Socioeconomic disparities and green space associated with myopia among Chinese school-aged students: A population-based cohort study.

Background: There is increasing evidence on the link between environmental factors and myopia in children and adolescents, yet with inconsistent conclusions. We investigated the associations between socioeconomic inequalities and green space with myopia in school-aged students participating in the Tianjin Child and Adolescent Research of Eye (TCARE) study. Methods: We obtained data from a population-based dynamic cohort study conducted in Tianjin, China, in 2021 and followed up in 2022. We included 1 245 271 participants from 16 districts with an average age of 11.6 years (standard deviation = 3.3) in our analysis. We synthesized their area-level SES through a prediction model that combined economic, educational, and health care variables and assessed the greenness levels surrounding the school using the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) based on data obtained through satellite remote sensing. We performed generalised linear mixed effects analyses for each myopia outcome separately, with adjustments for students' sex, years of education completed, and the school's geographical location. Results: We observed that students living in low SES areas had the highest prevalence of myopia (60.7%) in the last screening in 2022, as well as a higher incidence of one-year myopia (26.4%) compared to those residing in middle SES areas (22.7%). With a 0.1 increase in the 250, 500, and 1000 m buffer NDVI, the prevalence of myopia dropped by 6.3% (odds ratio (OR) = 0.937; 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.915, 0.960), 7.7% (OR = 0.923; 95% CI = 0.900, 0.946), and 8.7% (OR = 0.913; 95% CI = 0.889, 0.937), respectively. The interaction analysis showed that low SES and low greenness exacerbate the prevalence of myopia. Findings from longitudinal analyses consistently demonstrated a correlation between higher values of NDVI and a slower progression of myopia. These findings remained robust across sensitivity analyses, including for variables on parental myopia and students' behaviors. Conclusions: Exposure to green spaces could play a crucial role in slowing the progression of myopia among school-aged students. Myopia control policies should prioritise young populations residing in low SES areas with limited access to green spaces, as they face the highest potential risks.

Stress and Internet Addiction: Mediated by Anxiety and Moderated by Self-Control.

Background: The link between stress and Internet addiction (IA) has been confirmed. However, the mechanism underlying the correlation is poorly understood. Thus, the current study proposed a moderated mediation model to test the mediating role of anxiety and the moderating role of self-control (SC) in the link between stress and IA. Methods: Eight hundred and sixty-one Chinese college students (Mage = 20.62 years; SD = 1.58; male = 47.7%) were required to complete an online questionnaire package, including a depression-anxiety-stress scale, a self-control scale, and an Internet addiction test. The PROCESS macro developed based on SPSS was used to test the moderated mediation model. Results: When controlling for gender and age, the results revealed that anxiety partially mediated the link between stress and IA. Specifically, the more stressed college students are, the higher their anxiety level is, and the more likely they are to become addicted to the Internet. Additionally, the direct and indirect links between stress and IA were all moderated by SC. SC buffered the effect of stress on anxiety and anxiety on IA but enhanced stress on IA. Conclusion: These findings emphasized the predictor role of stress on IA and provided insights on intervening in college students' excessive Internet use behaviors for educators, such as reducing anxiety levels and improving self-control abilities.

Mechanisms of Kidney Cell Pyroptosis in Chronic Kidney Disease and the Effects of Traditional Chinese Medicine.

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a major public health issue that is highly prevalent worldwide. Pyroptosis is an important pathological mechanism underlying kidney cell damage in CKD and is associated with the classic caspase-1-mediated pathway and nonclassic caspase-4/5/11-mediated pathway. The NLRP3-caspase-1-GSDMD signaling pathway is the key mechanism of kidney cell pyroptosis in CKD, and noncoding RNAs such as lncRNAs and miRNAs are important regulators of kidney cell pyroptosis in CKD. In addition, the NLRP1/AIM2-caspase-1-GSDMD and caspase-3-GSDME signaling pathways have also been shown to mediate kidney cell pyroptosis. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and extracts can interfere with the occurrence and development of kidney cell pyroptosis in CKD by inhibiting the NLRP3 signaling pathway and oxidative stress, activating Nrf-2 signaling, protecting mitochondrial integrity, regulating AMPK signaling, and regulating TXNIP/NLRP3 axis, which have become increasingly prominent. It is critical to explore the effects of TCM on kidney cell pyroptosis in CKD and its mechanisms to identify targets and develop new and effective drugs.

Enhancement of chlortetracycline biodegradation with Trichoderma harzianum LJ245 and its spore-producing mutants using co-metabolism.

Chlortetracycline (CTC) has been widely used in veterinary medicine in recent years, which has resulted in severe environmental issues due to its low degradation rate and high risk to induce antibiotic resistance bacteria and genes. In previous studies, CTC could be efficiently degraded by Trichoderma harzianum LJ245. Nevertheless, the strain itself suffers from relatively poor adaptability due to the limited number of spores produced. In this paper, ultraviolet (UV) mutagenesis was conducted on LJ245, and various mutants with high sporulation rate were generated to expand the environmental adaptability and enhance CTC degradation. An OmniLog-based method, where 95 types of carbon sources were applied, was first proposed to acquire the carbon metabolic profile of the strains. Several controlled experiments were performed to evaluate the impact of co-substrate metabolism on strain growth, CTC biodegradation, and metabolites biotoxicity removal. The result shows that produced mutants could significantly broaden the carbon metabolic profile and expand the environmental adaptability compared to the original LJ245, where the mutants obtained remarkable increase in total number of usable carbon sources. Meanwhile, as the sole carbon source, CTC could not be fully degraded by the strains. However, the use of co-metabolism could considerably enhance CTC degradation and completely remove CTC degradation products biotoxicity by all strains. Specifically, amino acids and carboxylic acids had the best performance on both strain growth and CTC degradation among all carbon source categories. The results can be applied to the biodegradation treatment of CTC in solid residue, waste water and other environments.