Classical risk factors of cardiovascular disease among Chinese male steel workers: a prospective cohort study for 20 years

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Cardiovascular disease (CVD) constitutes a major public health problem in China and worldwide. We aimed to examine classical risk factors and their magnitudes for CVD in a Chinese cohort with over 20 years follow-up.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A cohort of 5092 male steelworkers recruited from 1974 to 1980 in Beijing of China was followed up for an average of 20.84 years. Cox proportional-hazards regression model were used to evaluate the risk of developing a first CVD event in the study participants who were free of CVD at the baseline.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The multivariable-adjusted hazard ratio (HR) associated with every 20 mmHg rise in systolic blood pressure (SBP) was 1.63 in this Chinese male population, which was higher than in Caucasians. Compared to non-smokers, men who smoked not less than one-pack-a-day had a HR of 2.43 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.75-3.38). The HR (95% CI) for every 20 mg/dl increase in total serum cholesterol (TC) and for every point rise in body mass index (BMI) was 1.13 (1.04-1.23) and 1.06 (1.02-1.09), respectively.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Our study documents that hypertension, smoking, overweight and hypercholesterolemia are major conventional risk factors of CVD in Chinese male adults. Continued strengthening programs for prevention and intervention on these risk factors are needed to reduce the incidence of CVD in China.</p

Study on the Relationship between Manganese Concentrations in Rural Drinking Water and Incidence and Mortality Caused by Cancer in Huai’an City

Background. Cancer is a significant disease burden in the world. Many studies showed that heavy metals or their compounds had connection with cancer. But the data conflicting about the relationship of manganese (Mn) to cancer are not enough. In this paper, the relationship was discussed between Mn concentrations in drinking water for rural residents and incidence and mortality caused by malignant tumors in Huai’an city. Methods. A total of 158 water samples from 28 villages of 14 towns were, respectively, collected during periods of high flow and low flow in 3 counties of Huai’an city, along Chinese Huai’he River. The samples of deep groundwater, shallow groundwater, and surface water were simultaneously collected in all selected villages. Mn concentrations in all water samples were determined by inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS 7500a). The correlation analysis was used to study the relationship between the Mn concentration and cancer incidence and mortality. Results. Mn concentrations detectable rate was 100% in all water samples. The mean concentration was 452.32 μg/L ± 507.76 μg/L. There was significant difference between the high flow period and low flow period (t=-5.23, P<0.05) and also among deep groundwater, shallow groundwater, and surface water (F=5.02, P<0.05). The ratio of superscale of Mn was 75.32%. There was significant difference of Mn level between samples in the high flow period and low flow period (χ2=45.62,  P<0.05) and also among deep groundwater, shallow groundwater, and surface water (χ2=10.66, P<0.05). And also we found that, during the low flow period, Mn concentration has positive correlation with cancer incidence and mortality; for a 1 μg/L increase in Mn concentration, there was a corresponding increase of 0.45/100000 new cancer cases and 0.35/100000 cancer deaths (P<0.05). Conclusions. In Huai’an city, the mean concentration of Mn in drinking water was very high. Mn concentration correlated with cancer incidence and mortality

Identification of Plasma Metabolomic Profiling for Diagnosis of Esophageal Squamous-Cell Carcinoma Using an UPLC/TOF/MS Platform

Epidemiological studies indicated that esophageal squamous-cell carcinoma (ESCC) is still one of the most common causes of cancer incidence in the world. Searching for valuable markers including circulating endogenous metabolites associated with the risk of esophageal cancer, is extremely important A comparative metabolomics study was performed by using ultraperformance liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization-accurate mass time-of-flight mass spectrometry to analyze 53 pairs of plasma samples from ESCC patients and healthy controls recruited in Huaian, China. The result identified a metabolomic profiling of plasma including 25 upregulated metabolites and five downregulated metabolites, for early diagnosis of ESCC. With a database-based verification protocol, 11 molecules were identified, and six upregulated molecules of interest in ESCC were found to belong to phospholipids as follows: phosphatidylserine, phosphatidic acid, phosphatidyl choline, phosphatidylinositol, phosphatidyl ethanolamine, and sphinganine 1-phosphate. Clinical estimation of metabolic biomarkers through hierarchical cluster analysis in plasma samples from 17 ESCC patients and 29 healthy volunteers indicated that the present metabolite profile could distinguish ESCC patients from healthy individuals. The cluster of aberrant expression of these metabolites in ESCC indicates the critical role of phospholipid metabolism in the oncogenesis of ESCC and suggests its potential ability to assess the risk of ESCC development in addition to currently used risk factors

