Background Carbendazim (CBZ), a widely used benzimidazole fungicide, has raised increasing concerns regarding the health risks associated with its residues. However, the toxic effects and associated mechanisms of CBZ on the skeletal system have not been reported. Objective To elucidate the effects of carbendazim on osteogenic differentiation and its underlying mechanisms. Methods MC3T3-E1 mouse pre-osteoblastic cells were treated with 1, 10, and 100 μmol·L⁻¹ CBZ for 24 h to examine cell viability, alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity, bone nodule formation, reactive oxygen species (ROS) level, malondialdehyde (MDA) content, and nitric oxide synthase (NOS) activity. Transcriptomics was used to identify differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in osteoblasts exposed to CBZ. Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) and gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) were employed to analyze the potential biological pathways of DEGs. Real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and Western blot were used to validate changes in gene and protein expression. Results Exposure to 10 and 100 μmol·L⁻¹ CBZ significantly reduced osteoblast viability, ALP activity, bone nodule formation, and NOS activity, while increasing intracellular ROS levels. CBZ at 100 μmol·L⁻¹ concentration significantly elevated MDA level (P < 0.05). The transcriptomic analysis revealed that 1 μmol·L⁻¹ CBZ treatment resulted in 385 significantly DEGs. The KEGG enrichment analysis revealed that CBZ significantly affects hormone regulation pathways (including parathyroid hormone, growth hormone, dopamine, and oxytocin), mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) and cyclic GMP-dependent protein kinase G (cGMP-PKG) signaling pathways, focal adhesion and adherens junction, as well as the NOD-like receptor signaling pathway and the mRNA surveillance (NMD) pathway. The results of GSEA showed that CBZ significantly inhibited the bile acid metabolism and the Wnt/β-catenin pathway in osteoblasts. The validation results demonstrated that CBZ significantly suppressed the mRNA expression of Wnt3a and β-catenin, as well as the protein expression of Runx2 and Osterix in the Wnt/β-catenin pathway. Conclusion CBZ exposure exhibits potential skeletal toxicity, and its mechanism is through promoting oxidative stress, interfering with the Wnt/β-catenin pathway in osteogenic differentiation, thereby inhibiting the bone formation function of osteoblasts.

Diabetic neurogenic bladder(DNB)is an autonomic neuropathy,which is a common complication of diabetes mellitus(DM)with a high disability rate.Emphysematous cystitis(EC)is a rare and life-threatening urological disease.A patient with DNB and EC was admitted to our hospital,who was complicated with bilateral hydronephrosis and double ureters.After comprehensive treatment with indwelling catheterization,intravenous application of broad-spectrum antibiotics,and Ins hypoglycemic therapy,the re-examination of urinary CT showed that bilateral hydronephrosis,double ureters,and bladder gas disappeared,and the indicators were improved compared with before.Due to the severe condition of the patient with DNB,the residual urine volume of the bladder increased day by day after the catheter was removed,which led to long-term indwelling catheter after discharge.

Objectives:To analyze the epidemiological characteristics and incidence trends of chronic hepatitis B in Shenzhen from 2005 to 2023, develop a prediction models with performance evaluation, explore its associations with social demographic index (SDI) and inform targeted prevention strategy development.Methods:Based on surveillance data of infectious diseases, descriptive epidemiological methods were applied to analyze the spatiotemporal and population distribution characteristics. A multifactorial prediction model integrating the SDI was established, and its predictive performance was evaluated by using data from 2020-2023. Model accuracy was evaluated by using root mean square error and mean absolute percentage error ( MAPE). The association between SDI and incidence rates was assessed through generalized linear models. Results:A total of 235 703 chronic hepatitis B cases were reported cumulatively in Shenzhen from 2005-2023, with an annual average incidence rate of 98.84/100 000. Long-term trends revealed a significant increase in the incidence from 2005 to 2019. The incidence rate was 2.48 times higher in men than in women, and the majority of cases occurred in age group 20-50 years. The cases were mainly workers in manufacturing and services. Seasonal incidence peaks were observed in March and during May to November. The overall SDI exhibited a consistent upward trend, and the positive correlation between SDI and incidence rate was observed in central urban districts (Futian and Nanshan). In contrast, industrial zones (Guangming and Bao'an) saw a significant decline in incidence rates due to intensified prevention interventions despite the increase of SDI level. Model predictions indicated that the multivariate long short-term memory (LSTM) deep learning model integrating SDI parameters outperformed both the spatiotemporal covariate- enhanced model and the augmented Bayesian structural time series model, with MAPE of 4.71%, 7.66% and 10.30%, respectively. Conclusion:SDI is a key social determinant associated with hepatitis B transmission risks, and dynamic thresholds can be established to develop tiered early warning mechanisms. It is suggested to integrate multisource SDI data into the LSTM framework, implement targeted interventions such as "rapid antibody screening in key areas + vaccination boosters for high-risk populations" and improve the timeliness of epidemic response through hybrid models to reduce disease burden level.

