Clinical efficacy of probiotics in the treatment of alcoholic liver disease: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Objective: Alcoholic liver disease (ALD) is a liver damage disease caused by long-term heavy drinking. Currently, there is no targeted pharmaceutical intervention available for the treatment of this disease. To address this, this paper evaluates the efficacy and safety of probiotic preparation in treating ALD through conducting a meta-analysis, and provides a valuable insight for clinical decision-making. Methods: A systematic search was conducted across databases, including PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, CNKI, VIP, Wanfang, and CBM from the inception dates to October 15, 2023, to identify clinical randomized controlled trials on probiotic preparations in the treatment of ALD. After the literature underwent screening, data extraction, and quality assessment, RevMan 5.3 and Stata 14.2 were employed for data analysis and processing. Results: A total of 9 randomized controlled trials fulfilled the inclusion criteria. The results of the meta-analysis showed that probiotic preparation could significantly improve the liver function of patients with alcoholic liver disease compared with the control group. Probiotic intervention led to a significant reduction in the levels of alanine aminotransferase (MD=-13.36,95%CI:-15.80,-10.91;P<0.00001),aspartate aminotransferase (MD=-16.99,95%CI:-20.38,-13.59;P<0.00001),γ-glutamyl transpeptidase (MD=-18.79,95% CI:-28.23,-9.34; P<0.0001). Concurrently, the level of serum albumin (MD=0.19,95% CI:0.02,0.36;P=0.03) was increased. Furthermore, probiotic intervention could also modulate the composition of intestinal flora in patients with alcoholic liver disease, leading to an augmentation in Bifidobacteria and a reduction in Escherichia coli. However, in patients with alcoholic liver disease, probiotic intervention showed no significant effects on total bilirubin (MD=-0.01,95% CI:-0.17,0.15;P=0.91), tumor necrosis factor-α (MD=0.03,95% CI:-0.86,0.92;P=0.94) and interleukin-6 (MD=-5.3,95% CI:-16.04,5.45;P=0.33). Conclusion: The meta-analysis indicates that probiotics can improve liver function in alcoholic liver disease, reduce inflammatory responses, regulate intestinal flora, which have potential value in the treatment of alcoholic liver disease. Systematic review registration: https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/, identifier CRD42023472527.

Phloretic acid requires the insulin/IGF-1 pathway and autophagy to enhance stress resistance and extend the lifespan of Caenorhabditis elegans.

Objective: In humans, aging is associated with increased susceptibility to most age-related diseases. Phloretic acid (PA), a naturally occurring compound found in Ginkgo biloba and Asparagus, exhibits has potential as an anti-aging agent and possesses antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and immunomodulatory properties. This study aimed to investigate the effects of PA on longevity and stress resistance in Caenorhabditis elegans (C.elegans) and the mechanisms that underlie its effects. Methods: First, we examined the effects of PA on lifespan and healthspan assay, stress resistance and oxidative analysis, lipofuscin levels. Second, we examined the insulin/insulin-like pathway, mitochondria, autophagy-related proteins, and gene expression to explain the possible mechanism of PA prolonging lifespan. Results: Our findings demonstrated that PA dose-dependently extended the C.elegans lifespan, with 200 µM PA showing the greatest effect and increased the C.elegans lifespan by approximately 16.7%. PA enhanced motility and the pharyngeal pumping rate in senescent C.elegans while reducing the accumulation of aging pigments. Further investigations revealed that daf-16, skn-1, and hsf-1 were required for mediating the lifespan extension effect of PA in C.elegans since its impact was suppressed in mutant strains lacking these genes. This suggests that PA activates these genes, leading to the upregulation of downstream genes involved in stress response and senescence regulation pathways. Furthermore, PA did not extend the lifespan of the RNAi atg-18 and RNAi bec-1 but it attenuated SQST-1 accumulation, augmented autophagosome expression, upregulated autophagy-related gene expression, and downregulated S6K protein levels. These findings suggest that the potential life-extending effect of PA also involves the modulation of the autophagy pathway. Conclusion: These findings results highlight the promising anti-aging effects of PA and warrant further investigation into its pharmacological mechanism and medicinal development prospects.

Impulse Fluid Simulation.

We propose a new incompressible Navier-Stokes solver based on the impulse gauge transformation. The mathematical model of our approach draws from the impulse-velocity formulation of Navier-Stokes equations, which evolves the fluid impulse as an auxiliary variable of the system that can be projected to obtain the incompressible flow velocities at the end of each time step. We solve the impulse-form equations numerically on a Cartesian grid. At the heart of our simulation algorithm is a novel model to treat the impulse stretching and a harmonic boundary treatment to incorporate the surface tension effects accurately. We also build an impulse PIC/FLIP solver to support free-surface fluid simulation. Our impulse solver can naturally produce rich vortical flow details without artificial enhancements. We showcase this feature by using our solver to facilitate a wide range of fluid simulation tasks including smoke, liquid, and surface-tension flow. In addition, we discuss a convenient mechanism in our framework to control the scale and strength of the turbulent effects of fluid.