Obesity represents a critical global health challenge characterized by a complex pathogenesis involving dysregulated adipogenesis and lipid metabolism. In recent years, long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been established as crucial regulators in the initiation and progression of obesity. These RNA molecules, typically exceeding 200 nucleotides in length, have emerged as key modulators of various biological processes through multiple molecular mechanisms. This review innovatively defines lncRNAs as “molecular switches” in energy metabolism—they regulate adipogenesis and lipid metabolism through key signaling pathways, and exert bidirectional control over obesity via ceRNA mechanisms or recruitment of chromatin-modifying complexes in tissues such as adipose and liver. Additionally, circulating lncRNAs, owing to their tissue specificity and stability, hold promise as non-invasive liquid biopsy biomarkers for obesity and related metabolic disorders. Furthermore, we systematically summarize lncRNA-based intervention strategies, including targeting pathogenic lncRNAs using antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs) or CRISPR/Cas gene editing systems, utilizing viral vectors (such as adeno-associated virus, AAV) to deliver or mimic beneficial lncRNAs in target tissues, and employing exercise as a non-pharmacological intervention that ameliorates obesity and its related complications at multiple levels, offering novel insights for personalized therapeutic approaches. We also critically assess the current challenges in clinical translation, particularly addressing issues related to delivery efficiency, target specificity, and long-term safety concerns. Future research should focus on the following directions: integrating multi-omics with functional screening to elucidate the regulatory networks of lncRNAs in obesity and its complications; leveraging artificial intelligence to construct predictive models of lncRNA-target gene interactions; developing efficient and safein vivo delivery systems, and optimizing drug design to enhance specificity and safety; establishing highly sensitive detection methods and stable circulating lncRNA biomarkers to enable precise patient stratification and real-time monitoring of therapeutic responses; investigating the synergistic effects of lncRNAs with existing treatments (e.g., GLP-1 receptor agonists, lifestyle interventions) to develop combination therapies and establish a multidimensional, personalized precision medicine framework for obesity. This review aims to provide novel perspectives for understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying obesity and to establish a solid theoretical foundation for developing lncRNA-targeted precision medicine strategies against obesity and its associated metabolic complications.

Obesity represents a critical global health challenge characterized by a complex pathogenesis involving dysregulated adipogenesis and lipid metabolism. In recent years, long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been established as crucial regulators in the initiation and progression of obesity. These RNA molecules, typically exceeding 200 nucleotides in length, have emerged as key modulators of various biological processes through multiple molecular mechanisms. This review innovatively defines lncRNAs as “molecular switches” in energy metabolism—they regulate adipogenesis and lipid metabolism through key signaling pathways, and exert bidirectional control over obesity via ceRNA mechanisms or recruitment of chromatin-modifying complexes in tissues such as adipose and liver. Additionally, circulating lncRNAs, owing to their tissue specificity and stability, hold promise as non-invasive liquid biopsy biomarkers for obesity and related metabolic disorders. Furthermore, we systematically summarize lncRNA-based intervention strategies, including targeting pathogenic lncRNAs using antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs) or CRISPR/Cas gene editing systems, utilizing viral vectors (such as adeno-associated virus, AAV) to deliver or mimic beneficial lncRNAs in target tissues, and employing exercise as a non-pharmacological intervention that ameliorates obesity and its related complications at multiple levels, offering novel insights for personalized therapeutic approaches. We also critically assess the current challenges in clinical translation, particularly addressing issues related to delivery efficiency, target specificity, and long-term safety concerns. Future research should focus on the following directions: integrating multi-omics with functional screening to elucidate the regulatory networks of lncRNAs in obesity and its complications; leveraging artificial intelligence to construct predictive models of lncRNA-target gene interactions; developing efficient and safein vivo delivery systems, and optimizing drug design to enhance specificity and safety; establishing highly sensitive detection methods and stable circulating lncRNA biomarkers to enable precise patient stratification and real-time monitoring of therapeutic responses; investigating the synergistic effects of lncRNAs with existing treatments (e.g., GLP-1 receptor agonists, lifestyle interventions) to develop combination therapies and establish a multidimensional, personalized precision medicine framework for obesity. This review aims to provide novel perspectives for understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying obesity and to establish a solid theoretical foundation for developing lncRNA-targeted precision medicine strategies against obesity and its associated metabolic complications.

