Impacts of sulfur fumigation on the chemistry and immunomodulatory activity of polysaccharides in ginseng.

Ginseng is widely regarded as a panacea in Oriental medicine mainly due to its immunomodulatory activity. We previously found that sulfur fumigation, a commonly used pesticidal and anti-bacterial processing practice, weakened the immunomodulatory activity of ginseng. However, if and how sulfur fumigation affects the polysaccharides in ginseng, the crucial components contributing to the immunomodulatory function, remain unknown. Here we report that polysaccharides extracted from sulfur-fumigated ginseng (SGP) presented different chemical properties with polysaccharides extracted with non-fumigated ginseng (NGP), particularly increased water extraction yield and decreased branching degree. SGP had weaker immunomodulatory activity than NGP in immunocompromised mice, as evidenced by less improved immunophenotypes involving body weight, immune organ indexes, white blood cells, lymphocyte cell populations and inflammation. The different immunomodulatory activities were accompanied by changes in the interaction between the polysaccharides and gut microbiota, in which SGP stimulated the growth of different bacteria but produced less SCFAs as compared to NGP. Fecal microbiota transplantation experiment suggested that gut microbiota played a central role in causing the weakened immunomodulatory activity in vivo. This study provides definite evidence that sulfur fumigation affects the chemistry and bioactivity of ginseng polysaccharides, thereby contributing to understanding how sulfur fumigation weakens the immunomodulatory activity of ginseng.

Learning from dermoscopic images in association with clinical metadata for skin lesion segmentation and classification.

Automatic segmentation and classification of lesions are two clinically significant tasks in the computer-aided diagnosis of skin diseases. Both tasks are challenging due to the nonnegligible lesion differences in dermoscopic images from different patients. In this paper, we propose a novel pipeline to efficiently implement skin lesions' segmentation and classification tasks, which consists of a segmentation network and a classification network. To improve the performance of the segmentation network, we propose a novel module of Multi-Scale Holistic Feature Exploration (MSH) to thoroughly exploit perceptual clues latent among multi-scale feature maps as synthesized by the decoder. The MSH module enables holistic exploration of features across multiple scales to more effectively support downstream image analysis tasks. To boost the performance of the classification network, we propose a novel module of Cross-Modality Collaborative Feature Exploration (CMC) to discover latent discriminative features by collaboratively exploiting potential relationships between cross-modal features of dermoscopic images and clinical metadata. The CMC module enables dynamically capturing versatile interaction effects among cross-modal features during the model's representation learning procedure by discriminatively and adaptively learning the interaction weight associated with each crossmodality feature pair. In addition, to effectively reduce background noise and boost the lesion discrimination ability of the classification network, we crop the images based on lesion masks generated by the best segmentation model. We evaluate the proposed pipeline on the four public skin lesion datasets, where the ISIC 2018 and PH2 are for segmentation, and the ISIC 2019 and ISIC 2020 are combined into a new dataset, ISIC 2019&2020, for classification. It achieves a Jaccard index of 83.31% and 90.14% in skin lesion segmentation, an AUC of 97.98% and an Accuracy of 92.63% in skin lesion classification, which is superior to the performance of representative state-of-the-art skin lesion segmentation and classification methods. Last but not least, the new model for segmentation utilizes much fewer model parameters (3.3 M) than its peer approaches, leading to a greatly reduced number of labeled samples required for model training, which obtains substantially stronger robustness than its peers.

25-hydroxyvitamin D levels are inversely related to metabolic syndrome risk profile in northern Chinese subjects without vitamin D supplementation.

BACKGROUND: The comparatively low 25 hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] levels have been reported in patients with metabolic syndrome (MetS). Herein we investigated the cross-sectional and longitudinal relationships between serum 25(OH)D levels and MetS risk profile in northern middle-aged Chinese subjects without vitamin D supplementation. METHODS: A cohort of 211 participants including 151 MetS patients and 60 controls at 20-69 years of age were enrolled from suburban Beijing, China. The recruited MetS patients were subjected to diet and exercise counselling for 1-year. All subjects at baseline and MetS patients after intervention underwent clinical evaluations. RESULTS: Serum 25(OH)D levels were significantly decreased in MetS patients. 25(OH)D levels were inversely related to MetS score, fasting blood glucose (FBG) and triglyceride-glucose index (TyG) after adjusting for cofounders (all P < 0.05). Participants in the lowest tertile of 25(OH)D levels had increased odds for MetS (P = 0.045), elevated FBG (P = 0.004) in all subjects, and one MetS score gain in MetS patients (P = 0.005). Longitudinally, the metabolic statuses as well as 25(OH)D levels of MetS patients were significantly improved (all P < 0.05), and the increase of 25(OH)D levels were inversely related to MetS scores, total cholesterol (TC), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), FBG, and TyG, while positively related to high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) after adjusting for confounders. CONCLUSIONS: 25(OH)D levels were significantly decreased in MetS patients, and it was negatively associated with metabolic dysfunctions at baseline and 1-year after. Metabolic aberrations of MetS patients were significantly ameliorated with 1-year follow-up counselling accompanying by notably elevated 25(OH)D levels.

