[The relationship of vitamin D receptor gene and blood lead: a meta-analysis].

OBJECTIVE: The correlation of vitamin D receptor (VDR) gene polymorphism and blood lead level had been in doult, which allowed us to write this article. METHODS: Relevant studies about the blood lead and VDR B/b gene polymorphism which published from 1979-2015, were searched in multiple bibliographic databases, such as: CNKI, Wanfang Database, PUBMED. Of the ten references selceted, three were divided into two groups which were classified as different researches, so there were thirteen studies in the meta-analysis. According to the level of blood lead, the studies were analyzed by three groups: normal group, low dose grou and high dose group. The analysis was performed by stata 12.0 software. RESULTS: The blood lead level of VDR B/b genotype was significantly difference in all the three groups (P<0.05) , but there were apparent heterogeneity between normal group and low dose group (P<0.05, I(2)=84.2%; P<0.05, I(2)=88.9%) , except the high dose group (P>0.05, I(2)=12.7%) ; after adjusted, all showed no heterogeneity, and the results were still the same. CONCLUSION: The genotype of VDR may be correlated with blood lead, and the levels of blood lead varied with different genetypes.

Acupuncture treatment at Ang Mo Kio Community Hospital--a report on our initial experience.

BACKGROUND: We report our initial experience with acupuncture treatment at the Ang Mo Kio Community Hospital's Acupuncture Research Clinic. PATIENTS: One thousand one hundred and twenty-eight patients received a total of 12,172 acupuncture treatment sessions during the period between September 1995 and December 1996. The majority were Chinese (94%), between 40-70 years (70%) with either dialect or Mandarin (68%) as the main spoken language. However, one third of the patients were English speaking, and educational level did not seem to be a factor among our patients accepting acupuncture treatment. Most had either painful conditions (58%) or stroke-related dysfunction (23%). Amongst the painful conditions, arthritis (25%), low back pain (22%) and other musculo-skeletal pain (12%) were the most common. RESULTS: Prior to treatment, about three-quarter of patients believed acupuncture would benefit them while 40% had tried acupuncture before. After completion of treatment, 70% of all patients considered acupuncture safe, 54% were satisfied with the overall result, 51% felt acupuncture was beneficial, while 54% would recommend acupuncture to others with similar conditions. In a subgroup of patients treated for painful conditions, > 90% reported improvement. Near-syncope occurred in 2 patients (0.18%) or during 2 treatment sessions (0.02%). There was no other acupuncture-related complication. CONCLUSION: Our preliminary experience showed that acupuncture is safe, and appears to be beneficial to patients with painful conditions. An overview of acupuncture treatment is presented, and the issues of safety, efficacy and a need to conduct randomised controlled clinical trials are discussed.

[Effect of pasta ulmi on malaria parasites]. / Untersuchungen zur Wirkung von Pasta ulmi auf Malariaparsiten.

The extract of Pasta ulmi was examined in vivo and in vitro for antimalaria effect. During animal experiments lipophil extract appeared to have a stronger effect than whole extract, whereas the water diluted extract had no therapeutic effect. In the cell culture the isolated fraction of lipophil extract C1, C2 and C4 showed no inhibitory effect on P. falciparum, but the fraction C0 and C3 with a concentration of 10 micrograms/ml medium demonstrated a totally parasiticidal effect on parasites on the 5th day of culture.