Subhealth: definition, criteria for diagnosis and potential prevalence in the central region of China

BACKGROUND: A full evaluation of health conditions is necessary for the effective implementation of public health interventions. However, terms to address the intermediate state between health and disease are lacking, leading the public to overlook this state and thus increasing the risks of developing disease. METHODS: A cross-sectional health survey of 1,473 randomly recruited Chinese Han adults of both sexes living in the central region of China. The criteria for diagnosis of subhealth was defined as the presence of ≥ 1 of the following abnormalities: body mass index ≥ 25 kg/m(2) or waist circumference ≥ 102 cm in men and 88 cm in women; systolic pressure 120–139 mmHg and/or diastolic pressure 80–89 mmHg; serum triglyceride level ≥ 150 mg/dL and/or total cholesterol level ≥ 200 mg/dL and/or high-density lipoprotein cholesterol level < 40 mg/dL in men and 50 mg/dL in women; serum glucose level 110–125 mg/dL; estimated glomerular filtration rate 60–89 ml/min/1.73 m(2); levels of liver enzymes in liver function tests between 41–59 U/L, or with fatty liver disease but < 33% of affected hepatocytes; levels of oxidative stress biomarkers beyond the reference range of 95%; or problems with both sleep quality and psychological state. RESULTS: The prevalences of subhealth and disease in the central region of China were 36.6% and 43.1%, respectively. The prevalence of disease increased from 26.3% in participants aged 20–39 years, to 47.6% and 78.9% for participants aged 40–59 years and those aged 60 years or older, respectively. Compared with participants aged 20–39, the prevalences of health and subhealth in participants aged 60 years or older decreased by 86.7% and 60.3%, respectively. The prevalence of subhealth was increased in association with increases in lifestyle risk scores, while the prevalences of both health and disease were reduced. CONCLUSION: The prevalences of subhealth and disease are high in central China. Subhealth is associated with high lifestyle risk scores. Both the health care sector and the public should pay more attention to subhealth. Lifestyle modifications and/or psychological interventions are needed to ameliorate these conditions

Ulinastatin Protects against Acute Kidney Injury in Infant Piglets Model Undergoing Surgery on Hypothermic Low-Flow Cardiopulmonary Bypass.

OBJECTIVE:Infants are more vulnerable to kidney injuries induced by inflammatory response syndrome and ischemia-reperfusion injury following cardiopulmonary bypass especially with prolonged hypothermic low-flow (HLF). This study aims to evaluate the protective role of ulinastatin, an anti-inflammatory agent, against acute kidney injuries in infant piglets model undergoing surgery on HLF cardiopulmonary bypass. METHODS:Eighteen general-type infant piglets were randomly separated into the ulinastatin group (Group U, n = 6), the control group (Group C, n = 6), and the sham operation group (Group S, n = 6), and anaesthetized. The groups U and C received following experimental procedure: median thoracotomy, routine CPB and HLF, and finally weaned from CPB. The group S only underwent sham median thoracotomy. Ulinastatin at a dose of 5,000 units/kg body weight and a certain volume of saline were administrated to animals of the groups U and C at the beginning of CPB and at aortic declamping, respectively. Venous blood samples were collected at 3 different time points: after anesthesia induction in all experimental groups, 5 minutes, and 120 minutes after CPB in the Groups U and C. Markers for inflammation and acute kidney injury were tested in the collected plasma. N-acetyl-β-D-glucosaminidase (NAG) from urine, markers of oxidative stress injury and TUNEL-positive cells in kidney tissues were also detected. RESULTS:The expressions of plasma inflammatory markers and acute kidney injury markers increased both in Group U and Group C at 5 min and 120 min after CPB. Also, numbers of TUNEL-positive cells and oxidative stress markers in kidney rose in both groups. At the time point of 120-min after CPB, compared with the Group C, some plasma inflammatory and acute kidney injury markers as well as TUNEL-positive cells and oxidative stress markers in kidney were significantly reduced in the Group U. Histologic analyses showed that HLF promoted acute tubular necrosis and dilatation. CONCLUSIONS:HLF cardiopulmonary bypass surgery could intensify systemic inflammatory responses and oxidative stress on infant piglets, thus causing acute kidney injury. Ulinastatin might reduce such inflammatory response and oxidative stress and the extent of kidney injury