To investigate the clinical value of endoscopic ultrasound-guided puncture drainage in the treatment for liver abscess and abdominal and pelvic abscess with difficulty in conventional puncture drainage. Data of 12 such patients in the Second Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University from January 2015 to November 2023 were retrospectivly analyzed. Results showed liver abscess in 4 cases, abdominal and pelvic abscess in 8 cases. All patients had fever with varying degrees of abdominal pain. Twelve patients with liver abscess and abdominal and pelvic abscess received 13 times of endoscopic ultrasound-guided puncture (1 patient with a large abdominal and pelvic cyst complicated with infection received transgastric and transrectal puncture of 2 times). The puncture needle was successfully penetrated into the pus cavity. Four patients with liver abscess underwent endoscopic ultrasound-guided suction and irrigation, and the abscess was almost completely aspirated. Seven patients with abdominal and pelvic abscess underwent endoscopic ultrasound-guided suction and irrigation, of which 5 cases were almost completely aspirated, and 2 cases had poor drainage effect due to the viscous pus (1 case returned to normal temperature after anti-infection treatment; 1 case had recurrent fever after the operation, and septic shock and death occurred 2 weeks after the operation). A patient with recurrent abdominal and pelvic sclerosis after the operation had multiple abscesses in the abdomen and pelvis, and percutaneous CT-guided drainage was performed for abdominal abscess, but the fever was still repeated. Endoscopic ultrasound-guided balloon dilation plus double pig tail and nasobiliary duct drainage were performed. The patient's temperature returned to normal and abdominal pain was relieved 48 hours after the operation. The total effective rate of abscess drainage was 83.3% (10/12), and the effective rate of suction combined with irrigation for abscess drainage was 81.8% (9/11), and no operation-related complications were observed in all patients. After 3 months of follow-up, no recurrence occurred in 10 patients with effective drainage of abscess, and abscess was self-absorbed in 1 patient with pelvic abscess without effective drainage and no recurrence was observed. Endoscopic ultrasound-guided puncture drainage is of certain clinical value for some liver abscesses and abdominal and pelvic abscesses that are difficult to be drained by conventional puncture, and can reduce the secondary trauma caused by surgical operations.

Objective:To develop and evaluate a nomogram prediction model for poor outcome of lower extremity motor function in patients with acute ischemic stroke (AIS) at 90 days after onset.Methods:Patients with AIS admitted to Guangzhou Province Hospital of Chinese Medicine from January to October 2024 were included retrospectively. At 90 days after onset, Functional Ambulation Category (FAC) was used for outcome evaluation. ≥4 was defined as good outcome and <4 was defined as poor outcome. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to identify the independent predictive factors for poor outcome of lower extremity motor function, and develop a nomogram prediction model. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve, calibration curve, and clinical decision curve were used to evaluate the predictive model. Results:A total of 325 patients with AIS were enrolled, including 214 males (65.8%), median aged 62 years (interquartile range, 54-71 years); 158 patients (48.6%) had poor outcome of lower extremity motor function. Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that older age (odds ratio [ OR] 1.037, 95% confidence interval [ CI] 1.011-1.065]; P=0.007) and a higher baseline National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) score ( OR 1.472, 95% CI 1.336-1.637; P<0.001) were the independent predictors of poor outcome, while intravenous thrombolysis ( OR 0.195, 95% CI 0.080-0.443; P<0.001) and early rehabilitation intervention ( OR 0.444, 95% CI 0.231-0.850; P=0.014) were the independent predictors of good outcome. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of the nomogram prediction model developed using the above factors was 0.906 (95% CI 0.872-0.940), indicating that the model had good discriminability. The calibration curve fits well with the ideal curve. The clinical decision curve showed that the model had stronger clinical practicality. Conclusion:The nomogram developed by age, intravenous thrombolysis, early rehabilitation intervention, and baseline NIHSS score can effectively predict the risk of poor outcome of lower extremity motor function in patients with AIS and has higher clinical value.

