The Role of Herbal Medicine in Modulating Bone Homeostasis.

Osteoporosis and other bone diseases are a major public health concern worldwide. Current pharmaceutical treatments for bone disorders have limitations, driving interest in complementary herbal medicines that can help maintain bone health. This review summarizes the scientific evidence for medicinal herbs that modulate bone cell activity and improve bone mass, quality and strength. Herbs with osteogenic, anti-osteoporotic, and anti-osteoclastic effects are discussed, including compounds and mechanisms of action. Additionally, this review examines the challenges and future directions for translational research on herbal medicines for osteoporosis and bone health. While preliminary research indicates beneficial bone bioactivities for various herbs, rigorous clinical trials are still needed to verify therapeutic efficacy and safety. Further studies should also elucidate synergistic combinations, bioavailability of active phytochemicals, and precision approaches to match optimal herbs with specific etiologies of bone disease. Advancing evidence- based herbal medicines may provide novel alternatives for promoting bone homeostasis and treating skeletal disorders.

Expression and Significance of D-Dimer and Fibrinogen in Hyperfibrinolysis of Elderly Patients with Bleeding after BPH Operation.

Objective: To explore the expression level and diagnostic efficacy of plasma D-dimer (DD) and fibrinogen (FIB) in hyperfibrinolysis of elderly patients with bleeding after benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) surgery. Methods: 70 elderly BPH patients with postoperative hemorrhage and hyperfibrinolysis in our hospital were included into the observation group, and 75 elderly BPH patients with postoperative hemorrhage without hyperfibrinolysis were included into the control group. The serum levels of DD and FIB in the two groups of patients were compared, and the correlation of DD and FIB with clinical features and the diagnostic value of DD and FIB. Results: Elderly BPH patients with hyperfibrinolysis showed significantly higher levels of DD and FIB than those without hyperfibrinolysis (P < 0.01). The increase in DD and the decrease of FIB were significantly correlated with the prolonged hospital stay and intensive care unit (ICU) monitoring (P < 0.05). The combination of DD and FIB showed high diagnostic value for postoperative hemorrhage with hyperfibrinolysis (AUC = 0.998). Conclusion: The combination of plasma DD and FIB effectively and accurately diagnoses postoperative hemorrhage with hyperfibrinolysis. High levels of DD and FIB indicate prolonged hospital stay and postoperative ICU monitoring of elderly BPH patients with hyperfibrinolysis.

Analysis of Risk Factors and Nursing Strategies for Postoperative Hemorrhage of Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia.

This study is to investigate the risk factors analysis and nursing strategies for postoperative bleeding of benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH). Totally, 240 BPH patients after surgical excision admitted to Hengshui People's Hospital between January 2019 and January 2020 were recruited. Of the 240 BPH patients, 20 had postoperative bleeding, accounting for 8.3% of all enrollments. Risk factors for postoperative bleeding included large prostate, diabetes, hypertension, urinary tract infection within 1 week before surgery, and the absence of epidural analgesia pumps. There were 87 patients receiving routine nursing (routine group) and 153 patients receiving routine nursing plus hemorrhage prevention care (study group). The study group had fewer cases of postoperative bleeding than the routine group. The influencing factors of postoperative bleeding in patients with prostatic hyperplasia include systemic and local factors, and corresponding hemorrhage prevention care should be performed based on the principle of evidence-based care to reduce the risk of postoperative bleeding.

Evaluation of black tea by using smartphone imaging coupled with micro-near-infrared spectrometer.

Tea quality is generally assessed through panel sensory evaluation, which requires elaborate sample preparation steps. Here, a novel and low-cost evaluation method of using smartphone imaging coupled with micro-near-infrared (NIR) spectrometer based on digital light processing is proposed to classify the quality grades of Keemun black tea. RGB color information was obtained by Image J software, eight texture characteristics, including scheme, contrast, dissimilarity, entropy, correlation, second moment and variance, and homogeneity were obtained by ENVI software based on co - occurrence method from smartphone images, and spectral data were preprocessed with standard normal variate. A principal component analysis (PCA)-support vector machine (SVM) model was established to analyze the color, texture, and spectral data. Low-level and middle-level fusion strategies were introduced for analyzing the fusion data. The results indicated that the accuracy of the SVM model on mid-level data fusion (100.00%, 94.29% for calibration set and prediction set, respectively) was higher than that obtained for separate color (97.14%, 88.57%), texture (84.29%, 60%), spectrum (74.29%, 68.57%) evaluation, or low-level data fusion (88.57%, 82.86%). The best SVM model yielded satisfactory performance with 94.29% accuracy for the prediction sets. These results suggested that smartphone imaging coupled with micro-NIR spectroscopy is an effective and low-cost tool for evaluating tea quality.

Potential of smartphone-coupled micro NIR spectroscopy for quality control of green tea.