Efficacy and Safety of Remimazolam in Endoscopic Sedation—A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

The acquisition of high quality maps of gene expression in the rodent brain is of fundamental importance to the neuroscience community. The generation of such datasets relies on registering individual gene expression images to a reference volume, a task encumbered by the diversity of staining techniques employed, and by deformations and artifacts in the soft tissue. Recently, deep learning models have garnered particular interest as a viable alternative to traditional intensity-based algorithms for image registration. In this work, we propose a supervised learning model for general multimodal 2D registration tasks, trained with a perceptual similarity loss on a dataset labeled by a human expert and augmented by synthetic local deformations. We demonstrate the results of our approach on the Allen Mouse Brain Atlas (AMBA), comprising whole brain Nissl and gene expression stains. We show that our framework and design of the loss function result in accurate and smooth predictions. Our model is able to generalize to unseen gene expressions and coronal sections, outperforming traditional intensity-based approaches in aligning complex brain structures

Long non-coding RNA CASC2 suppresses pulmonary artery smooth muscle cell proliferation and phenotypic switch in hypoxia-induced pulmonary hypertension

Abstract Background In this study, we aimed to investigate whether and how lncRNA CASC2 was involved in hypoxia-induced pulmonary hypertension (PH)-related vascular remodeling. Methods The expression of lncRNAs or mRNAs was detected by qRT-PCR, and western blot analysis or immunochemistry was employed for detecting the protein expression. Cell number assay and EdU (5-ethynyl-2′-deoxyuridine) staining were performed to assess cell proliferation. Besides, flow cytometry and wound healing assay were employed for assessments of cell apoptosis and cell migration, respectively. Rat model of hypoxic PH was established and the hemodynamic measurements were performed. Hematoxylin and eosin (HE) and Masson′s trichrome staining were carried out for pulmonary artery morphometric analysis. Results The expression of lncRNA CASC2 was decreased in hypoxia-induced rat pulmonary arterial tissues and pulmonary artery smooth muscle cells (PASMCs). Up-regulation of lncRNA CASC2 inhibited cell proliferation, migration yet enhanced apoptosis in vitro and in vivo in hypoxia-induced PH. Western blot analysis and immunochemistry showed that up-regulation of lncRNA CASC2 greatly decreased the expression of phenotype switch-related marker α-SMA in hypoxia-induced PH. Furthermore, it was indicated by the pulmonary artery morphometric analysis that lncRNA CASC2 suppressed vascular remodeling of hypoxia-induced rat pulmonary arterial tissues. Conclusion LncRNA CASC2 inhibited cell proliferation, migration and phenotypic switch of PASMCs to inhibit the vascular remodeling in hypoxia-induced PH

LAPTM4B allele *2 is a marker of poor prognosis for gallbladder carcinoma.

BACKGROUND: Lysosomal protein transmembrane 4 beta (LAPTM4B) is a novel cancer-related gene which has two alleles designated LAPTM4B*1 and LAPTM4B*2. In this study we investigated the correlation of LAPTM4B genotype with prognosis and clinicopathologic features in patients who had undergone curative resection for gallbladder carcinoma (GBC). METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: PCR assay was performed to determine the LAPTM4B genotype in 85 patients. The correlation of LAPTM4B genotype with clinicopathologic parameters was assessed with the Chi-squared test. Differences in patient survival were determined by the Kaplan-Meier method. Multivariate analysis of prognostic factors was carried out with Cox regression analysis. Patients with LAPTM4B *2 had both significantly shorter overall survival (OS) and shorter disease-free survival (DFS) (both P<0.001). Multivariate analysis showed that LAPTM4B genotype is a prognostic factor for OS and DFS (both P<0.001). CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: LAPTM4B allele *2 is a risk factor associated with poor prognosis in patients with resected GBC, and LAPTM4B status may be therefore be useful preoperatively as an adjunct in evaluation of the operability of GBC