Structure, immunostimulatory activity, and the effect of ameliorating airway inflammation of polysaccharides from Pyrus sinkiangensis Yu.

Purified acid polysaccharides PSAP-1 and PSAP-2 with apparent molecular weights of 64.6 and 38.9 kDa, respectively, were isolated from Pyrus sinkiangensis Yu. through combined techniques of ion-exchange and gel permeation chromatography. Both polysaccharides were composed of predominant amounts of GalA and small amounts of Ara, Rha, and Gal. They are deduced to be native pectin-type polysaccharides containing the HG backbone consisting of α-1,4-GalAp and methyl-esterified α-1,4-GalAp residues by IR, GC-MS and NMR spectra analyses. The immunoregulatory activity test showed that PSAP-1 and PSAP-2 could increase the cell viability and the release of NO, IL-6, and TNF-α on the RAW264.7 macrophage. It indicated that PSAP-1 and PSAP-2 could increase macrophage-mediated immunostimulatory activity. The airway inflammation test of antiasthmatic mice showed that PSAP-1 could decrease the contents of IL-4, IL-5, and IL-13 and the number of inflammatory cells in BALF and improve the pathological changes in lung tissue. PSAP-1 could also decrease the amount of mucus secreted by goblet cells and the expression levels of NF-κB p65, IκBα, IKK, ERK, JNK, P38, and Muc5ac mRNA and increase the expression levels of TLR2 and TLR4 mRNA in lung tissues. This suggested that PSAP-1 may resist airway inflammation in mice. PSAP-1 and PSAP-2 had potential clinical application value.

An investigation of vitamin D nutritional status in children after outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019. / æ–°åž‹å† çŠ¶ç— æ¯’è‚ºç‚Žç–«æƒ åŽå„¿ç«¥ç»´ç”Ÿç´ Dè¥å »çŠ¶å†µè°ƒæŸ¥.

OBJECTIVES: To investigate vitamin D nutritional status in children after outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), as well as the effect of strict epidemic prevention and control measures for the COVID-19 epidemic on vitamin D nutritional status in children. METHODS: A total of 7 460 children who underwent routine physical examinations from February to August, 2020 and had normal results were retrospectively enrolled as the observation group, and 10 102 children who underwent routine physical examinations from February to August, 2019 (no epidemic of COVID-19) and had normal results were enrolled as the control group. The serum level of 25-hydroxy vitamin D [25(OH)D] was compared between the two groups. The children in the observation and control groups who underwent physical examinations in March and April were selected as the epidemic prevention subgroup (n=1 710) and non-epidemic subgroup (n=2 877) respectively. The subjects were divided into five age groups (infancy, early childhood, preschool, school age and adolescence), and serum 25(OH)D levels of children of all ages were compared between the epidemic prevention and non-epidemic subgroups. RESULTS: The observation group had a lower serum level of 25(OH)D than the control group in March and April (P<0.001). The epidemic prevention subgroup had a lower serum level of 25(OH)D than the non-epidemic subgroup in all age groups (P<0.001). The vitamin D sufficiency rate in early childhood, preschool, school and adolescent children from the epidemic prevention subgroup was lower than the non-epidemic subgroup (P<0.001), with a reduction of 10.71%, 18.76%, 59.63% and 56.29% respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Strict prevention and control measures for the COVID-19 epidemic may lead to a significant reduction in vitamin D level in children, especially school-aged and adolescent children. It is recommended to timely monitor vitamin D level in children, take vitamin D supplements, and increase the time of outdoor sunshine as far as possible under the premise of adherence to epidemic prevention regulations.

Quantitative changes in monosaccharides of Keemun black tea and qualitative analysis of theaflavins-glucose adducts during processing.

