A randomized controlled trial of qigong exercise on fatigue symptoms, functioning, and telomerase activity in persons with chronic fatigue or chronic fatigue syndrome

BACKGROUND: Chronic fatigue is common in the general population. Complementary therapies are often used by patients with chronic fatigue or chronic fatigue syndrome to manage their symptoms. PURPOSE: This study aimed to assess the effect of a 4-month qigong intervention program among patients with chronic fatigue or chronic fatigue syndrome. METHODS: Sixty-four participants were randomly assigned to either an intervention group or a wait list control group. Outcome measures included fatigue symptoms, physical functioning, mental functioning, and telomerase activity. RESULTS: Fatigue symptoms and mental functioning were significantly improved in the qigong group compared to controls. Telomerase activity increased in the qigong group from 0.102 to 0.178 arbitrary units (p < 0.05). The change was statistically significant when compared to the control group (p < 0.05). CONCLUSION: Qigong exercise may be used as an alternative and complementary therapy or rehabilitative program for chronic fatigue and chronic fatigue syndrome.published_or_final_versio

The Effect of Paternal Age on Relapse in First-Episode Schizophrenia

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Epistatic Association Mapping in Homozygous Crop Cultivars

The genetic dissection of complex traits plays a crucial role in crop breeding. However, genetic analysis and crop breeding have heretofore been performed separately. In this study, we designed a new approach that integrates epistatic association analysis in crop cultivars with breeding by design. First, we proposed an epistatic association mapping (EAM) approach in homozygous crop cultivars. The phenotypic values of complex traits, along with molecular marker information, were used to perform EAM. In our EAM, all the main-effect quantitative trait loci (QTLs), environmental effects, QTL-by-environment interactions and QTL-by-QTL interactions were included in a full model and estimated by empirical Bayes approach. A series of Monte Carlo simulations was performed to confirm the reliability of the new method. Next, the information from all detected QTLs was used to mine novel alleles for each locus and to design elite cross combination. Finally, the new approach was adopted to dissect the genetic basis of seed length in 215 soybean cultivars obtained, by stratified random sampling, from 6 geographic ecotypes in China. As a result, 19 main-effect QTLs and 3 epistatic QTLs were identified, more than 10 novel alleles were mined and 3 elite parental combinations, such as Daqingdou and Zhengzhou790034, were predicted

Inference of Relationships in Population Data Using Identity-by-Descent and Identity-by-State

It is an assumption of large, population-based datasets that samples are annotated accurately whether they correspond to known relationships or unrelated individuals. These annotations are key for a broad range of genetics applications. While many methods are available to assess relatedness that involve estimates of identity-by-descent (IBD) and/or identity-by-state (IBS) allele-sharing proportions, we developed a novel approach that estimates IBD0, 1, and 2 based on observed IBS within windows. When combined with genome-wide IBS information, it provides an intuitive and practical graphical approach with the capacity to analyze datasets with thousands of samples without prior information about relatedness between individuals or haplotypes. We applied the method to a commonly used Human Variation Panel consisting of 400 nominally unrelated individuals. Surprisingly, we identified identical, parent-child, and full-sibling relationships and reconstructed pedigrees. In two instances non-sibling pairs of individuals in these pedigrees had unexpected IBD2 levels, as well as multiple regions of homozygosity, implying inbreeding. This combined method allowed us to distinguish related individuals from those having atypical heterozygosity rates and determine which individuals were outliers with respect to their designated population. Additionally, it becomes increasingly difficult to identify distant relatedness using genome-wide IBS methods alone. However, our IBD method further identified distant relatedness between individuals within populations, supported by the presence of megabase-scale regions lacking IBS0 across individual chromosomes. We benchmarked our approach against the hidden Markov model of a leading software package (PLINK), showing improved calling of distantly related individuals, and we validated it using a known pedigree from a clinical study. The application of this approach could improve genome-wide association, linkage, heterozygosity, and other population genomics studies that rely on SNP genotype data

Genome-Wide Association Study in Asian Populations Identifies Variants in ETS1 and WDFY4 Associated with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus

Systemic lupus erythematosus is a complex and potentially fatal autoimmune disease, characterized by autoantibody production and multi-organ damage. By a genome-wide association study (320 patients and 1,500 controls) and subsequent replication altogether involving a total of 3,300 Asian SLE patients from Hong Kong, Mainland China, and Thailand, as well as 4,200 ethnically and geographically matched controls, genetic variants in ETS1 and WDFY4 were found to be associated with SLE (ETS1: rs1128334, P = 2.33×10−11, OR = 1.29; WDFY4: rs7097397, P = 8.15×10−12, OR = 1.30). ETS1 encodes for a transcription factor known to be involved in a wide range of immune functions, including Th17 cell development and terminal differentiation of B lymphocytes. SNP rs1128334 is located in the 3′-UTR of ETS1, and allelic expression analysis from peripheral blood mononuclear cells showed significantly lower expression level from the risk allele. WDFY4 is a conserved protein with unknown function, but is predominantly expressed in primary and secondary immune tissues, and rs7097397 in WDFY4 changes an arginine residue to glutamine (R1816Q) in this protein. Our study also confirmed association of the HLA locus, STAT4, TNFSF4, BLK, BANK1, IRF5, and TNFAIP3 with SLE in Asians. These new genetic findings may help us to gain a better understanding of the disease and the functions of the genes involved

Global patient outcomes after elective surgery: prospective cohort study in 27 low-, middle- and high-income countries.

BACKGROUND: As global initiatives increase patient access to surgical treatments, there remains a need to understand the adverse effects of surgery and define appropriate levels of perioperative care. METHODS: We designed a prospective international 7-day cohort study of outcomes following elective adult inpatient surgery in 27 countries. The primary outcome was in-hospital complications. Secondary outcomes were death following a complication (failure to rescue) and death in hospital. Process measures were admission to critical care immediately after surgery or to treat a complication and duration of hospital stay. A single definition of critical care was used for all countries. RESULTS: A total of 474 hospitals in 19 high-, 7 middle- and 1 low-income country were included in the primary analysis. Data included 44 814 patients with a median hospital stay of 4 (range 2-7) days. A total of 7508 patients (16.8%) developed one or more postoperative complication and 207 died (0.5%). The overall mortality among patients who developed complications was 2.8%. Mortality following complications ranged from 2.4% for pulmonary embolism to 43.9% for cardiac arrest. A total of 4360 (9.7%) patients were admitted to a critical care unit as routine immediately after surgery, of whom 2198 (50.4%) developed a complication, with 105 (2.4%) deaths. A total of 1233 patients (16.4%) were admitted to a critical care unit to treat complications, with 119 (9.7%) deaths. Despite lower baseline risk, outcomes were similar in low- and middle-income compared with high-income countries. CONCLUSIONS: Poor patient outcomes are common after inpatient surgery. Global initiatives to increase access to surgical treatments should also address the need for safe perioperative care. STUDY REGISTRATION: ISRCTN5181700