA vaccination from a nationwide mass vaccination programme in Singapore. METHODS: The incidence of adjudicated cases of pericarditis and myocarditis following COVID-19 mRNA vaccination that were reported to the vaccine safety committee between January to July 2021 was compared with the background incidence of myocarditis in Singapore. RESULTS: As of end July 2021, a total of 34 cases were reported (9 pericarditis only, 14 myocarditis only, and 11 concomitant pericarditis and myocarditis) with 7,183,889 doses of COVID-19 mRNA vaccine administered. Of the 9 cases of pericarditis only, all were male except one. The highest incidence of pericarditis was in males aged 12-19 years with an incidence of 1.11 cases per 100,000 doses. Of the 25 cases of myocarditis, 80% (20 cases) were male and the median age was 23 years (range 12-55 years) with 16 cases after the second dose. A higher-than-expected number of cases were seen in males aged 12-19 and 20-29 years, with incidence rates of 3.72 and 0.98 case per 100,000 doses, respectively. CONCLUSION Data from the national registry in Singapore indicate an increased incidence of pericarditis and myocarditis in younger men after COVID-19 mRNA vaccination.
Adolescent ; Adult ; COVID-19/prevention & control* ; COVID-19 Vaccines/adverse effects* ; Child ; Female ; Humans ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Myocarditis/etiology* ; Pericarditis/etiology* ; RNA, Messenger ; SARS-CoV-2 ; Vaccination/adverse effects* ; Vaccines, Synthetic ; Young Adult ; mRNA Vaccines

OBJECTIVE: To test the hypothesis that β -glucan enhances protective qi (PQi), an important Chinese medicine (CM) concept which stipulates that a protective force circulates throughout the body surface and works as the first line of defense against "external pernicious influences". METHODS: A total of 138 participants with PQi deficiency (PQD) were randomized to receive β -glucan (200 mg daily) or placebo for 12 weeks. Participants' PQi status was assessed every 2 weeks via conventional diagnosis and a standardized protocol from which a PQD severity and risk score was derived. Indices of participants' immune and general health status were also monitored, including upper respiratory tract infection (URTI), saliva secretory IgA (sIgA), and self-reported measures of physical and mental health (PROMIS). RESULTS: PQi status was not significantly different between the β -glucan and placebo treatment groups at baseline but improved significantly in the β -glucan (vs. placebo) group in a time-dependent manner. The intergroup differences [95% confidence interval (CI)] in severity score (scale: 1-5), risk score (scale: 0-1), and proportion of PQD participants (%) at finish line was 0.49 (0.35-0.62), 0.48 (0.35-0.61), and 0.36 (0.25-0.47), respectively. Additionally, β -glucan improved URTI symptom (scale: 1-9) and PROMIS physical (scale: 16.2-67.7) and mental (scale: 21.2-67.6) scores by a magnitude (95% CI) of 1.0 (0.21-1.86), 5.7 (2.33-9.07), and 3.0 (20.37-6.37), respectively, over placebo. CONCLUSIONS β -glucan ameliorates PQi in PQD individuals. By using stringent evidence-based methodologies, our study demonstrated that Western medicine-derived remedies, such as β -glucan, can be employed to advance CM therapeutics. (ClinicalTrial.Gov registry: NCT03782974).
Adult ; Double-Blind Method ; Humans ; Qi ; Risk Factors ; Self Report ; beta-Glucans/therapeutic use*

Methods for achieving diagnosis of Parkinson's disease (PD) based on speech data mining have been proven effective in recent years. However, due to factors such as the degree of disease of the data collection subjects and the collection equipment and environment, there are different categories of sample aliasing in the sample space of the acquired data set. Samples in the aliased area are difficult to be identified effectively, which seriously affects the classification accuracy of the algorithm. In order to solve this problem, a partition bagging ensemble learning is proposed in this article, which measures the aliasing degree of the sample by designing the the ratio of sample centroid distance metrics and divides the training set into multiple subsets. And then the method of transfer training of misclassified samples is used to adjust the results of subset partitioning. Finally, the optimized weights of each sub-classifier are used to integrate the test results. The experimental results show that the classification accuracy of the proposed method is significantly improved on two public datasets and the increasement of mean accuracy is up to 25.44%. This method not only effectively improves the classification accuracy of PD speech dataset, but also increases the sample utilization rate, providing a new idea for the diagnosis of PD.
Algorithms ; Data Mining ; Humans ; Machine Learning ; Parkinson Disease ; diagnosis ; Speech

Clinical data of one patient with sepsis-induced myopathy (SIM) who was successfully treated were reviewed retrospectively, analysis was conducted combined with the relevant literatures. Patient was a middle-aged woman without underlying disease, she was admitted to hospital because of fever, cough, chest tightness and shortness of breath, during the treatment period, type II respiratory failure occurred repeatedly, and it was difficult in withdrawing respirator, patient was finally diagnosed with SIM. After anti-infective treatment and rehabilitation training, she was successfully withdrawn respirator, muscle strength was recovered. This case suggests that SIM can be completely cured through early identification, neuromuscular nutrition therapy, graded rehabilitation training and lung rehabilitation therapy.

Objective:To investigate the alteration of delayed memory and its relationship with neurogenesis and angiogenesis in vascular dementia (VD) rats after moxibustion therapy. Methods: Two hundred adult male SPF Wistar rats were chosen for the experiment. Thirty-six rats were randomly selected as the sham operation group. Except for rats in the sham operation group (n=36), the others were made into VD models by bilateral common carotid arteries occlusion (BCCAo). After modeling, the 108 survived rats were randomly divided into 3 groups: a model group, a neural stem cells (NSCs) plus endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) moxibustion group and a NSCs moxibustion group. Co-transplanted implant was transplanted into the rats in the NSCs plus EPCs moxibustion group, and the rats in the NSCs moxibustion group were transplanted by NSCs only. The NSCs plus EPCs moxibustion group and the NSCs moxibustion group received suspended moxibustion therapy at Baihui (GV 20), Dazhui (GV 14) and Shenting (GV 24), (each group was divided into 3 subgroups by the treatment course as 1, 2 and 3 courses). Every group was measured by Morris water maze to evaluate its delayed memory after 3 treatment courses and the rat’s brain was taken out after perfusion of 4% paraformaldehyde one day after 1, 2 and 3 treatment courses, respectively. Marker protein expression was detected by laser confocal microscope to analyze the effect on neurogenesis and angiogenesis. Results: VD rats showed delayed memory in Morris water maze test 3 d after ischemic injury. After 3 courses of moxibustion therapy, VD-induced delayed memory deficits were improved in the NSCs plus EPCs moxibustion group and the NSCs moxibustion group. The expressions of nestin, doublecortin (DCX) and CD34 increased significantly in the two moxibusiton groups after every treatment course (all P＜0.05), which might contribute to the neurogenesis and angiogenesis in hippocampus. In addition, compared with the rats in the NSCs moxibustion group, the expressions of nestin, DCX and CD34 increased significantly in the NSCs plus EPCs moxibustion group (P＜0.05). Conclusion: Moxibustion can reverse VD-induced delayed memory deficits, which may be related to the promotion of neurogenesis and angiogenesis.