Moxibustion Treatment of COVID-19 and Rehabilitation Period of COVID-19: A Scoping Review.

Objective: The aim of this study is to provide a scoping review of the clinical literature on moxibustion therapy for the treatment of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Design: The PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, MEDLINE, CNKI, Wanfang, and VIP databases were searched from January 1, 2020, to August 31, 2022. Essential data were extracted from each article, and the data were displayed using tables and graphs. The study did not require IRB approval. Results: This scoping review included 14 research articles: 8 observational studies, 5 randomized controlled trials, and 1 nonrandomized clinical trial. All the studies were published by Chinese scholars. The findings revealed that moxibustion can contribute to reducing the symptoms of patients with COVID-19, improving inflammation and immune indicators, and shortening the time of nucleic acid negative conversion. Moxibustion confers curative effects on patients of all ages and degrees of illness. In addition, moxibustion can optimize the prognosis of patients in the rehabilitation period. The most commonly chosen acupoints are ST36, RN4, RN8, and RN12. No side effect was mentioned in the included studies. Conclusion: Moxibustion can produce a good effect in the treatment and rehabilitation of patients with COVID-19. It is safe, effective, simple, and noninvasive and should be included as standard care.

Changes in Lipidomics, Metabolomics, and the Gut Microbiota in CDAA-Induced NAFLD Mice after Polyene Phosphatidylcholine Treatment.

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the most common chronic liver disease in most parts of the world. Although there is no first-line drug approved for the treatment of NAFLD, polyene phosphatidylcholine (PPC) is used by clinicians to treat NAFLD patients. This study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of PPC on a mice model of NAFLD, and to study the PPC's mechanism of action. The mice were fed a choline-deficient, L-amino acid-defined (CDAA) diet to induce NAFLD and were subsequently treated with PPC. The treatment effects were evaluated by the liver index, histopathological examination, and routine blood chemistry analyses. Lipidomics and metabolomics analyses of 54 samples were carried out using ultraperformance liquid chromatography (UPLC) coupled to a mass spectrometer to select for changes in metabolites associated with CDAA diet-induced NAFLD and the effects of PPC treatment. The intestinal flora of mice were extracted for gene sequencing to find differences before and after the induction of NAFLD and PPC treatment. PPC significantly improved the CDAA diet-induced NAFLD condition in mice. A total of 19 metabolites including 5 polar metabolites and 14 lipids showed marked changes. In addition, significant differences in the abundance of Lactobacillus were associated with NAFLD. We inferred that the protective therapeutic effect of PPC on the liver was related to the supplement of phosphatidylcholine, lysophosphatidylcholine, and sphingomyelin (PC, LPC, and SM, resectively) and acylcarnitine metabolism. This study developed a methodology for exploring the pathogenesis of NAFLD and can be extended to other therapeutic agents for treating NAFLD.

Lipidomic-based investigation into the therapeutic effects of polyene phosphatidylcholine and Babao Dan on rats with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.

In recent years, with the improvement of people's living standards, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) has become the most common chronic liver disease in the world. In this paper, the metabolic disorders in Sprague Dawley (SD) rats were induced by a choline-deficient, l-amino acid-defined (CDAA) diet. The therapeutic effects of polyene phosphatidylcholine (PPC) and Babao Dan (BBD) on NAFLD were observed. Lipidomic analysis was performed using ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography-Orbitrap MS, and data analysis and lipid identification were performed using the software LipidSearch. Both PPC and BBD can reduce lipid accumulation in the liver and improve abnormal biochemical indicators in rats, including reduction of triglycerides, total cholesterol, alanine transaminase and aspartate transaminase in serum. In addition, lipids in rat serum were systematically analyzed by lipidomics. The lipidomic results showed that the most obvious lipids with abnormal metabolism in CDAA diet-induced rats were glycerides (triglycerides and diacylglycerols), phospholipids and cholesterol esters. Both BBD and PPC partly reversed the disturbance to lipids induced by the CDAA diet. PPC may be more effective than BBD in alleviating NAFLD because it has a better effect on inhibiting the abnormal accumulation of lipids and reducing the inflammatory reaction in the body.