Monosaccharides of Keemun black tea were quantitatively determined by high performance liquid chromatography coupled with 3-methyl-1-phenyl-2-pyrazolin-5-one (PMP) pre-column derivatization. The methodology of developed analytical method was established with good linearity, recovery, repeatability and precision. The quantitative results showed that D-mannose, D-glucuronic acid, D-glucose, D-galactose and L-arabinose were detected in Keemun black tea samples. D-glucose was the predominant monosaccharide in black tea, and its concentration was continuously increased from fresh tea leaves to fermentation, but after drying its concentration was significantly decreased. Meanwhile, theaflavins' concentrations were obviously decreased after drying. When theaflavins were heated with D-glucose, the loss of theaflavins was increased. Correspondingly, theaflavins also prevented the caramelization of D-glucose and restored the loss of D-glucose during heating. Through the liquid chromatography/electrospray tandem mass spectrometry some theaflavins glucose adducts were identified.

A novel inulin-type fructan from Asparagus cochinchinensis and its beneficial impact on human intestinal microbiota.

A purified inulin-type fructan named ACNP (Asparagus cochinchinensis neutral polysaccharide) with apparent molecular weight of 2690 Da was obtained from Asparagus cochinchinensis (Lour.) Merr. by ion-exchange and gel-filtration column chromatography. Structural analyses reveal that ACNP has a linear backbone composed of 2,1-ß-D-Fruf residues, ending with a (1→2) bonded α-D-Glcp. The impacts of ACNP on gut microbiota were then investigated by in vitro fermentation with human fecal cultures. The results showed that ACNP was digested by gut microbiota, while the pH value in the fecal culture of ACNP was greatly decreased, and total short-chain fatty acids, acetic, propionic, i-valeric and n-valeric acids were significantly increased. Moreover, ACNP regulated the fecal microbiota composition by stimulating the growth of Prevotella, Megamonas, and Bifidobacterium while depleting Haemophilus. Collectively, these results indicated that ACNP beneficially regulates gut microbiota, which thus suggested that ACNP has the potential to be used as a dietary supplement or drug to improve health.

Structural characterization and immunostimulatory activity of polysaccharides from Pyrus sinkiangensis Yu.

Two neutral polysaccharides (PSNP-1, 104.7 kDa; PSNP-2, 24.5 kDa) were isolated from the pulp of Pyrus sinkiangensis Yu. by using the combined techniques of ion-exchange and gel permeation chromatography. According to the IR, NMR spectra, monosaccharide composition, and methylation analyses, PSNP-1 was mainly composed of glucose and xylose residues, which form a typical xyloglucan. PSNP-2 contained an arabinan region composed of 1,5-linked Araf residues, a xyloglucan region that was mainly composed of t-, 1,2-linked Xylp, and 1,4-, 1,4,6-linked Glcp residues. PSNP-1 and PSNP-2 could stimulate the cell viability, NO release, and cytokine secretion (IL-6 and TNF-α) of RAW264.7 macrophages at the adosage of 250 µg/mL. It was suggested that PSNP-1 and PSNP-2 may increase macrophage-mediated immunostimulatory activity.

Structural characterization of three polysaccharides from the roots of Codonopsis pilosula and their immunomodulatory effects on RAW264.7 macrophages.

Three polysaccharides were isolated from the roots of Codonopsis pilosula by ion-exchange and gel-filtration chromatography. They were named RCNP, RCAP-1, and RCAP-2, and had apparent molecular weights of 1.14 × 104, 5.09 × 104, and 2.58 × 105, respectively. Their structures were characterized by HPGPC, chemical derivative analysis, GC-MS and NMR analyses. Results showed that RCNP contained arabinan and arabinogalactan regions. The arabinan region had a main chain comprising (1 → 5)-linked Araf residues, and the side chains branched at the O-3 position by the single Araf residues. The arabinogalactan region comprised alternating (1 → 4)-, (1 → 6)- or (1 → 3)-linked Galp along with small amounts of branches mainly at the O-3 position of the (1 → 6)-linked Galp or O-6 position of the (1 → 3)-linked Galp residues by terminally linked Araf residues. RCAP-1 and RCAP-2 were highly methyl-esterified pectin-type polysaccharides with long homogalacturonan regions interrupted by a short rhamnogalacturonan I (RG-I) region. The side chains of the RG-I region consisted of (1 → 2)-linked Rha residues attached to the position O-4 of rhamnose. Their degrees of methyl-esterification were approximately 60.6% and 68.1%, respectively. Bioactivity tests showed that RCAP-1 and RCAP-2 exerted a significant immunostimulatory effect based on NO production from RAW264.7 macrophages. These results suggested that these two pectin-type polysaccharides were potential immunostimulation agents.

