The association between academic achievement, psychological distress, and smartphone addiction: A cross-sectional study among medical students.

This study investigates the relationship between academic achievement, psychological distress, and smartphone addiction in medical students. In total, 513 medical students voluntarily completed a survey that included the Personal Information Questionnaire, the Smartphone Addiction Scale-Short Version (SAS-SV), the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21), and the Interaction Anxiousness Scale (IAS). Results showed that 321 participants were screened positive for smartphone addiction and the prevalence of smartphone addiction was 62.6%. We found that the prevalence of smartphone addiction was higher among male rather than female students (67.1% vs 58.2%; p = 0.039). There were significant differences between the smartphone addiction group and the smartphone non-addiction group as per the DASS-21 scores and the IAS scores. In addition, multiple regression indicated that psychological distress including anxiety, stress, depression, and social anxiety might be the predictors of smartphone addiction. However, smartphone addiction was found to have no significant correlation with academic performance in 274 undergraduate medical students. In conclusion, the study revealed the high prevalence of smartphone addiction in medical students. Smartphone addiction was associated with states of depression, anxiety, stress, and social anxiety, and there was no significant relationship between academic performance and smartphone addiction in undergraduate medical students. Further longitudinal research is needed to clarify the causal relationship between smartphone addiction and psychological distress.

Anti-inflammatory Effect of Essential Oil from Citrus aurantium L. var. amara Engl.

Essential oil has been popularly used as an alternative for the treatment of inflammation. The bioactivities of essential oil from blossoms of Citrus aurantium L. var. amara Engl (CAVAO) showed greater anti-inflammation potential than that of antioxidant, anticancer, and 3T3-L1 proliferation inhibition. CAVAO (250 µg/mL) significantly inhibited production of nitric oxide (NO) (99.54 ± 2.81%), interleukin-6 (IL-6) (98.11 ± 1.62%), tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) (41.84 ± 1.52%), and interleukin-1ß (IL-1ß) (56.09 ± 2.21%) as well as their gene expression level. CAVAO also markedly decreased the expression levels of cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) gene and protein. Furthermore, CAVAO inhibited nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) activation, which was justified by the inhibitory effect on NF-κB nuclear translocation, IκBα phosphorylation and degradation, and phosphorylation-dependent IκB kinase activation in RAW264.7 cells stimulated with lipopolysaccharides. CAVAO also suppressed the phosphorylation of c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) and p38, indicating that mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling pathways were also blocked. The major constituents of CAVAO were characterized as linalool (64.6 ± 0.04%), α-terpineol (7.61 ± 0.03%), (R)-limonene (6.15 ± 0.04%), and linalyl acetate (5.02 ± 0.03%), which might be responsible for its observed anti-inflammation activity. It is concluded that CAVAO has great potential to be developed into a functional food for the treatment of inflammatory-associated diseases.

Multicenter case-control study of the risk factors for ulcerative colitis in China.

AIM: To evaluate potential risk factors in the development of ulcerative colitis (UC) in China. METHODS: A total of 1308 patients with UC and 1308 age-matched and sex-matched controls were prospectively studied in China. The UC cases were collected from 17 hospitals in China from April 2007 to April 2010. Uniform questionnaires were designed to investigate risk factors including smoking, appendectomy, stress, socio-economic conditions, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), oral contraceptives, diet, breastfeeding, infections and family sanitary conditions. Group comparisons by each factor were done using simple logistic regression analysis. Conditional logistic regression was used for multivariate analysis. RESULTS: By univariate analysis, the variables predictive of UC included feeling stress, light and heavy alcoholic drinking, spicy food, sugar consumption and infectious diarrhea, while heavy tea intake and tap water consumption were protective against UC. On multivariate analysis, the protective factor for UC was tap water consumption [odds ratios (OR) = 0.424, 95%CI: 0.302-0.594, P < 0.001]; while the potential risk factors for UC were heavy sugar consumption (OR = 1.632, 95%CI: 1.156-2.305, P < 0.001), spicy food (light intake: OR = 3.329, 95%CI: 2.282-4.857, P < 0.001; heavy intake: OR = 3.979, 95%CI: 2.700-5.863, P < 0.001), and often feeling stress (OR = 1.981, 95%CI: 1.447-2.711, P < 0.001). Other factors, such as smoking habit, appendectomy, breastfeeding, a history of measles, rural or urban residence, education, oral contraceptives, and NSAID use have not been found to have a significant association with the development of UC in the present study. CONCLUSION: Our study showed tap water consumption was a protective factor for UC, while spicy food, heavy sugar consumption and often feeling stress were risk factors for UC in this Chinese population.

Study on classification of soy sauce by electronic tongue technique combined with artificial neural network.

Electronic tongue as an analytical tool coupled with pattern recognition was attempted to classify 4 different brands and 2 categories (produced by different processes) of Chinese soy sauce. An electronic tongue system was used for data acquisition of the samples. Some effective variables were extracted from electronic tongue data by principal component analysis (PCA). Backpropagation artificial neural network (BP-ANN) was applied to build identification models. PCA score plots show an obvious cluster trend of different brands and different categories of soy sauce in the 2-dimensional space. The optimal BP-ANN model for different brands was achieved when principal components (PCs) were 2, and the identification rate of the discrimination model was 100% in both the calibration set and the prediction set, and the optimal BP-ANN model for different categories had the same result. This work demonstrates that electronic tongue technology combined with a suitable pattern recognition method can be successfully used in the classification of different brands and categories of soy sauce.

