[Meta-analysis and trial sequential analysis of Qingjin Huatan Decoction for treating community-acquired pneumonia in elderly].

To systematically evaluate the clinical efficacy and safety of modified Qingjin Huatan Decoction in the treatment of community-acquired pneumonia in the elderly, and provide evidence-based reference for the clinical application of this prescription. Randomized controlled trials of Qingjin Huatan Decoction in the treatment of community-acquired pneumonia in the elderly were collected by searching PubMed, EMbase, Cochrane Library, CNKI, China Biomedical Literature database, VIP database and WanFang database. Outcome indicators included clinical effective rate, inflammation index, symptom improvement time, chest radiograph improvement time, hospitalization time and adverse reactions. RevMan 5.3 and Stata/IC 15.1 software were used for Meta-analysis; TSA 0.9.5.10 Beta software was used for trial sequential analysis, and GRADE profiler 3.6 was used for grade evidence quality evaluation. Thirteen studies were included finally, including 1 058 patients, 536 patients in the experimental group and 522 patients in the control group.Meta-analysis showed that, the clinical effective rate of the experimental group was significantly higher than that of the control group(RR=1.16, 95%CI[1.10, 1.21], P<0.000 01); fever time(MD=-1.32, 95%CI[-1.93,-0.71], P<0.000 1), cough time(MD=-1.95, 95%CI[-2.69,-1.21), P<0.000 01), time to rale disappearance(MD=-1.55, 95%CI[-2.37,-0.73], P=0.000 2), time to chest radiograph improvement(MD=-1.72, 95%CI[-2.98,-0.46], P=0.007), and hospitalization time(MD=-3.16, 95%CI[-4.58,-1.74], P<0.000 01) in the experimental group were significantly shorter than those in the control group. The improvement in CRP(WMD=-3.44,95%CI[-4.50,-2.38],P<0.001), WBC(WMD=-2.04,95%CI[-3.31,-0.78],P<0.01), IL-6(WMD=-4.27,95%CI[-4.62,-3.92],P<0.001), and TNF-α(WMD=-0.47,95%CI[-0.55,-0.39], P<0.001) of the experimental group was significantly better than that of the control group. There was no significant difference in PCT improvement between the two groups(WMD=-0.63, 95%CI[-1.65, 0.40], P=0.23). No serious adverse reactions occurred in both groups. Sequential analysis of the trial showed that in the studies with cumulative inclusion of clinical effective rate, the data passed the traditional threshold and TSA threshold, further confirming its clinical efficacy. GRADE evaluation showed that the evidence level was low to extremely low. Western medicine treatment combined with Qingjin Huatan Decoction may improve clinical efficiency in the treatment of community-acquired pneumonia in the elderly, improve clinical symptoms faster, reduce CRP, WBC and other inflammatory indicators, and shorten hospital stay. The level of evidence obtained in this study is low, which needs to be further verified by high-quality multi-center, randomized controlled trials.

Effects of dietary inclusion levels of palm oil on growth performance, antioxidative status and serum cytokines of broiler chickens.