Objective To gain insights into the biological characteristics of different populations of Culex tritaeniorhynchus within and around the Yellow Sea wetland from the perspective of the occurrence of resistance, we investigated the levels of resistance to deltamethrin and kdr gene mutation in the wetland and its peripheral areas. Methods Specimens were collected from Cx. tritaeniorhynchus populations at two monitoring sites in the Rare Bird National Nature Reserve and Tiaozi Ni Wetland Scenic Area, and also from two populations in Yancheng City and the Liuhe District of Nanjing, and the resistance of these mosquitoes to deltamethrin was determined using the CDC biotest bottle method. For each concentration of deltamethrin assessed, a random subset of exposed specimens was selected for amplification of the kdr gene fragment, followed by Sanger sequencing to identify and analyze resistance-associated mutations. Results The LC50 levels of deltamethrin among mosquitoes from the four populations in Luhe, Yancheng, the Rare Bird National Nature Reserve and the Tiaozi Ni Wetland Scenic Area were 2.048 5, 7.798 2, 3.473 3, and 17.695 5 mg/mL, respectively, with corresponding concentrations of deltamethrin ranging from 0.005 to 5.000,0.050 to 50.000,0.050 to 25.000 and 0.050 to 50.000 mg/mL, respectively. Furthermore, the ranges of the KT50 values were 11.76-107.43, 67.05-216.30,29.77-107.43 and 28.40-329.51 min; the 1-h knockdown rates were 34.58%-99.15%, 9.52%-43.80%, 55.09%-73.01%, and 10.09%-68.07%; and the 24-h mortality rates were 12.15%-67.52%,9.52%-79.56%,13.17%-82.21%, and 11.01%-78.99%, respectively. With respect to kdr gene mutation, we assayed a total of 63,70,59, and 57 mosquitoes for the four populations, for which we detected L1014F mutation frequencies of 14.29%, 35.00%, 20.34%, and 31.58%, respectively, with a majority of these mutations being heterozygous for resistance. In addition, five adult mosquitoes were identified has having synonymous mutations at site 1011[i. e. , AAT(asparagine)mutation to AAC(asparagine)]. Conclusions Our findings revealed the clear resistance of Cx. tritaeniorhynchus to deltamethrin in the Yancheng region of the Yellow Sea wetland, and the resistance phenotype and kdr frequency of Cx. tritaeniorhynchus in the wetland environment were comparable to those of Cx. tritaeniorhynchus in the wetland environment, thereby indicating that the resistance of different populations of Cx. tritaeniorhynchus was homogeneous under the pressure of different insecticide selection within and around the wetland. However, the underlying mechanisms need to be further studied.

Cemental tear is a rare and indetectable condition unless obvious clinical signs present with the involvement of surrounding periodontal and periapical tissues. Due to its clinical manifestations similar to common dental issues, such as vertical root fracture, primary endodontic diseases, and periodontal diseases, as well as the low awareness of cemental tear for clinicians, misdiagnosis often occurs. The critical principle for cemental tear treatment is to remove torn fragments, and overlooking fragments leads to futile therapy, which could deteriorate the conditions of the affected teeth. Therefore, accurate diagnosis and subsequent appropriate interventions are vital for managing cemental tear. Novel diagnostic tools, including cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT), microscopes, and enamel matrix derivatives, have improved early detection and management, enhancing tooth retention. The implementation of standardized diagnostic criteria and treatment protocols, combined with improved clinical awareness among dental professionals, serves to mitigate risks of diagnostic errors and suboptimal therapeutic interventions. This expert consensus reviewed the epidemiology, pathogenesis, potential predisposing factors, clinical manifestations, diagnosis, differential diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis of cemental tear, aiming to provide a clinical guideline and facilitate clinicians to have a better understanding of cemental tear.
Humans ; Dental Cementum/injuries* ; Consensus ; Diagnosis, Differential ; Cone-Beam Computed Tomography ; Tooth Fractures/therapy*

OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to investigate the potential mediating role of plasma phosphorylated tau217 (p-tau217) in the association between periodontitis and mild cognitive impairment (MCI). METHODS: In this case-control study, patients diagnosed with MCI in the Neurology Department of the First Affiliated Hospital of Shandong Second Medical University from November 2023 to May 2024 were selected as the case group (MCI group). Cognitively normal (CN) volunteers, matched for age and education level and recruited from the physical examination center during the same period, served as the control group (CN group). The general demographic data of the study participants were collected. The Beijing versions of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), clinical dementia rating (CDR), and activities of daily living scale (ADL) were used to assess neuropsychological functions. Clinical periodontal examinations were conducted, the periodontal inflamed surface area (PISA) was calculated, and the periodontitis stage was determined in accordance with the 2018 classification. Fasting elbow venous blood samples were collected in the morning, and blood biochemical indicators were measured. Plasma p-tau217 levels were detected using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Statistical analyses were performed using t-test, Mann-Whitney U test, chi-square test, partial correlation analysis, multivariate Logistic regression analysis, multiple linear regression analysis, restricted cubic spline (RCS) regression analysis, and mediation effect analysis. RESULTS: Among the 192 participants, 96 belong to the MCI group and 96 to the CN group. The prevalence of periodontitis was 63.5% in the MCI group and 43.8% in the CN group, with a statistically significant difference (χ²=7.561, P=0.006). The plasma p-tau217 levels in the MCI group were significantly higher than those in the CN group [7.00 (4.27-9.65) ng/mL versus 2.02 (0.80-3.81) ng/mL, Z=-8.108, P<0.001]. Partial correlation analysis revealed that plasma p-tau217 levels were positively correlated with all the clinical periodontal indices (all P<0.001). After adjustments for baseline covariates, multivariate Logistic regression indicated that periodontitis was an independent risk factor for MCI. Patients with periodontitis had a 1.977-fold higher MCI risk than those without periodontitis (OR=1.977, 95%CI: 1.088-3.594, P=0.025). Moreover, the MCI risk for stage Ⅰ/Ⅱ periodontitis and stage Ⅲ/Ⅳ periodontitis was 1.878 times (OR=1.878, 95%CI: 1.029-3.425, P=0.040) and 2.625 times (OR=2.625, 95%CI: 1.073-6.246, P=0.035) higher than that for patients without periodontitis, respectively. Trend test showed that the MCI risk increased with periodontitis severity (P_trend=0.016). After adjustments for baseline covariates, multiple linear regression analysis showed that periodontitis was an independent risk factor for increased plasma p-tau217 levels (β=3.309, 95%CI: 2.363-4.254, P<0.001). Compared with patients without periodontitis, those with stage Ⅰ/Ⅱ periodontitis (β=1.838, 95%CI: 0.869-2.806, P<0.001) and stage Ⅲ/Ⅳ periodontitis (β=5.539, 95%CI: 4.442-6.636, P<0.001) had significantly higher plasma p-tau217 levels. In addition, trend test indicated that plasma p-tau217 levels increased with periodontitis severity (P_trend<0.001). After adjustments for baseline covariates, RCS regression analysis further revealed that PISA had a positive linear dose-response relationship with MCI risk (P_overall=0.002, P_nonlinear=0.344) and plasma p-tau217 levels (P_overall<0.001, P_nonlinear=0.140). After adjustments for baseline covariates, mediation analysis showed that plasma p-tau217 mediated the association between periodontitis and MCI, with a mediation proportion of 13.99% (95% Bootstrap CI: 0.38%-49.39%, P=0.038). CONCLUSIONS Periodontitis was independently positively associated with MCI risk, and plasma p-tau217 plays a mediating role in this association.
Humans ; Cognitive Dysfunction/complications* ; tau Proteins/blood* ; Periodontitis/complications* ; Case-Control Studies ; Male ; Female ; Phosphorylation ; Aged ; Middle Aged ; Activities of Daily Living

Objective: To analyze the characteristics and safety risks of preservatives and sweeteners in beverages sold near schools in Anshun City, so as to provide a evidence for formulating targeted regulatory strategies in campus. Methods: From December 2023 to July 2024, 834 beverage samples were collected from sales points near primary and secondary schools in Xixiu District and four surrounding townships of Anshun City by a stratified random sampling method. High performance liquid chromatography was used to detect three preservatives (sorbic acid, benzoic acid and dehydroacetic acid) and four sweeteners (sodium saccharin, acesulfame-K, aspartame, and neotame). Differences were analyzed using the Chi-square test. Results: The overall exceedance rate of preservative was 8.6% (72 samples), with dehydroacetic acid showing the highest exceedance rate (7.0%, 58 samples), significantly higher than sorbic acid (0.6%, 5 samples) and benzoic acid (0.4%, 3 samples) ( χ 2=90.85, P <0.01). The overall exceedance rate of sweetener was 10.4% (87 samples), with sodium saccharin having the highest exceedance rate ( 6.2 %, 52 samples),significantly higher than neotame (2.8%, 23 samples), acesulfame-K (0) and aspartame (0) ( χ 2=262.04, P <0.01). Potential risks were identified due to the co occurrence of multiple additive exceedances, including 0.7% (6 samples) for mixed preservatives and 1.6% (13 samples) for mixed sweetener. No statistically significant differences were found in preservative (7.2%, 26 samples) or sweetener (12.3%, 44 samples) exceedance rates between micro enterprises and large, medium and small enterprises ( χ 2=2.67, 5.16, both P >0.05). Conclusion Systemic misuse risk of food additives in beverages sold near school necessitates a risk traceability based regulatory framework, with emphasis on standardizing enterprise production practices and strengthening oversight of sales outlets near campuses.