[Chemoprevention of Barrett's esophagus by celecoxib in rats].

OBJECTIVE: To examine the chemopreventive effect of selective cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) inhibitor celecoxib for Barrett's esophagus in rats. METHODS: Fifty 8-week-old male Sprague Dawley rats underwent esophagojejunostomy to induce Barrett's esophagus model. Four weeks after operation the animals were given celecoxib 10 mg/(kg*d(-1))(celecoxib group), or saline 1 ml (control group). Another 10 rats were sham operation group. All animals were sacrificed at 20 week after surgery. The degree of inflammation, Barrett's esophagus, adenocarcinoma, COX-2 expression and PGE(2) of animals were assessed. RESULT: Among 60 rats, 6 rats died in celecoxib group, 8 rats died in control group, 1 rat died in sham operation group, and 45 (75%) rats completed the study. The incidence of mild, moderate and severe degree esophageal inflammation in celecoxib group and control group was 14/19(73.68%), 4/19(21.05%), 1/19(5.26%); 4/17(23.53%), 5/17(29.41%), 8/17(47.06%)(P<0.05), respectively. The incidence of Barrett's esophagus was 7/19(36.84%), 13/17(76.47%) in two group respectively(P<0.05); The incidence of Barrett's esophagus with dysplasia was 2/19(10.53%), 8/17(47.06%)(P<0.05), respectively. The expression of COX-2 was 1/7(14.29%), 10/13(76.92%)(P<0.05) in two groups. PGE2 content was significantly lower in the celecoxib group than that in control group(P<0.001). No esophageal pathological changes were found in sham operation group. CONCLUSION: Selective COX-2 inhibitors celecoxib can inhibit inflammations, development of Barrett's esophagus and esophagus adenocarcinoma.

[Establishment of reflux esophagitis models in rats].

OBJECTIVE: To establish animal models of reflux esophagitis in rats. METHODS: Seventy male Sprague Dawley rats aged 8 weeks were randomly divided into 4 groups: in Group A (n=20) esophagojejunostomy was performed to induce a gastro-jejuno-esophageal reflux; in Group B (n=20) esophagoduodenostomy was performed to induce a gastro-duodeno-esophageal reflux; in Group C (n=20) total gastrectomy plus esophagojejunostomy was performed to induce a jejuno-esophageal reflux; in Group D (n=10) only was performed sham operation (control). RESULT: Among 70 rats, 6 died in Group A, 7 died in Group B, 6 died in Group C, and 72.9 %(51/70) animals were completed in the study. After 12 weeks the incidence of esophageal inflammation was 100.0%; in Groups A, B and C erosion occurred in 11/14 (78.6%), 10/13 (76.9%), 3/14 (21.4%) of animals, respectively; squamous dysplasia was in 10/14 (71.4%), 10/13 (76.9%), 5/14 (35.7%) of rats, respectively; Barrett's esophagus was in 6/14 (42.9%), 5/13 (38.5%), 1/14 (7.1%), respectively. One esophageal adenocarcinoma was found in Group A; no histological changes were observed in Group D. CONCLUSION: The animal models of reflux esophagitis can be induced by esophagojejunostomy, esophagoduodenostomy or total gastrectomy plus esophago-jejunostomy in rats; and the former two surgical modalities are better than the later.

[The effects of nuclear factor-kappaB decoy oligonucleotides on dextran sulphate sodium-induced colitis: experiment with mice].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effects of nuclear factor-kappaB (NF-kappaB) decoy oligonucleotide (ODN) on dextran sulphate sodium (DSS)-induced colitis. METHODS: Nine female BABL/C mice underwent infusion of 0.15 ml normal saline into the distant colon and used as controls (Group 1). Twenty-seven female BABL/C mice were made into DSS-induced colitis models and then randomly divided into 3 groups: Group 2 (underwent infusion of 0.15 ml normal saline into the distant colon), Group 3 (infused with NF-kappaB decoy ODN 25 nmol solved in 0.15 ml), and Group 4 (infused with NF-kappaB scrambled decoy ODN 25 nmol solved in 0.15 ml). Disease active index (DAI) was observed every day. Nine days later the mice were killed and their colons were taken out to undergo histological examination. The tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-alpha level of the colon mucosa was measured by enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). NF-kappaB expression was determined by immunohistochemical staining. The distribution of NF-kappaB decoy ODN was investigated by confocal laser microscopy. RESULTS: (1) The DAI scores, histological scores and TNF-a level in the colon mucosa of Groups 2 - 4 were all significantly higher than those of Group 1 (all P < 0.05). The DAI scores, histological scores and TNF-a level in the colon mucosa of Group 3 were all significantly lower than those of Groups 2 and 4 (all P < 0.01). (2) In the tissue sections NF-kappaB p65 was positive mainly in the nucleus in the 3 DSS-treated groups without significant differences among these 3 groups, and was mainly positive in the cytoplasm in the control group. (3) Confocal laser microscopy showed that NF-kappaB decoy ODN could be ingested efficiently into the mucosa and submucous layer of colon. (4) There were no significant differences in the liver function, kidney function, and blood glucose among all groups. CONCLUSION: NF-kappaB pathway is associated with the pathogenesis of DSS-induced colitis which is very similar to human UC. Blockade of NF-kappaB pathway by NF-kappaB decoy ODN shows protective effect on the mice with DSS-induced colitis.