OBJECTIVE: To construct a predictive model for the reduction in methadone maintenance treatment (MMT) and evaluate the effects of different interventions and other clinical factors on methadone reduction using Shapley additive explanations (SHAP). METHODS: Two clinical trials of acupuncture for methadone reduction in MMT patients were analyzed, and the baseline data, MMT related information, intervention measures, the data related to dose-reduction outcomes were collected. The predictive model was constructed by means of 6 machine learning algorithms including support vector machine (SVM), K-nearest neighbors (KNN), logistic regression (LR), Naive Bayes (NB), random forest (RF) and categorical-boosting (CatBoost), and 2 integration methods, blending-ensemble method (Blending) and Stacking-ensemble method (Stacking). SHAP was employed for the interpretability analysis of the optimal model. RESULTS: A total of 251 MMT patients were included, 128 cases in the acupuncture group and 123 cases in the non-acupuncture group. CatBoost and Stacking performed optimally in the test set. CatBoost obtained an accuracy of 0.780 0±0.060 8, a precision of 0.500 0±0.120 0, a recall of 0.818 2±0.140 2, F1 score of 0.620 7±0.114 0, and receiver operating characteristic-area under curve (ROC-AUC) of 0.857 8±0.140 2 for the subjects. In MMT patients with acupuncture as an adjunctive therapy, the top 5 important features for methadone reduction, included intervention measures, body mass index (BMI), the duration of MMT, the history of opioid use and occupation; and SHAP values were 1.25, 0.36, 0.21, 0.19 and 0.12, respectively. The SHAP feature dependence plot showed that BMI, MMT duration and the history of opioid use presented a nonlinear negative correlation with the reduction effect. CONCLUSION In acupuncture as adjunctive therapy for methadone reduction, the clinical factors should be considered comprehensively; and the interpretable predictive model provides a scientific basis for it, which is conducive to the improvement of clinical strategy of acupuncture for methadone reduction and the development of personalized reduction scheme.
Humans ; Methadone/therapeutic use* ; Acupuncture Therapy ; Adult ; Female ; Male ; Machine Learning ; Middle Aged ; Opiate Substitution Treatment ; Young Adult

BACKGROUND: Spicy food consumption has been reported to be inversely associated with mortality from multiple diseases. However, the effect of spicy food intake on the incidence of vascular diseases in the Chinese population remains unclear. This study was conducted to explore this association. METHODS: This study was performed using the large-scale China Kadoorie Biobank (CKB) prospective cohort of 486,335 participants. The primary outcomes were vascular disease, ischemic heart disease (IHD), major coronary events (MCEs), cerebrovascular disease, stroke, and non-stroke cerebrovascular disease. A Cox proportional hazards regression model was used to assess the association between spicy food consumption and incident vascular diseases. Subgroup analysis was also performed to evaluate the heterogeneity of the association between spicy food consumption and the risk of vascular disease stratified by several basic characteristics. In addition, the joint effects of spicy food consumption and the healthy lifestyle score on the risk of vascular disease were also evaluated, and sensitivity analyses were performed to assess the reliability of the association results. RESULTS: During a median follow-up time of 12.1 years, a total of 136,125 patients with vascular disease, 46,689 patients with IHD, 10,097 patients with MCEs, 80,114 patients with cerebrovascular disease, 56,726 patients with stroke, and 40,098 patients with non-stroke cerebrovascular disease were identified. Participants who consumed spicy food 1-2 days/week (hazard ratio [HR] = 0.95, 95% confidence interval [95% CI] = [0.93, 0.97], P <0.001), 3-5 days/week (HR = 0.96, 95% CI = [0.94, 0.99], P = 0.003), and 6-7 days/week (HR = 0.97, 95% CI = [0.95, 0.99], P = 0.002) had a significantly lower risk of vascular disease than those who consumed spicy food less than once a week ( Ptrend <0.001), especially in those who were younger and living in rural areas. Notably, the disease-based subgroup analysis indicated that the inverse associations remained in IHD ( Ptrend = 0.011) and MCEs ( Ptrend = 0.002) risk. Intriguingly, there was an interaction effect between spicy food consumption and the healthy lifestyle score on the risk of IHD ( Pinteraction = 0.037). CONCLUSIONS Our findings support an inverse association between spicy food consumption and vascular disease in the Chinese population, which may provide additional dietary guidance for the prevention of vascular diseases.
Humans ; Male ; Female ; Prospective Studies ; Middle Aged ; Aged ; Vascular Diseases/etiology* ; Risk Factors ; China/epidemiology* ; Adult ; Proportional Hazards Models ; Cerebrovascular Disorders/epidemiology* ; East Asian People