Structural characterization of a pectin-type polysaccharide from Curcuma kwangsiensis and its effects on reversing MDSC-mediated T cell suppression.

Myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) accumulate in tumor-bearing hosts and play a major role in tumor-induced immunosuppression. The potent modulatory effects of polysaccharides on the innate and adaptive immune system stimulate antitumor responses. In this study, a polysaccharide with an apparent molecular weight of 14.0 kD was isolated from Curcuma kwangsiensis and designated as CKAP-2. The polysaccharide was characterized through high-performance gel permeation chromatography, chemical derivative analyses, GC-MS, FT-IR, and NMR. Results revealed that CKAP-2 is a highly methyl-esterified pectin-type polysaccharide. It is predominantly composed of a homogalacturonan region and small amounts of type-I rhamonogalacturonan regions. Its degree of methyl-esterification is approximately 62.4%. The effect of CKAP-2 on MDSC-medicated immunosuppression was primarily tested. CKAP-2 recovered the MSC2-supressed proliferation of CD4+ and CD8+ T-cells. This finding suggested that CKAP-2 can reverse MDSC-mediated T-cell suppression and that CKAP-2 can be potentially applied in antitumor therapy.

Structural Characterization and Immunostimulatory Activity of Polysaccharides from Brassica rapa L. .

Two neutral polysaccharides (BRNP-1, 6.9 kDa; BRNP-2, 4.8 kDa) were purified from the common edible plant Brassica rapa L. via the combined techniques of ion-exchange chromatography and high-performance gel permeation chromatography. Monosaccharide composition analysis showed that BRNP-1 and BRNP-2 were composed of glucosyl residues. Methylation and 1D- and 2D-NMR analyses revealed that both BRNP-1 and BRNP-2 contained a backbone chain that was composed of α-D-(1 → 4)-linked Glcp residues and side chains that were composed of terminally linked Glcp residues attached at the O-6 position of backbone-glycosyl residues. BRNP-1 and BRNP-2, however, differed in branch degree and molecular weight. Bioassay results showed that treatment with the higher dosage (400 µg/mL) of BRNP-1 and BRNP-2 stimulated the proliferation, NO release, and cytokine secretion (IL-6 and TNF-α) of RAW264.7 macrophages. These results suggested that BRNP-1 and BRNP-2 may enhance macrophage-mediated immune responses.

Transcriptome Analysis of Differentially Expressed Genes Induced by Low and High Potassium Levels Provides Insight into Fruit Sugar Metabolism of Pear.

Potassium (K) deficiency is a common abiotic stress that can inhibit the growth of fruit and thus reduce crop yields. Little research has been conducted on pear transcriptional changes under low and high K conditions. Here, we performed an experiment with 7-year-old pot-grown "Huangguan" pear trees treated with low, Control or high K levels (0, 0.4, or 0.8 g·K2O/kg soil, respectively) during fruit enlargement and mature stages. We identified 36,444 transcripts from leaves and fruit using transcriptome sequencing technology. From 105 days after full blooming (DAB) to 129 DAB, the number of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in leaves and fruit in response to low K increased, while in response to high K, the number of DEGs in leaves and fruit decreased. We selected 17 of these DEGs for qRT-PCR analysis to confirm the RNA sequencing results. Based on GO enrichment and KEGG pathway analysis, we found that low-K treatment significantly reduced K nutrient and carbohydrate metabolism of the leaves and fruit compared with the Control treatment. During the fruit development stages, AKT1 (gene39320) played an important role on K+ transport of the leaves and fruit response to K stress. At maturity, sucrose and acid metabolic pathways were inhibited by low K. The up-regulation of the expression of three SDH and two S6PDH genes involved in sorbitol metabolism was induced by low K, promoting the fructose accumulation. Simultaneously, higher expression was found for genes encoding amylase under low K, promoting the decomposition of the starch and leading the glucose accumulation. High K could enhance leaf photosynthesis, and improve the distribution of the nutrient and carbohydrate from leaf to fruit. Sugar components of the leaves and fruit under low K were regulated by the expression of genes encoding 8 types of hormone signals and reactive oxygen species (ROS). Our data revealed the gene expression patterns of leaves and fruit in response to different K levels during the middle and late stages of fruit development as well as the molecular mechanism of improvement of fruit sugar levels by K and provided a scientific basis for improving fruit quality with supplemental K fertilizers.