Epigenetic Repression of miR-218 Promotes Esophageal Carcinogenesis by Targeting ROBO1

miR-218, consisting of miR-218-1 at 4p15.31 and miR-218-2 at 5q35.1, was significantly decreased in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) in our previous study. The aim of this study was to determine whether aberrant methylation is associated with miR-218 repression. Bisulfite sequencing analysis (BSP), methylation specific PCR (MSP), and 5-aza-2′-deoxycytidine treatment assay were applied to determine the methyaltion status of miR-218 in cells and clinical samples. In vitro assays were performed to explore the role of miR-218. Results showed that miR-218-1 was significantly CpG hypermethylated in tumor tissues (81%, 34/42) compared with paired non-tumor tissues (33%, 14/42) (p &lt; 0.05). However, no statistical difference was found in miR-218-2. Accordingly, expression of miR-218 was negatively correlated with miR-218-1 methylation status (p &lt; 0.05). After demethylation treatment by 5-aza-2′-deoxycytidine, there was a 2.53- and 2.40-fold increase of miR-218 expression in EC109 and EC9706, respectively. miR-218 suppressed cell proliferation and arrested cells at G1 phase by targeting 3′ untranslated region (3′UTR) of roundabout guidance receptor 1 (ROBO1). A negative correlation was found between miR-218 and ROBO1 mRNA expression in clinical samples. In conclusion, our results support that aberrant CpG hypermethylation at least partly accounts for miR-218 silencing in ESCC, which impairs its tumor-suppressive function

Associations of serum aminotransferase and the risk of all-cause and cause-specific mortality in Chinese type 2 diabetes: a community-based cohort study

Objective Investigating the associations of alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST) with all-cause, cardiovascular disease (CVD) and cancer mortality in a large cohort of community-dwelling patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM).Design Community-based prospective cohort study conducted between 2013 and 2014.Setting 44 selected townships in Changshu and Huai’an City, Jiangsu province, China.Participants 20340 participants with T2DM were recruited in Jiangsu province, China.Methods We use Cox proportional hazard models to estimate the HR and 95% CIs of associations of serum ALT and AST levels with all-cause and cause-specific mortality. Restricted cubic splines were used to explore the dose-response relationships between ALT and AST levels with mortality.Results ALT and AST levels were inversely associated with CVD mortality, compared with the lowest quintile (Q1), the multivariable HRs of the highest quintile (Q5) was 0.82 (95% CI: 0.66 to 1.01, p for trend=0.022) and 0.78 (95% CI: 0.63 to 0.96, p for trend=0.022), respectively. Furthermore, the HRs for ALT levels in all-cause mortality were 0.90 (95% CI: 0.79 to 1.01, p for trend=0.018), and the HRs for AST levels in cancer mortality were 1.29 (95% CI: 1.02 to 1.63, p for trend=0.023). Stronger inverse effects of ALT and AST levels on all-cause mortality were observed in the older subgroup and in those with dyslipidaemia (all p for interaction &lt;0.05). Further analysis based on gender showed that the associations between serum aminotransferases and the mortality risk were more significant in women and substantially attenuated in men.Conclusion Our findings suggested patients with T2DM with lower levels of ALT and AST had an increased risk of CVD mortality, which needs confirmation in future clinical trials

Relative expression of miR-143 and miR-145 in ESCC cell lines.

<p>Red bar and blue bar represent the relative expression of miR-143 and miR-145 normalized by U6 in five ESCC cell lines respectively. The correlation analysis suggested a co-expression pattern between miR-143 and miR-145.</p

Schematic representations of miR-143 and miR-145 cluster in Chromosome.

<p>The human precursor mir143 and precursor miR-145 are located at the same intergenic region within about 2 kb on chromosome 5, which can be suggested to be a cluster. The mir143/miR-145 cluster might have a shared promoter with other genes from UCSC database.</p

Differential expression of miR-143 and miR-145 in ESCC tissues and tissues adjacent to tumors.

<p>A represents the difference of miR-143 expression in each pair of tumor tissue (T) and adjacent normal tissue (N) from 110 ESCC patients. B represents the difference of miR-145 expression in each pair of tumor tissue (T) and adjacent normal tissue (N) from 110 ESCC patients.</p

Association of FSCN1 with miR-143/miR-145 cluster.

<p>A represents the protein level of FSCN1 normalized by β-actin in five ESCC cell lines with different miR-143 and miR-145 expression level using Western Blotting assay. B represents the scatter plots of miR-143 (square) and miR-145 (diamond) expression correlated with FSCN1 protein in ESCC cell lines.</p