ObjectiveTo explore the biological mechanism of bone loss caused by perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) through transcriptomic analysis, and to provide new insights into regulating perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) applications and the prevention of hazards affecting bone health. MethodsMouse embryonic osteoblast precursor cells (MC3T3-E1) were exposed to 0.1, 1, 10, and 100 μmol·L^-¹ PFOA for 24 hours to assess the effects on cell viability and alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity, and to determine the critical concentration of PFOA toxicity. The transcriptome sequencing (RNA-seq) was performed to identify differentially expressed genes (DEGs) induced by PFOA. Gene ontology (GO) analysis and gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) were conducted to identify significantly affected gene pathways. Additionally, Seahorse XF metabolic phenotyping and reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) were used to validate the key pathways. ResultsExposure to 10 and 100 μmol·L^-¹ PFOA significantly reduced the cell viability and ALP activity of MC3T3-E1 cells. Therefore, the results of transcriptomic analysis for 10 μmol‧L^-1 PFOA exposure found that a total of 80 DEGs were identified, including 32 upregulated genes and 48 downregulated genes. According to GO analysis, PFOA mainly affected cellular components such as mitochondrion and nucleus, molecular functions involving GTPase activity and GTP binding, as well as biological process related to mRNA processing. GSEA identified the downregulation of the β-oxidation of fatty acid pathway in mitochondria. Metabolic phenotyping reserches showed that PFOA indeed reduced mitochondrial aerobic respiration capacity and adenosine triphosphate (ATP) production, and the ratio of ATP production from cellular aerobic respiration to glycolysis was significantly decreased as well. The mRNA expression of glucose metabolism-related genes (GK, G6PD, and CS), as well as fatty acid metabolism-related genes (CPT1A and CPT2), were significantly downregulated. ConclusionPFOA reduces bone formation by inhibiting energy metabolism and β-oxidation of fatty acid pathways in osteoblasts, whihc lays the foundation for revealing the mechanism of PFOA exposure induced bone loss.

Objective: To analyze the association between altitudes and nutritional status of children and adolescents, and to explore the moderating effects of dietary behaviors and physical activity, so as to provide a scientific basis for developing lifestyle interventions tailored to local conditions. Methods: From September to November 2023, physical examinations and questionnaire surveys were conducted among children and adolescents aged 7-17 in two autonomous regions, Inner Mongolia and Xizang, with a final sample of 156 511 participants by the stratified cluster random sampling method. Height and weight were measured to calculate body mass index (BMI). Sociodemographic characteristics, dietary behaviors, and physical activity were collected via questionnaires, while the altitude of each participant s school was obtained using Amap. Logistic regression was performed to examine the relationship between altitudes and nutritional status. Interaction terms and stratified analyses were applied to assess the moderating effects of dietary behaviors and physical activity. Restricted cubic spline (RCS) were used for visualization. Results: In 2023, the prevalence of wasting and overweight/obesity among children and adolescents in Xizang were 9.7% and 9.0%, respectively, compared to 2.9% and 22.0% in Inner Mongolia. Logistic regression analysis results showed that for every 1 km increase in altitude, the risk of wasting increased, while the risk of overweight/obesity decreased ( OR =1.43, 0.19, both P <0.05). The results of the stratified analysis showed that compared to those living at altitudes <1 km, children and adolescents with healthy diets showed no significant association between altitudes (1-<2 and 2-<3 km) and wasting ( OR =1.22, 0.75, both P >0.05), whereas significant associations were observed at 3-<4 and ≥4 km altitudes ( OR =2.25, 2.89, both P <0.05). In contrast, unhealthy dietary groups showed statistically significant associations across altitudes ( OR =1.18-4.04, all P <0.05), consistent with RCS results. No moderating effects were observed for physical activity on the altitude wasting association or for dietary behaviors and physical activity combined on the altitude overweight/obesity association ( P interaction =0.63, 0.10, 0.53). Conclusion Healthy dietary behaviors play a critical role in improving the nutritional status of children and adolescents and reducing regional disparities, providing a scientific foundation for public health policy formulation and implementation.

Objective To analyze the research literature on fire needling therapy published on China National Knowledge Infrastructure(CNKI),Wanfang Data Knowledge Service Platform(Wanfang),and China Science and Technology Journal Database(VIP)in the last 20 years,and to explore the current status and the hotspots of the research,thus to summarize and analyze the spectrum of the dominant diseases and technological transformations of fire needling therapy.Methods CiteSpace and VOSviewer were applied to analyze the keywords,authors and institutions,to draw the scientific knowledge map,and to summarize the disease spectrum.Results A total of 4 226 literature were included,from 2000 to 2023,the number of publications on fire needling therapy research showed an increasing trend,with each of the four periods showing its own characteristics of the times.The"filiform fire needling"and"pricking of fire needling"were widely used as acupuncture tools and acupuncture techniques in the studies,the emergence of high-frequency disease keywords such as"shingles""vitiligo"and"acne"indicates that research on the treatment of skin diseases with fire needling has attracted much attention.The disease spectrum of fire needling therapy was enlarged,involving a total of 356 diseases distributed in 20 disease systems.Conclusion Skin diseases and arthralgia became the dominant diseases of fire needling therapy,the rise of research hot words such as"acne vulgaris""vitiligo""stroke""chronic eczema""filiform fire needling"and"Lingnan fire needling"indicates that fire needling therapy is developing towards research standardization,theoretical diversification and disease diversification.