Structural characterization and anti-tumor effects of an inulin-type fructan from Atractylodes chinensis.

A fructan (ACPS-1) with a molecular weight of 11.2 kDa was isolated from Atractylodes chinensis rhizome and characterized by chemical derivatization, HPLC, GC-MS, FT-IR, and NMR. Structural analyses revealed that ACPS-1 is predominately composed of fructose and a small amount of glucose and a polymerization degree of about 53. The fructan was deduced to be an inulin-type fructan containing a linear backbone composed of (2→1)-linked ß-d-Fruf residues. The in vitro antitumor activity of ACPS-1 was evaluated on four human cancer cell lines, including a cervical cancer cell line (Hela), two liver hepatocellular carcinoma cell lines (HepG2 and 7721), and an ovarian carcinoma cell line (Skov3). Results showed that ACPS-1 could significantly inhibit Hela, HepG2, and 7721 cell proliferation, especially HepG2, for which the fructan showed a proliferative inhibition rate as high as 87.40%. This result suggests that ACPS-1 may have anticancer potentiality against hepatocellular carcinoma and warrants further investigation.

Surgical resection of advanced gastric cancer following trastuzumab/oxaliplatin/capecitabine combination therapy.

Late-stage gastric adenocarcinoma patients have a poor prognosis because of high recurrence rates. To improve long-term outcomes, perioperative chemotherapies are combined with surgery. Human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) overexpression had been noted in gastric cancer; therefore, trastuzumab has been used occasionally in this setting. A 63-year-old male Chinese patient, who was diagnosed with adenocarcinoma in the gastric antrum, as well as lymph node metastases along the left gastric and hepatic artery, and left adrenal area, was admitted to our hospital. HER2 expression was positive, and cluster amplification was detected in a fluorescence in situ hybridization assay. The patient received three cycles of a neoadjuvant trastuzumab/oxaliplatin /capecitabine regimen. He subsequently underwent distal gastrectomy, D2+ lymphadenectomy, left adrenalectomy, cholecystectomy and Billroth II anastomosis. Treatment was continued with another five postoperative cycles of the same medication and trastuzumab application for 1 year. No recurrence has been observed 18 mo after the operation. Trastuzumab as perioperative and adjuvant medication, in combination with oxaliplatin and capecitabine for a HER2-overexpressing advanced gastric adenocarcinoma, led to recurrence-free survival of at least 18 mo after surgery.

Growth and anaemia among infants and young children for two years after the Wenchuan earthquake.

BACKGROUND: In order to monitor malnutrition morbidity and anaemic prevalence of infants and young children in rural disaster areas affected by Wenchuan earthquake. METHODS: About three months, one year and two years after earthquake (including 77, 102 and 307 children, respectively), by using the questionnaires, information on nutritional and health status of infants and young children aged 6-23 months was collected and evaluated, and anthropometry and haemoglobin concentration were measured. RESULTS: Most of families could not prepare complementary foods for their children so that the children only ate the same meals as adults which resulted in very poor situation in the quantity and quality of complementary food for infants and young children. The main nutritional problems in children included the lack of feeding knowledge in parents; only 10% children could have breast feeding within one hour after delivery, and the basic exclusive breastfeeding was lower. More than 90% children never received nutrient supplements. The malnutrition prevalence was significantly increased two years after the earthquake. The decrease of body weight was rapid (underweight prevalence from 0 at three months to 5.9% after two years), and then a lasting effect resulted in decrease of length shown by stunting prevalence from 6.6% at three months to 10.8% after two years and wasting prevalence from 1.3% at three months to 4.0% after two years. From three months to two years after earthquake, anaemic prevalence markedly increased from 36.5% to 67.5% and the increasing percentage of anaemia was more obvious in girls than boys. CONCLUSION: The child's nutritional status continuously worsened and anaemic prevalence was high in areas affected by the earthquake. It is recommended that in the future nutrition interventions should begin immediately.

Prospective study on the effectiveness of complementary food supplements on improving status of elder infants and young children in the areas affected by Wenchuan earthquake.