This study was conducted to investigate the effects of dietary palm oil inclusion levels on growth performance, serum antioxidative status and cytokines in Sanhuang broiler chickens. A total of 208 one-day-old female Sanhuang chickens were randomly allocated to four treatment groups with four replicates per group and of 13 birds each for a 42-day feeding trial. Dietary treatments were basal diet without palm oil (control) and diets containing 2%, 4% or 6% palm oil. During days 22 to 42 and the overall experimental period, chickens fed diets supplemented with 4% and 6% palm oil had a lower average daily feed intake (ADFI) (p = 0.019) and feed to gain ratio (F/G) (p = 0.031). Average daily gain (ADG) tended to be higher (p = 0.089) for palm oil inclusion treatments compared with the control treatment from days 1 to 42. Dietary 2% and 4% palm oil treatments significantly lowed serum malondialdehyde concentration on day 21 when compared to the control and 6% palm oil treatments (p = 0.027). Dietary 6% palm oil treatment significantly reduced the catalase (CAT) activity (p = 0.018) and total antioxidant capacity (T-AOC) (p = 0.027) in serum in comparison with the control treatment on day 21. No significant differences were observed in superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px) activities in serum among dietary treatments on day 21. There were no significant differences in T-AOC, CAT, SOD and GSH-Px activities among dietary treatments on day 42. Dietary inclusion of 4% and 6% palm oil significantly increased (p = 0.01) serum interleukin-1ß (IL-1ß) content, but improved transforming growth factor-ß (TGF-ß) content in serum on both days 21 and 42 (p = 0.032 and 0.022 respectively) as well as IL-10 content on day 42 (p = 0.022) when compared with the control treatment. Furthermore, dietary inclusion of 6% palm oil significantly reduced tumour necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) content on days 21 and 42 (p = 0.021 and 0.001 respectively) compared with the control treatment. These results suggest that dietary inclusion of 4% and 6% palm oil could improve the growth performance, modulate the balance between pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines, and show limited effect on antioxidative status in Sanhuang broiler chickens.

Biochanin A protects dopaminergic neurons against lipopolysaccharide-induced damage through inhibition of microglia activation and proinflammatory factors generation.

Activation of microglia and consequent release of proinflammatory factors, are believed to contribute to neurodegeneration in Parkinson's disease (PD). Hence, identification of compounds that prevent microglial activation is highly desirable in the search for therapeutic agents for inflammation-mediated neurodegenerative diseases. In this study, we reported that biochanin A, one of the predominant isoflavones in Trifolium pratense, attenuated lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced decrease in dopamine uptake and the number of dopaminergic neurons in a dose-dependent manner in rat mesencephalic neuron-glia cultures. Moreover, biochanin A also significantly inhibited LPS-induced activation of microglia and production of tumor necrosis factor-alpha, nitric oxide and superoxide in mesencephalic neuron-glia cultures and microglia-enriched cultures. This study suggested for the first time that biochanin A protected dopaminergic neurons against LPS-induced damage through inhibition of microglia activation and proinflammatory factors generation.

Antihypertensive effect of rice protein hydrolysate with in vitro angiotensin I-converting enzyme inhibitory activity in spontaneously hypertensive rats.

Angiotensin I-converting enzyme (ACE) plays a crucial role in the regulation of blood pressure as well as cardiovascular function. ACE catalyzes the conversion of angiotensin I to vasoconstrictor angiotensin II, and also inactivates the antihypertensive vasodilator bradykinin. Inhibition of ACE mainly results an overall antihypertensive effect. Food protein-derived peptides can have ACE-inhibiting properties and thus may be used as a novel functional food for preventing hypertension as well as for therapeutic purposes. In the present study, rice protein was hydrolyzed by protease Alcalase for 2 h and the resulted hydrolysate was determined for ACE inhibitory activity in vitro. The antihypertensive effect of rice protein hydrolysate was also investigated in spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR). The Alcalase-generated hydrolysate showed strong in vitro ACE inhibitory activity with the IC50 value of 0.14 mg/ml. A significant decrease in systolic blood pressure in spontaneously hypertensive rats was observed following single oral administration of this hydrolysate at a dose of 600 mg/kg of body weight. A potent ACE inhibitory peptide with the amino acid sequence of Thr-Gln-Val-Tyr (IC50, 18.2 microM) was isolated and identified from the hydrolysate. Single oral administration of Thr-Gln-Val-Tyr at a dose of 30 mg/kg of body weight also significantly decreased blood pressure in SHR. These results suggest that in vitro ACE inhibitory activity and in vivo antihypertensive activity could be generated from rice protein by enzymatic hydrolysis. The rice protein hydrolysate prepared with Alcalase might be utilized to develop physiologically functional food with antihypertensive activity.