Green tea adulterated with sugar and glutinous rice flour has an increased sensitivity to water, which affects the safety of the tea. A total of 475 samples of pure tea, sugar-adulterated tea, and glutinous-rice-flour-adulterated tea were prepared and scanned using micro near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). The collected NIRS data were qualitatively and quantitatively detected by a multi-layer algorithm model. Principal component analysis indicated that the three sample groups had an obvious separation trend. The discriminate rate of the optimal qualitative model, namely support vector machine, was 97.47% for the prediction set. A total of three wavelength selection methods were used to improve the performances of partial least squares regression and support vector machine regression (SVR) models. The nonlinear SVR models based on characteristic wavelengths selected by iteratively retaining informative variables algorithm provided satisfactory results for the identification of sugar and glutinous rice flour adulteration. The correlation coefficients for prediction (Rp) were >0.94, and the residual prediction deviation were >3. The results indicated that smartphone-based micro NIRS can be effectively used to qualitatively and quantitatively analyze adulterants in green tea.

Association of serum 25-Hydroxyvitamin D with Vitamin D intervention and outdoor activity among children in North China: an observational study.

BACKGROUND: Living at high latitudes is one of the risk factors for vitamin D deficiency in children. However, evidence on vitamin D improvement for this pediatric population to date is limited. This study aims at evaluating the association of different vitamin D intervention methods and outdoor activity on the vitamin D status of children in North China. METHODS: In this observational study, a total of 55,925 children aged 1 month to 18 years old were recruited from pediatric outpatient departments from July 2016 to June 2017. Data on demographics, anthropometric measurements, vitamin D intervention (either prescribed by physicians or given by parents) and outdoor activity were recorded. The serum levels of 25-hydroxycholecalciferol (25(OH)D) were determined by high performance liquid chromatography tandem-mass spectrometry. Logistic regression analysis was performed to assess the association of vitamin D intervention or outdoor activity with blood vitamin D status, adjusted for age, gender, BMI for age, and seasons. RESULTS: The overall rate of hypovitaminosis D was 65.60%. Of the children's outdoor activity, 35.63, 31.95, and 32.42% were below 30 min/d, 30-60 min/d and over 60 min/d, respectively. Furthermore, the proportion of therapeutic intervention, supplementation intervention and no vitamin D intervention among the children was 16.48, 32.87, and 50.65%, respectively. After adjusted for confounding factors, vitamin D intervention was associated with a lower risk of hypovitaminosis D, with OR (95% CI) of 0.191 (0.180, 0.202) in children with therapeutic doses and 0.423 (0.404, 0.443) in those with supplementation doses, compared with children without vitamin D intervention. In addition, longer outdoor time was associated with a lower risk of hypovitaminosis D [0.479 (0.456, 0.504) for 60 min/d, 0.737 (0.701, 0.776) for 30-60 min/d], independent of vitamin D intervention. CONCLUSIONS: High prevalence of vitamin D deficiency was found in children living at high latitudes. Vitamin D intervention and outdoor activity are all negatively associated with children's vitamin D deficiency. Routine vitamin D intervention combined with increased outdoor time might be an effective approach to prevent hypovitaminosis D among children, especially those at school, living at high latitudes.

The antioxidant compounds isolated from the fruits of chinese wild raspberry Rubus Chingii Hu.

Raspberry, the fruit of Rubus Chingji Hu, is a widely distributed economic staple food in China. It has long been used as a traditional medicine in mainland China to treat kidney enuresis, nocturnal emission and premature ejaculation in clinic. In this paper, six known compounds (1 - 6) were purified from the fruits of Rubus chingji. Their structures were elucidated as (16α)-16,17-dihydroxy-ent-kauran-2-one17-O-ß-D-glucopyranoside (1), (16R) -16,17-dihydroxy-ent-kaurane-2-one (2), 3,3'-di-O-methylellagic acid 4-(5''-acetyl)-α-L-arabinofuranoside (3), quercilicoside A (4), esculetine (5) and ethyl-ß-D-glucoside (6). All the compounds were isolated from Rubus Chingji Hu for the first time. Compounds 3 and 5 shown distinctive free radical scavenging activities in DPPH and FRAP assays. In addition, no cytotoxicity was observed for compounds 3 and 5 against different cancer cells, suggesting that they might be useful as potential antioxidant agents against various reactive oxygen species.[Formula: see text].

Dietary Flavonoids, Copper Intake, and Risk of Metabolic Syndrome in Chinese Adults.

The effects of flavonoids and copper (Cu) on metabolic syndrome (MetS) have been investigated separately, but no information exists about the joint associations between flavonoids and Cu on the risk of MetS in population studies. In this cross-sectional study, a total of 9108 people aged 20⁻75 years from the Harbin Cohort Study on Diet, Nutrition, and Chronic Non-Communicable Diseases (HDNNCDS) were included. Flavonoid intakes were calculated based on the flavonoid database created in our laboratory. Cu and other nutrient intakes were estimated using the Chinese Food Composition Table. Among all study subjects, a total of 2635 subjects (28.9%) met the diagnostic criteria for inclusion in the MetS group. Total flavonoids (fourth vs. first quartile, odds ratio (OR): 0.77, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.66⁻0.90, Ptrend = 0.002) and Cu (OR 0.81, 90% CI: 0.70⁻0.94, Ptrend = 0.020) were inversely associated with the risk of MetS after adjusting for potential confounders. Higher flavonoid intake was more strongly associated with a lower risk of MetS with high levels of Cu intake (Pinteraction = 0.008). Dose⁻response effects showed an L-shaped curve between the total intake of five flavonoids and the risk of MetS. These results suggest that higher flavonoid intake is associated with a lower risk of MetS, especially under high levels of Cu intake.