OBJECTIVES: Recent evidence suggests that the gut may be a primary site of metformin action. However, studies on the effects of metformin on gut microbiota remain limited, and its impact on gut microbial metabolites such as short-/medium-chain fatty acids is unclear. This study aims to investigate the effects of metformin on gut microbiota, short-/medium-chain fatty acids, and associated metabolic benefits in high-fat diet rats. METHODS: Twenty-four Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly divided into 3 groups: 1) Normal diet group (ND group), fed standard chow; 2) high-fat diet group (HFD group), fed a high-fat diet; 3) high-fat diet + metformin treatment group (HFD+Met group), fed a high-fat diet for 8 weeks, followed by daily intragastric administration of metformin solution (150 mg/kg body weight) starting in week 9. At the end of the experiment, all rats were sacrificed, and serum, liver, and colonic contents were collected for assessment of glucose and lipid metabolism, liver pathology, gut microbiota composition, and the concentrations of short-/medium-chain fatty acids. RESULTS: Metformin significantly improved HFD-induced glucose and lipid metabolic disorders and liver injury. Compared with the HFD group, the HFD+Met group showed reduced abundance of Blautia, Romboutsia, Bilophila, and Bacteroides, while Lactobacillus abundance significantly increased (all P<0.05). Colonic contents of butyric acid, 2-methyl butyric acid, valeric acid, octanoic acid, and lauric acid were significantly elevated (all P<0.05), whereas acetic acid, isoheptanoic acid, and nonanoic acid levels were significantly decreased (all P<0.05). Spearman correlation analysis revealed that Lactobacillus abundance was negatively correlated with body weight gain and insulin resistance, while butyrate and valerate levels were negatively correlated with insulin resistance and liver injury (all P<0.05). CONCLUSIONS Metformin significantly increases the abundance of beneficial bacteria such as Lactobacillus and promotes the production of short-/medium-chain fatty acids including butyric, valeric, and lauric acid in the colonic contents of HFD rats, suggesting that metformin may regulate host metabolism through modulation of the gut microbiota.
Animals ; Metformin/pharmacology* ; Rats, Sprague-Dawley ; Diet, High-Fat/adverse effects* ; Rats ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome/drug effects* ; Male ; Fatty Acids, Volatile/metabolism* ; Fatty Acids/metabolism*

Objective To investigate the rules of Traditional Chinese Medicine in the treatment of perimenopausal syndrome (PMS) and provide a theoretical basis for the clinical treatment of PMS. Methods The literature related to PMS were collected from China Knowledge Network (CNKI), Wanfang database and Weipu database in the past 20 years, the herbal compound prescriptions for the treatment of PMS were screened and a relevant database were established and analyzed by SPSS. Results The relevant literatures contains 184 Chinese medicine prescriptions/proprietary Chinese medicines, 122 flavors of traditional Chinese medicines, and the drug categories were mainly tonic drugs, antipyretic drugs, astringent drugs, and tranquilizers. The core single-flavor Chinese medicines were Baishao(Radix Paeoniae Alba), Shudihuang(Rehmannia glutinosa ), Danggui(Radix Angelicae Sinensis), Fuling (Indian Buead). The property and flavor covered sweet, bitter, cold, etc.; and the channel tropism belonged to the liver, kidneys, heart, lungs, spleen and meridians. The cluster analysis of high-frequency Traditional Chinese Medicine obtained two main combinations. Conclusion TCM treatment of PMS focused on replenishing qi, soothing the liver, nourishing the kidneys, nourishing blood and calming the heart, and then according to clinical compatibility with drugs such as soothing the nerves, clearing heat and removing dampness; most of its clinical treatment were Xiaoyaosan, Liuwei Dihuang pills, and Zhibo Rehmanniae decoction and other prescriptions which were added and subtracted.

It is necessary to provide a SPARQL query tool for biomedical researchers due to the massive data of bi-omedical ontology. However, manual input of SPARQL query statements is quite complicated and easy to produce errors. A Cytospace-based parameterized SPARQL query system was thus developed for biomedical ontology, which can generate a module with SPARQL query conditions used as parameters. Biomedical researchers can thus rapidly, easily and directly retrieve the data in several biomedical ontology knowledge libraries instead of manual input of SPARQL query statements.

It is of great significance to provide the policy and legal support for the health of whole people by clarifying the various medical policies and laws through the knowledge management model. A knowledge base of medical poli-cies and laws was thus developed using the ontology technology based on the basic structure of medical policies and laws, which is consisted of a front-end management system and a back-end management system with excellent knowledge management functions, and can thus help the decision makers to work out their policies by making full use of its medial and legal knowledge.