Age-related sarcopenia is a progressive, systemic skeletal muscle disorder associated with aging. It is primarily characterized by a significant decline in muscle mass, strength, and physical function, rather than being an inevitable consequence of normal aging. Despite ongoing research, there is still no globally unified consensus among physicians regarding the diagnostic criteria and clinical indicators of this condition. Nonetheless, regardless of the diagnostic standards applied, the prevalence of age-related sarcopenia remains alarmingly high. With the global population aging at an accelerating rate, its incidence is expected to rise further, posing a significant public health challenge. Age-related sarcopenia not only markedly increases the risk of physical disability but also profoundly affects patients’ quality of life, independence, and overall survival. As such, the development of effective prevention and treatment strategies to mitigate its dual burden on both societal and individual health has become an urgent and critical priority. Skeletal muscle regeneration, a vital physiological process for maintaining muscle health, is significantly impaired in age-related sarcopenia and is considered one of its primary underlying causes. Skeletal muscle satellite cells (MSCs), also known as muscle stem cells, play a pivotal role in generating new muscle fibers and maintaining muscle mass and function. A decline in both the number and functionality of MSCs is closely linked to the onset and progression of sarcopenia. This dysfunction is driven by alterations in intrinsic MSC mechanisms—such as Notch, Wnt/β‑Catenin, and mTOR signaling pathways—as well as changes in transcription factors and epigenetic modifications. Additionally, the MSC microenvironment, including both the direct niche formed by skeletal muscle fibers and their secreted cytokines, and the indirect niche composed of extracellular matrix proteins and various cell types, undergoes age-related changes. Mitochondrial dysfunction and chronic inflammation further contribute to MSC impairment, ultimately leading to the development of sarcopenia. Currently, there are no approved pharmacological treatments for age-related sarcopenia. Nutritional intervention and exercise remain the cornerstone of therapeutic strategies. Adequate protein intake, coupled with sufficient energy provision, is fundamental to both the prevention and treatment of this condition. Adjuvant therapies, such as dietary supplements and caloric restriction, offer additional therapeutic potential. Exercise promotes muscle regeneration and ameliorates sarcopenia by acting on MSCs through various mechanisms, including mechanical stress, myokine secretion, distant cytokine signaling, immune modulation, and epigenetic regulation. When combined with a structured exercise regimen, adequate protein intake has been shown to be particularly effective in preventing age-related sarcopenia. However, traditional interventions may be inadequate for patients with limited mobility, poor overall health, or advanced sarcopenia. Emerging therapeutic strategies—such as miRNA mimics or inhibitors, gut microbiota transplantation, and stem cell therapy—present promising new directions for MSC-based interventions. This review comprehensively examines recent advances in MSC-mediated muscle regeneration in age-related sarcopenia and systematically discusses therapeutic strategies targeting MSC regulation to enhance muscle mass and strength. The goal is to provide a theoretical foundation and identify future research directions for the prevention and treatment of this increasingly prevalent condition.

BACKGROUND: Over 20 million colonoscopies are performed in China annually. An automatic clinical decision support system (CDSS) with accurate semantic recognition of colonoscopy reports and guideline-based is helpful to relieve the increasing medical burden and standardize the healthcare. In this study, the CDSS was built under a hierarchical-label interpretable classification framework, trained by a state-of-the-art transformer-based model, and validated in a multi-center style. METHODS: We conducted stratified sampling on a previously established dataset containing 302,965 electronic colonoscopy reports with pathology, identified 2041 patients' records representative of overall features, and randomly divided into the training and testing sets (7:3). A total of five main labels and 22 sublabels were applied to annotate each record on a network platform, and the data were trained respectively by three pre-training models on Chinese corpus website, including bidirectional encoder representations from transformers (BERT)-base-Chinese (BC), the BERT-wwm-ext-Chinese (BWEC), and ernie-3.0-base-zh (E3BZ). The performance of trained models was subsequently compared with a randomly initialized model, and the preferred model was selected. Model fine-tuning was applied to further enhance the capacity. The system was validated in five other hospitals with 3177 consecutive colonoscopy cases. RESULTS: The E3BZ pre-trained model exhibited the best performance, with a 90.18% accuracy and a 69.14% Macro-F1 score overall. The model achieved 100% accuracy in identifying cancer cases and 99.16% for normal cases. In external validation, the model exhibited favorable consistency and good performance among five hospitals. CONCLUSIONS The novel CDSS possesses high-level semantic recognition of colonoscopy reports, provides appropriate recommendations, and holds the potential to be a powerful tool for physicians and patients. The hierarchical multi-label strategy and pre-training method should be amendable to manage more medical text in the future.
Humans ; Colonoscopy/methods* ; Deep Learning ; Decision Support Systems, Clinical ; Female ; Male