Clinical practice of Chinese medicine navel therapy for chronic diarrhea: A literature review.

Chronic diarrhea is one of the most common complaints in clinical practice for both adults and children. The purpose of this study was to assess the commonly used Chinese herbal medicine navel therapy for the treatment of chronic diarrhea (traditional Chinese medicine syndrome of spleen deficiency). The literature search was up to June 2018. Four types of studies (clinical trials, case series, case reports, and experts' experience) researched on Chinese medicine navel therapy used alone or combined with other therapies for the treatment of chronic diarrhea all included. Information on prescriptions, effectiveness, and safety of intervention was collected. Traditional Chinese Medicine Inheritance Support System V2.5 was used to do data analysis. We included 416 studies. All these studies carried out in 194 cities of China. We obtained the most commonly used single herbs, herbal medicine combination, and Chinese patent medicine for both adults and children. The top 3 single herbs were Caryophylli Flos (Dingxiang), Cinnamomi Cortex (Rougui), and Euodiae Fructus (Wuzhuyu). The most frequently used Chinese patent medicines were Ding Gui Infantile Navel Paste and Huoxiang Zhengqi Liquid. The effectiveness assessment was based on clinical trials, but we did not perform a meta-analysis because of different study design and unsatisfactory methodological quality. No serious adverse reaction happened in original studies. The application of Chinese medicine navel therapy could be one of the ideal treatments for chronic diarrhea in the future, especially for children. However, high-quality studies are very needed to provide clear evidence.

Diffusion models in bioinformatics and computational biology.

Denoising diffusion models embody a type of generative artificial intelligence that can be applied in computer vision, natural language processing and bioinformatics. In this Review, we introduce the key concepts and theoretical foundations of three diffusion modelling frameworks (denoising diffusion probabilistic models, noise-conditioned scoring networks and score stochastic differential equations). We then explore their applications in bioinformatics and computational biology, including protein design and generation, drug and small-molecule design, protein-ligand interaction modelling, cryo-electron microscopy image data analysis and single-cell data analysis. Finally, we highlight open-source diffusion model tools and consider the future applications of diffusion models in bioinformatics.

Case report: One child with an autism spectrum disorder who had chronically elevated serum levels of CK and CK-MB.

Some patients with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) exhibit elevated serum creatine kinase levels, which are believed to be associated with mitochondrial dysfunction. Although a few articles have reported this situation in the past and the increase mostly ranges from 100 to 300 U/L, there is a paucity of previous study focusing on the serum creatine kinase MB isoenzyme. This article discusses a 5-year-old girl with ASD, whose serum creatine kinase and creatine kinase MB isoenzyme have been rising for nearly 2 years, fluctuating at 584-993 and 111-625 U/L respectively. Except for behavioral and language symptoms associated with ASD, the child appears normal in other aspects. The child's laboratory tests showed no abnormality, except that the serum levels of lactic acid was slightly higher than normal (1.89 mmol/L, normal 1.33-1.78 mmol/L). The child was prescribed with a traditional Chinese medicine during the process and the serum creatine kinase MB isoenzyme level decreased dramatically to 111 U/L after the treatment. This study firstly recorded the serum creatine kinase levels and the MB isoenzyme in patients with autism spectrum disorder for nearly 2 years, indicating that patients with ASD may experience long-term increases in serum creatine kinase and creatine kinase MB isoenzyme, and that the traditional Chinese medicine decoction Xinfukang can temporarily reduce the serum creatine kinase MB isoenzyme level in patients. Nevertheless, the effect is not sustained. Therefore, it is of great importance to conduct long-term longitudinal studies so as to elucidate the potential mechanism responsible for long-term elevation of serum creatine kinase level.