Many natural products can be bio-converted by the gut microbiota to influence pertinent efficiency. Ginsenoside compound K (GCK) is a potential anti-type 2 diabetes (T2D) saponin, which is mainly bio-transformed into protopanaxadiol (PPD) by the gut microbiota. Studies have shown that the gut microbiota between diabetic patients and healthy subjects are significantly different. Herein, we aimed to characterize the biotransformation of GCK mediated by the gut microbiota from diabetic patients and healthy subjects. Based on 16S rRNA gene sequencing, the results indicated the bacterial profiles were considerably different between the two groups, especially Alistipes and Parabacteroides that increased in healthy subjects. The quantitative analysis of GCK and PPD showed that gut microbiota from the diabetic patients metabolized GCK slower than healthy subjects through liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). The selected strain A. finegoldii and P. merdae exhibited a different metabolic capability of GCK. In conclusion, the different biotransformation capacity for GCK may impact its anti-diabetic potency.
Humans ; Gastrointestinal Microbiome/genetics* ; Chromatography, Liquid/methods* ; Healthy Volunteers ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S ; Feces/microbiology* ; Tandem Mass Spectrometry ; Biotransformation ; Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2/drug therapy*

OBJECTIVE: To compare the effect on facial acupoint temperature between acupuncture at Houxi (SI 3) and Dazhui (GV 14) so as to verify "Houxi (SI 3) communicating the governor vessel" based on the infrared thermal imaging technology. METHODS: Thirty-five healthy subjects (5 cases dropped off) were collected and before-after study in the same subject was adopted. The subjects were successively assigned into a sham-acupuncture group, a Houxi group, a Wangu group and a Dazhui group. Sham-acupuncture at Houxi (SI 3) on the left, acupuncture at Houxi (SI 3) on the left, Wangu (SI 4) on the left and Dazhui (GV 14) were given respectively. One intervention was given and the needles were retained for 30 min in each group. 30 min before and after acupuncture, the infrared thermal images of the face were collected, and the facial temperature was compared among the following 5 acupoints, i.e. Yintang (GV 24⁺), Suliao (GV 25), Shuigou (GV 26), Duiduan (GV 27) and Chengjiang (CV 24). RESULTS: After acupuncture, the facial temperature at Yintang (GV 24⁺) and Chengjiang (CV 24) was increased compared before acupuncture in the sham-acupuncture group (P<0.01, P<0.05). The facial temperature at Suliao (GV 25) in the Houxi group was reduced after acupuncture (P<0.05). In the Wangu group, the temperature at Yintang (GV 24⁺) was increased compared before acupuncture (P<0.01). The facial temperature was increased at Duiduan (GV 27) and Chengjiang (CV 24) compared before acupuncture in the Dazhui group (P<0.01, P<0.05). The differences of facial temperature at Chengjiang (CV 24) and Suliao (GV 25) after acupuncture were larger than before acupuncture in the Houxi group and the Dazhui group (P<0.01). In comparison with the temperature at Suliao (GV 25) of the same group, the differences of facial temperature before and after acupuncture at Yintang (GV 24⁺), Shuigou (GV 26), Duiduan (GV 27) and Chengjiang (CV 24) were increased in the Houxi group (P<0.01, P<0.05); while, the increase was also obtained at Yintang (GV 24⁺), Shuigou (GV 26), Duiduan (GV 27) and Chengjiang (CV 24) in the Dazhui group (P<0.05, P<0.01). The difference of facial temperature at Yintang (GV 24⁺) before and after acupuncture was increased compared with Suliao (GV 25) in the Wangu group (P<0.05). CONCLUSION Acupuncture at Houxi (SI 3) generates a similar thermal effect as Dazhui (GV 14). It regulates and dissipates the core temperature to "govern the yang qi of the whole body".
Humans ; Acupuncture Therapy ; Acupuncture Points ; Healthy Volunteers ; Needles ; Technology

At present, the incidence of Parkinson's disease (PD) is gradually increasing. This seriously affects the quality of life of patients, and the burden of diagnosis and treatment is increasing. However, the disease is difficult to intervene in early stage as early monitoring means are limited. Aiming to find an effective biomarker of PD, this work extracted correlation between each pair of electroencephalogram (EEG) channels for each frequency band using weighted symbolic mutual information and k-means clustering. The results showed that State1 of Beta frequency band ( P = 0.034) and State5 of Gamma frequency band ( P = 0.010) could be used to differentiate health controls and off-medication Parkinson's disease patients. These findings indicated that there were significant differences in the resting channel-wise correlation states between PD patients and healthy subjects. However, no significant differences were found between PD-on and PD-off patients, and between PD-on patients and healthy controls. This may provide a clinical diagnosis reference for Parkinson's disease.
Humans ; Parkinson Disease/diagnosis* ; Quality of Life ; Cluster Analysis ; Electroencephalography ; Healthy Volunteers

