Polymeric nanoparticles (PNPs) for oral delivery of insulin.

Successful oral insulin administration can considerably enhance the quality of life (QOL) of diabetes patients who must frequently take insulin injections. Oral insulin administration, on the other hand, is seriously hampered by gastrointestinal enzymes, wide pH range, mucus and mucosal layers, which limit insulin oral bioavailability to ≤ 2%. Therefore, a large number of technological solutions have been proposed to increase the oral bioavailability of insulin, in which polymeric nanoparticles (PNPs) are highly promising for oral insulin delivery. The recently published research articles chosen for this review are based on applications of PNPs with strong future potential in oral insulin delivery, and do not cover all related work. In this review, we will summarize the controlled release mechanisms of oral insulin delivery, latest oral insulin delivery applications of PNPs nanocarrier, challenges and prospect. This review will serve as a guide to the future investigators who wish to engineer and study PNPs as oral insulin delivery systems.

Causal Association Between Periodontitis and Type 2 Diabetes: A Bidirectional Two-Sample Mendelian Randomization Analysis.

Background: Previous observational studies have reported a bidirectional association between periodontitis and type 2 diabetes, but the causality of these relationships remains unestablished. We clarified the bidirectional causal association through two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR). Methods: We obtained summary-level data for periodontitis and type 2 diabetes from several published large-scale genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of individuals of European ancestry. For the casual effect of periodontitis on type 2 diabetes, we used five independent single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) specific to periodontitis from three GWAS. The summary statistics for the associations of exposure-related SNPs with type 2 diabetes were drawn from the GWAS in the Diabetes Genetics Replication and Meta-analysis (DIAGRAM) consortium and the FinnGen consortium R5 release, respectively. For the reversed causal inference, 132 and 49 SNPs associated with type 2 diabetes from the DIAGRAM consortium and the FinnGen consortium R5 release were included, and the summary-level statistics were obtained from the Gene-Lifestyle Interactions in Dental Endpoints consortium. Multiple approaches of MR were carried out. Results: Periodontitis was not causally related with the risk of type 2 diabetes (all p > 0.05). No causal effect of type 2 diabetes on periodontitis was found (all p > 0.05). Estimates were consistent across multiple MR analyses. Conclusion: This study based on genetic data does not support a bidirectional causal association between periodontitis and type 2 diabetes.

Periodontal disease and risk of benign prostate hyperplasia: a cross-sectional study.

BACKGROUND: Both periodontal disease and benign prostatic hyperplasia are age-related diseases that affect millions of people worldwide. Hence, this study aimed to investigate the association between periodontal disease and the risk of benign prostatic hyperplasia. METHODS: A total of 4930 participants were selected from an available health examination that was carried out in 2017, only males were considered for further analysis. All eligible males were divided into benign prostatic hyperplasia and normal groups, the benign prostatic hyperplasia group was then divided into prostate volume ≤ 60 g and > 60 g subgroups; all their periodontal status was extracted and then into normal (CPI score of 0), periodontal disease (CPI score between 1 and 4), and periodontitis (CPI score between 3 and 4) groups. The correlation between periodontal disease and benign prostatic hyperplasia was investigated using logistic regression analyses and greedy matching case-control analysis. Subgroup analysis based on prostate volume was also performed. All analyses were conducted with SAS 9.4 software. RESULTS: A total of 2171 males were selected for this analysis. The presence of periodontal disease significantly increased the risk of benign prostatic hyperplasia by 1.68 times (OR = 1.68, 95% CI: 1.26-2.24), and individuals with periodontitis showed a higher risk (OR = 4.18, 95% CI: 2.75-6.35). In addition, among matched cases and controls, this association remained robust (periodontal disease: OR = 1.85, 95% CI: 1.30-2.64; periodontitis: OR = 4.83, 95% CI: 2.57-9.07). Subgroup analysis revealed that periodontal disease significantly increased benign prostate hyperplasia risk as well (for prostate volume ≤ 60 g: OR = 1.64, 95% CI: 1.22-2.20; for volume > 60 g: OR = 2.17, 95% CI: 1.04-4.53), and there was a higher risk in the group with a prostate volume greater than 60 g. CONCLUSION: Periodontal disease is significantly and positively associated with an increased risk of benign prostatic hyperplasia. Further validation studies should be performed to explore the relationship between periodontal treatment and benign prostate hyperplasia.

An exploration of attitudes toward bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation in university students in Tianjin, China: A survey.

BACKGROUND: Despite the importance of early effective bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) to improve survival rates from out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, the attitudes toward performing, learning and disseminating CPR in university students of China are still unclear. METHODS AND AIMS: To assess the attitudes regarding performing, learning and disseminating bystander CPR in university students of China. RESULTS: The results indicated that except for the scenario where the victim was their own family member or close friend, all other scenarios showed a relatively dismally lower rate of positive response. Besides, it showed a greater willingness to perform chest compression only CPR (CC) than chest compression with mouth-to-mouth ventilation (CCMV) (P < 0.05). Females were more willing to perform CC across seven of the hypothetic scenarios than males. University students of medical-related specialties (45.3%) than university students of non-medical specialties (29.9%) were more willing to perform bystander CPR (P < 0.05). The top four reasons for being unwilling to perform bystander CPR were lack of confidence (32.9%), fear of legal disputes (17.2%), fear of disease transmission (16.0%) and feeling embarrassed (14.0%). 92.6% of respondents wanted to learn CPR and 80.3% of respondents were willing to disseminate CPR. CONCLUSIONS: CPR technique, victim's status, respondent's specialty and respondent's gender affected the attitudes of respondents toward performing bystander CPR. The top four reasons for being unwilling to perform bystander CPR were lack of confidence, fear of legal disputes, fear of disease transmission and feeling embarrassed. However, the key reason for being unwilling to perform bystander CPR differed in different specialties and particularly 'feeling embarrassment' might be a cultural phenomenon. The attitudes toward learning and disseminating CPR were positive and affected by respondent's gender and specialty.

The clinical outcomes of new hyaluronan nasal dressing: a prospective, randomized, controlled study.

BACKGROUND: Poor postoperative wound healing after endoscopic sinus surgery (ESS) remains a significant problem. This study evaluates the efficacy and safety of a new absorbable hyaluronan hydrogel. METHODS: A prospective, randomized, controlled trial was conducted. Fifty-five patients with bilateral ESS were recruited and randomized to receive absorbable hyaluronan hydrogel in one side as treated and the opposite side without absorbable hyaluronan hydrogel as control. Clinical outcome measures were assessed at postoperative 1, 2, 4, 8, and 12 weeks. RESULTS: Fifty-four patients completed the study. Overall, absorbable hyaluronan hydrogel significantly promotes the reepithelization process and reduces the presence of obstructing synechia, nonobstructing synechia, edema, crust, and mild mucopurulent drainage (all p ≤ 0.0002). At all postoperative follow-up visits, the promotion in reepithelization is statistically significant at 2, 4, and 8 weeks, and the reductions in the presence of nonobstructing synechia, edema, crust, and mild mucopurulent drainage are all statistically significant except for the presence of crust at 12 weeks and mild mucopurulent drainage at 1 and 12 weeks. Although the presence of obstructing synechia at each follow-up visit between groups does not reach statistical significance, the incidence ranges from 5.56 to 12.96% in the control group and from 0 to 3.70% in the treated group. No adverse event related to treatment was observed. CONCLUSION: In this clinical study, data analyses suggest that this new absorbable hyaluronan hydrogel, as nasal dressing/packing after ESS is safe and promotes the postoperative reepithelization process and reduces the presence of synechia, edema, crust, and mild mucopurulent drainage.