[Association Between Fine Particulate Matter and Asthma Hospital Outpatient Visits in Hangzhou].

To study the short-term effects of air pollution on asthma visits and differences in susceptibility to various groups of people, data for asthma visits from January 1, 2013 to December 31, 2015 were obtained from a Hangzhou hospital. Considering the nonlinear relationships among concentration of air pollutants, respiratory hospital outpatient visits and meteorological factors, Generalized Additive Models (GAM) and stratification analysis were used to explore the lag effects and differences in people stratifications. The natural cubic spline function was used for smoothing the average temperature, the average relative humidity and the long-term trend, using dummy variables to control the effect of the day of the week and of holidays. Correlation of PM2.5, NO2 and SO2 daily mean concentrations were significant (under 0.01) in Spearman correlation analysis, while the correlations of daily mean temperature and 3 pollutants were significantly negative. The lag effects of PM2.5 concentration on outpatient visits of asthma peaked at 3-5 days. The relative risk of asthma reached maximum at lag day 5 as 1.0056 (95% CI:1.0021-1.0091), with per 10 µg·m-3 increment of PM2.5 concentration. The relative risk of asthma outpatient visits of all groups of patients were statistically significant (P<0.05). The relative risk of asthma outpatient visits of males and young and middle-aged group were statistically significant at lag days 3-5, and for females and the elderly, were statistically significant at lag day 5. With the introduction of the effects of NO2, the relative risk of asthma outpatient visits increased at lag 5 day in co-pollutant models. The authors concluded that the increase of PM2.5 may be related to the increase of asthma hospital outpatient visits within 3-5 days in Hangzhou, and the effects on male group and elderly group were more definite.

Efficacy of different iron fortificants in wheat flour in controlling iron deficiency.

OBJECTIVE: To observe the different impacts of electrolytic iron, FeSO4, and NaFeEDTA on body iron store of anemic school students. METHODS: Four hundreds anemic students at the age of 11-18 years were divided into four groups. Of which, three consumed different iron fortificants from wheat flour as food vehicle for six months and one consumed non-fortified flour (control). The fortification level of electrolytic iron, FeSO4, and NaFeEDTA was 60 mg Fe/kg, 30 mg Fe/kg, and 20 mg Fe/kg, respectively. Blood samples were collected at 0, 2, 4, and 6 months and hemoglobin (Hb), serum ferritin (SF), and transferrin receptor (TfR) were measured. RESULTS: The hemoglobin levels in three intervention groups increased, the increments of Hb in the NaFeEDTA group were significantly higher than that in the other groups. SF and TfR levels increased in the tested groups and body iron store in the NaFeEDTA group was higher than that in the other groups. These parameters did not show any significant changes in the control group. CONCLUSION: NaFeEDTA and FeSO4 fortified wheat flour has positive impacts on iron status in anemic students and NaFeEDTA is more effective than FeSO4, while electrolytic iron is less effective in improving iron store in anemic students.