This study aims to clarify host factors of IFN treatment in the treatment of chronic hepatitis B (CHB) patients by screening the differentially expressed genes of IFN pathway CHB patients with different response to interferon (IFN) therapy. Three cases were randomly selected in IFN-responding CHB patients (Rs), non-responding CHB patients (NRs) and healthy participants, respectively. The human type I IFN response RT ² profiler PCR array was used to detect the expression levels of IFN-related genes in peripheral blood monocytes (PBMCs) from healthy participants and CHB patients before and after Peg-IFN-α 2a treatment. The results showed that more differentially expressed genes appeared in Rs group than NRs group after IFN treatment. Comparing with healthy participants, IFNG, IL7R, IRF1, and IRF8 were downregulated in both Rs and NRs group before IFN treatment; CXCL10, IFIT1, and IFITM1 were upregulated in the Rs; IL13RA1 and IFI35 were upregulated in the NRs, while IFRD2, IL11RA, IL4R, IRF3, IRF4, PYHIN1, and ADAR were downregulated. The expression of IL15, IFI35 and IFI44 was downregulated by 4.09 ( t = 10.58, P < 0.001), 5.59 ( t = 3.37, P = 0.028) and 10.83 ( t = 2.8, P = 0.049) fold in the Rs group compared with the NRs group, respectively. In conclusion, IFN-response-related gene array is able to evaluate IFN treatment response by detecting IFN-related genes levels in PBMC. High expression of CXCL10, IFIT1 and IFITM1 before treatment may suggest satisfied IFN efficacy, while high expression of IL13RA1, IL15, IFI35 and IFI44 molecules and low expression of IFRD2, IL11RA, IL4R, IRF3, IRF4, PYHIN1 and ADAR molecules may be associated with poor IFN efficacy.
Humans ; Healthy Volunteers ; Hepatitis B, Chronic/genetics* ; Immunotherapy ; Interleukin-15 ; Leukocytes, Mononuclear ; Nuclear Proteins ; Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis/methods* ; Interferons/therapeutic use* ; Treatment Outcome

High-frequency steady-state asymmetric visual evoked potential (SSaVEP) provides a new paradigm for designing comfortable and practical brain-computer interface (BCI) systems. However, due to the weak amplitude and strong noise of high-frequency signals, it is of great significance to study how to enhance their signal features. In this study, a 30 Hz high-frequency visual stimulus was used, and the peripheral visual field was equally divided into eight annular sectors. Eight kinds of annular sector pairs were selected based on the mapping relationship of visual space onto the primary visual cortex (V1), and three phases (in-phase[0º, 0º], anti-phase [0º, 180º], and anti-phase [180º, 0º]) were designed for each annular sector pair to explore response intensity and signal-to-noise ratio under phase modulation. A total of 8 healthy subjects were recruited in the experiment. The results showed that three annular sector pairs exhibited significant differences in SSaVEP features under phase modulation at 30 Hz high-frequency stimulation. And the spatial feature analysis showed that the two types of features of the annular sector pair in the lower visual field were significantly higher than those in the upper visual field. This study further used the filter bank and ensemble task-related component analysis to calculate the classification accuracy of annular sector pairs under three-phase modulations, and the average accuracy was up to 91.5%, which proved that the phase-modulated SSaVEP features could be used to encode high- frequency SSaVEP. In summary, the results of this study provide new ideas for enhancing the features of high-frequency SSaVEP signals and expanding the instruction set of the traditional steady state visual evoked potential paradigm.
Humans ; Evoked Potentials, Visual ; Brain-Computer Interfaces ; Healthy Volunteers ; Signal-To-Noise Ratio

INTRODUCTION: Student volunteers in COVID-19 vaccination activities help augment the health care workforce. However, there is a lack of literature that explores student volunteerism in the Philippines. This paper analyses the shared meanings of the lived experiences of volunteer nursing students during a pandemic. METHODS: Student nurses who had joined Red Cross vaccination activities were recruited by purposive sampling and interviewed online using a pilot-tested interview guide with open-ended questions. Participants were recruited until data saturation. The data collected was analyzed using Colaizzi’s Seven-Step Method. RESULTS: The study has identified two main themes that describe the phenomenon of student- nurse volunteerism during COVID-19 vaccination programs: 1) personal motivation and 2) perceived benefits and outcomes. There were four sub-themes under personal motivation - desire for personal growth, intrinsic altruism, past experiences and involvement in volunteer work, and opportunity for advocating against vaccine hesitancy. Perceived benefits and outcomes had two sub-themes - sense of fulfillment in the act of volunteering and opportunity for actual nurse-patient interaction. CONCLUSION The findings from the study suggest that, despite the lack of experience of working as frontliners during the COVID-19 vaccination programs, nursing students volunteered due to personal motivations and perceived benefits and outcomes.
Volunteers