A simple-to-use nomogram for predicting prolonged mechanical ventilation for children after Ebstein anomaly corrective surgery: a retrospective cohort study

Abstract Background Prolonged mechanical ventilation (PMV) after pediatric cardiac surgery imposes a great burden on patients in terms of morbidity, mortality as well as financial costs. Ebstein anomaly (EA) is a rare congenital heart disease, and few studies have been conducted about PMV in this condition. This study aimed to establish a simple-to-use nomogram to predict the risk of PMV for EA children. Methods The retrospective study included patients under 18 years who underwent corrective surgeries for EA from January 2009 to November 2021. PMV was defined as postoperative mechanical ventilation time longer than 24 hours. Through multivariable logistic regression, we identified and integrated the risk factors to develop a simple-to-use nomogram of PMV for EA children and internally validated it by bootstrapping. The calibration and discriminative ability of the nomogram were determined by calibration curve, Hosmer-Lemeshow goodness-of-fit test and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. Results Two hundred seventeen children were included in our study of which 44 (20.3%) were in the PMV group. After multivariable regression, we obtained five risk factors of PMV. The odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were as follows: preoperative blood oxygen saturation, 0.876(0.805,0.953); cardiothoracic ratio, 3.007(1.107,8.169); Carpentier type, 4.644(2.065,10.445); cardiopulmonary bypass time, 1.014(1.005,1.023) and postoperative central venous pressure, 1.166(1.016,1.339). We integrated the five risk factors into a nomogram to predict the risk of PMV. The area under ROC curve of nomogram was 0.805 (95% CI, 0.725,0.885) and it also provided a good discriminative information with the corresponding Hosmer-Lemeshow p values > 0.05. Conclusions We developed a nomogram by integrating five independent risk factors. The nomogram is a practical tool to early identify children at high-risk for PMV after EA corrective surgery

Results of plasma markers of inflammation in the three groups.

<p>(A) serum IL-6, interleukin-6; (B) serum TNF-α, tumor necrosis factor-α. Data are presented as mean±SD, n = 6, *<i>P</i> <0.05 versus Group C. For graphs pooled estimates for pairwise comparisons derived from Analysis of Covariance with adjustment for baseline serum IL-6 at 0.94±0.13μg/L, serum TNF-α 0.32±0.05ng/L, were as follows: <b>IL-6;</b> 5min post CPB(T2): Group C, 1.37±0.16μg/L, Group U, 1.01±0.13μg/L. Test for overall treatment effect <i>p</i> = 0.021. 120min post CPB(T3): Group C, 1.38±0.28μg/L, Group U, 1.13±0.24μg/L. Test for overall treatment effect <i>P</i> = 0.001. <b>TNF-α</b>; 5min post CPB(T2): Group C, 0.37±0.19 ng/L, Group U, 0.33±0.19ng/L. Test for overall treatment effect <i>P</i> = 0.075. 120min post CPB(T3): Group C, 0.35±0.13 ng/L, Group U, 0.32±0.13 ng/L. Test for overall treatment effect <i>P</i> = 0.088.</p

Typical histological examination results in the three groups.

<p>A, Group S, Tubules and glomeruli appear normal (H&E×400); B, Group C, after 2h CPB, kidney histologic changes include tubular dilatation(*), vacuole formation(▲), and glomerular over-filling (arrow) appeared obvious (H&E×400); C, Group U, injury changes of kidney still exist as tubular dilatation(*), vacuole formation(▲), and glomerular over-filling (<i>arrow</i>) but were milder with intervention of ulinastatin(H&E×400).</p