OBJECTIVE: To prospectively evaluate the efficiency of daily providing complementary food supplements decreasing malnutrition and anemia prevalence in elder infants and young children living in areas affected by Wenchuan Earthquake. DESIGN: Using promotional probability sampling method, 250 to 300 children from six-randomized townships (30 to 50 children in each township) in Kang County affected by the Earthquake were randomly chosen for follow up to evaluate intervention effectiveness using anthropometric measurement and hemoglobin level at six, twelve and eighteen months after start of intervention. SETTING AND SUBJECTS: All children from 6 to 18 months of age in Kang County (in North Western China) were daily provided with complementary food supplements containing multiple vitamins and minerals for up to 24 months of age. The intervention period lasted for one and half year. RESULTS: At beginning of intervention, malnutrition prevalence, including underweight, stunting and wasting were respectively 4.5%, 8.9% and 3.5%; anemia prevalence was 74.3%. After one and half year intervention, the growth and anemia status were significantly improved; the percentages of wasting, stunting underweight prevalence were decreased from 3.5%, 8.9% and 4.5% to 1.7%, 5.0% and 3.3% respectively, and the anemia rates were significantly decreased. CONCLUSIONS: Our results indicated that an intervention using complementary food supplements could improve nutritional status and elevate hemoglobin level in elder infants and young children, which would significantly decrease the prevalence of malnutrition and anemia.

An interesting two-phase solvent system and its use in preparative isolation of aconitines from aconite roots by counter-current chromatography.

Two-phase solvent system plays crucial role in successful separation of organic compounds using counter-current chromatography (CCC). An interesting two-phase solvent system, composed of chloroform/ethyl acetate/methanol/water, is reported here, in which both phases contain sufficient organic solvents to balance their dissolving capacities. Adjusting the solvent system to get satisfactory partition coefficients (K values) for target compounds becomes relatively simple. This solvent system succeeded in sample preparation of aconitine (8.07 mg, 93.69%), hypaconitine (7.74 mg, 93.17%), mesaconitine (1.95 mg, 94.52%) from raw aconite roots (102.24 mg, crude extract), benzoylmesaconine (34.79 mg, 98.67%) from processed aconite roots (400.01 mg, crude extract), and yunaconitine (253.59 mg, 98.65%) from a crude extract of Aconitum forrestii (326.69 mg, crude extract).

Structures and anti-HSV-2 activities of neutral polysaccharides from an edible plant, Basella rubra L.

Four neutral polysaccharides (BRN-1, BRN-2, BRN-3 and BRN-4) were isolated from the hot water extract of the aerial part of Basella rubra L. They were found to consist of a large amount of D-galactose (81.0-92.4%) and small amounts of L-arabinose (5.4-7.8%), D-glucose (2.2-11.0%) and mannose (~2.9%). Linkage analysis revealed that all these neutral polysaccharides might be arabinogalactan type I polysaccharides in different molecular weight and chain length. Among them, only BRN-3 showed antiviral activity against herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2) with 50% inhibitory concentration of 55 µg/mL without showing the cytotoxicity up to 2300 µg/mL. Furthermore, the main antiviral target of BRN-3 was shown to be the inhibition of virus adsorption to host cells. This is the first report on the neutral polysaccharide with anti-HSV-2 activity obtained from B. rubra L.

[Role of nutrition intervention in the treatment of hypertension].

Hypertension is one of the most common cardiovascular diseases in the world. According to National data from 2002 Nutrition and Health Survey in China, the prevalence of hypertensions in adult was about 18.8% or it involved in about 180 million Chinese. Now hypertension has already become a major public health problem that could have severely impacted on population health status. This paper reviews the role of nutritional intervention in treating hypertension.

[Study on the dynamic variation of active components in Geranium carolinianum from different collection time].

OBJECTIVE: To determine the contents of the active components, gallic acid and ellagic acid in Geranium carolinianum from different collection time and to define the best collection time for this herb. METHODS: The contents of gallic acid and ellagic acid in each samples of Geranium carolinianum were determined by HPLC. The HPLC method was performed on a Diamonsil C, 8 column (150 mm x 4.6 mm, 5 microm) with acetonitrile-0.1% H3PO4 as mobile phase. The flow rate was 1.0 mL/min, the detection wavelength was 274 nm and the column temperature was 25 degrees C. RESULTS: The calibration curve of gallic acid and ellagic acid were linear in the range of 0.075-5.00 microg (r = 0.9995) and 0.05-2.00 microg (r = 0.9995), respectively. The average recovery of gallic acid and ellagic acid were 99.88% (RSD = 1.19%) and 99.08% (RSD = 2.81%), respectively. CONCLUSION: The content of gallic acid and ellagic acid in Geranium carolinianum both began to increase in flowering stage and increased to the maximum value in immature-fruit stage.