To let the general public,regardless of gender,age,career and education background,understand the core concept of hospice and palliative care,practice in their lives,and then spread to and serve as many people as possible,the hospice and palliative care team of Peking Union Medical College Hospital established the professional hospice and palliative care training platform for volunteers in 2021.This article reviews the training design,content,methods,and results of the platform.It is concluded that the platform has theory-based training design,logical and complete training content,suitable training method for volunteers,and satisfactory training results.The establishment of this hospice and palliative care training platform for volunteers has excellent feasibility.Efforts should be made to further explore the performance and long-term development strategy of the training platform.
Humans ; Hospices ; Palliative Care ; Hospice Care ; Volunteers/education*

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the status of transfusion-transmissible infection (TTI) among voluntary blood donors in Nanjing in recent five years, in order to provide data support for the recruitment of blood donors and formulation and updating of blood screening strategies. METHODS: HIV/HBV/HCV/TP serological markers were detected by ELISA in 487 120 blood donors in Nanjing from 2016 to 2020. Confirmatory assay was applied in anti-HIV positive samples by Nanjing Municipal Center for Disease Control and Prevention. The prevalence of TTI was calculated and the trend of disease was analyzed under different demographic groups. RESULTS: The total positive rate of TTI in blood donors was 0.49% (2 411/487 120), in which the overall seroprevalence rate of HBsAg, anti-HCV, anti-HIV and anti-TP was 0.23%, 0.09%, 0.01% and 0.16%, respectively. The overall prevalence of HIV and TP remained relatively steady (P>0.05), whereas HBV and HCV decreased year by year (P<0.05). The prevalence of TTI was higher among people with lower education level, high age group and first-time blood donation. CONCLUSION The prevalence of TTI among voluntary blood donors in Nanjing is at a low level from 2016 to 2020, but the risk still exists. The recruitment of regular donors and the improvement of blood screening technology can effectively reduce the risk of TTI.
Blood Donors ; HIV Infections/epidemiology* ; Hepatitis B Surface Antigens ; Humans ; Prevalence ; Seroepidemiologic Studies ; Syphilis ; Volunteers

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the reproducibility and validity of a short food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) for food group intake in Japan, the reproducibility and partial validity of which were previously confirmed for nutrients. METHODS: A total of 288 middle-aged healthy volunteers from 11 different areas of Japan provided nonconsecutive 3-day weighed dietary records (DRs) at 3-month intervals over four seasons. We evaluated reproducibility based on the first (FFQ1) and second (FFQ2) questionnaires and their validity against the DRs by comparing the intake of 20 food groups. Spearman's rank correlation coefficients (SRs) were calculated between energy-adjusted intake from the FFQs and that from the DRs. RESULTS: The intake of 20 food groups estimated from the two FFQs was mostly equivalent. The median energy-adjusted SRs between the FFQ1 and FFQ2 were 0.61 (range 0.38-0.86) for men and 0.66 (0.45-0.84) for women. For validity, the median de-attenuated SRs between DRs and the FFQ1 were 0.51 (0.17-0.76) for men and 0.47 (0.23-0.77) for women. Compared with the DRs, the proportion of cross-classification into exact plus adjacent quintiles with the FFQ1 ranged from 58 to 86% in men and from 57 to 86% in women. According to the robust Z scores and the Bland-Altman plot graphs, the underestimation errors in the FFQ1 tended to be greater in individuals with high mean levels of consumption for meat for men and for other vegetables for both men and women. CONCLUSION The FFQ demonstrated high reproducibility and reasonable validity for food group intake. This questionnaire is short and remains appropriate for identifying associations between diet and health/disease among adults in Japan.
Adult ; Aged ; Diet/statistics & numerical data* ; Diet Surveys ; Energy Intake ; Female ; Food/statistics & numerical data* ; Healthy Volunteers ; Humans ; Japan ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Reproducibility of Results

OBJECTIVE: To observe the imaging features of focus of knee joint tendon in patients with knee osteoarthritis (KOA) by musculoskeletal ultrasound (MSUS) technique. METHODS: One hundred KOA patients and 100 healthy subjects were included. All the KOA patients were palpated by the sequence of foot RESULTS: The top-5 focus of knee tendon of KOA patients were located in medial inferior patella, medial tibial condyle, inferior patella, Zusanlici and Hedingci. The thickness of ligaments and tendons in extension and flexion positions in KOA patients were thicker than that in healthy subjects ( CONCLUSION The focus of knee joint tendon in KOA patients shows significantly thickened musculoskeletal imaging features.
Healthy Volunteers ; Humans ; Knee Joint/diagnostic imaging* ; Osteoarthritis, Knee/diagnostic imaging* ; Tendons/diagnostic imaging* ; Ultrasonography