Acupoint therapy is one of the therapeutic means in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) concerning acupoints and meridians, including manual acupuncture, electroacupuncture, moxibustion, external application, acupoint injection, and catgut embedding. In the treatment of diabetes and its common chronic complications, acupoint therapy has proved to have specific curative effect and notable advantages. Single or combined with western medicine, it has superior efficacy and less side effects than western medicine alone. Studying its mechanism can provide experimental basis for clinical treatment. Relevant researches in the recent 5 years mainly focused on the mechanism of electroacupuncture, point injection, catgut embedding, etc. in the treatment of diabetes and common diabetic complications such as neuropathy, nephropathy, and hepatopathy. The possible theories involve the regulation of nerve conduction, signal pathways, hormone level, protein expression, oxidative stress level, structure restoration, etc. The most studied acupoints are Zusanli (ST36), Shenshu (BL23), Sanyinjiao (SP6), Yishu (EX-B3), and Zhongwan (CV12). However, most of the studies have been based on diabetes model rats rather than clinical trials. Moreover, the mechanism of acupoint therapy treating other chronic complications like diabetic retinopathy and that of other effective methods like pressing ear with beans, auricular points plaster therapy, and external application remain unclear. Therefore, this aspect still awaits further research.

5-Heptadecylresorcinol (AR-C17) is a main component of the alkylresorcinols (ARs), and has been widely used as a biomarker for whole grain rye consumption. In the present study, the neuroprotective effect and potential defense mechanisms of AR-C17 against hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂)-induced apoptosis and mitochondrial dysfunction were investigated in PC-12 cells. The results showed that AR-C17 treatment significantly suppressed oxidative damage to cells, and ROS-mediated cells apoptosis. Furthermore, AR-C17 improved multiple mitochondrial bioactivities, reducing mitochondrial ROS levels, maintaining the mitochondrial membrane potential and enhancing mitochondrial respiration, leading to an elevation in the cellular ATP production, maximal respiration and spare respiratory capacity. In addition, AR-C17 exposure dramatically increased the protein expression of SIRT3 and its downstream functional gene FOXO3a. The cytoprotective effect of AR-C17 was abolished by the SIRT3 inhibitor 3-TYP, which led to increased cell apoptosis. Taken together, our findings demonstrate that AR-C17 could be used as a potential nutraceutical in reducing neuronal oxidative damage.

Background: We should pay more attention to the long-term monitoring and early warning of type 2 diabetes and its complications. The traditional blood glucose tests are traumatic and cannot effectively monitor the development of diabetic complications. The development of mobile health is changing rapidly. Therefore, we are interested in developing a new noninvasive, economical, and instant-result method to accurately diagnose and monitor type 2 diabetes and its complications. Objective: We aimed to determine whether type 2 diabetes and its complications, including hypertension and hyperlipidemia, could be diagnosed and monitored by using pulse wave. Methods: We collected the pulse wave parameters from 50 healthy people, 139 diabetic patients without hypertension and hyperlipidemia, 133 diabetic patients with hypertension, 70 diabetic patients with hyperlipidemia, and 75 diabetic patients with hypertension and hyperlipidemia. The pulse wave parameters showing significant differences among these groups were identified. Various machine learning models such as linear discriminant analysis, support vector machines (SVMs), and random forests were applied to classify the control group, diabetic patients, and diabetic patients with complications. Results: There were significant differences in several pulse wave parameters among the 5 groups. The parameters height of tidal wave (h3), time distance between the start point of pulse wave and dominant wave (t1), and width of percussion wave in its one-third height position (W) increase and the height of dicrotic wave (h5) decreases when people develop diabetes. The parameters height of dominant wave (h1), h3, and height of dicrotic notch (h4) are found to be higher in diabetic patients with hypertension, whereas h5 is lower in diabetic patients with hyperlipidemia. For detecting diabetes, the method with the highest out-of-sample prediction accuracy is SVM with polynomial kernel. The algorithm can detect diabetes with 96.35% accuracy. However, all the algorithms have a low accuracy when predicting diabetic patients with hypertension and hyperlipidemia (below 70%). Conclusions: The results demonstrated that the noninvasive and convenient pulse-taking diagnosis described in this paper has the potential to become a low-cost and accurate method to monitor the development of diabetes. We are collecting more data to improve the accuracy for detecting hypertension and hyperlipidemia among diabetic patients. Mobile devices such as sport bands, smart watches, and other diagnostic tools are being developed based on the pulse wave method to improve the diagnosis and monitoring of diabetes, hypertension, and hyperlipidemia.

Objective. Previous studies have shown that some metabolic risk factors are related to nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). This retrospective study was performed to investigate the associations between physical examinations and blood biochemistry parameters and NAFLD status and to identify possible risk factors of NAFLD. Methods. Study participants underwent general physical examinations, blood biochemistry, and abdominal ultrasound evaluations. In addition, data regarding sex, age, ethnicity, medical history, and alcohol consumption of participants were recorded. Among the study participants (N=1994), 57.8% were male, 41.2% over the age of 50, and 52.6% with BMI≥24. 986 patients had NAFLD and 1008 had no NAFLD. We used effect size analysis and logistic regression to determine which physical examinations and blood biochemistry parameters were significant for the association between these parameters and NAFLD status. Results. Both the effect size and logistic regression indicated that BMI, diastolic blood pressure (DBP), triglycerides (TG), and serum uric acid (SUA) show a significant association with NAFLD. Females are overall at a higher risk of NAFLD, but factors such as high BMI, DBP, TG, and SUA increase the associated risk for both sexes. Compared with males, females have a higher risk of NAFLD given that they are over 50, overweight and obese (BMI at or over 24), or have high SUA. In terms of age, people older than 50 with high SUA, and people younger than 50 with high DBP and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) all increase the risk of NAFLD. For BMI, high DBP and low high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) are risk factors for NAFLD in overweight and obese people (BMI at or over 24), whereas in normal weight and underweight people (BMI under 24), elevated LDL-C increases the risk of NAFLD. Conclusions. Our results revealed sex, age, and BMI modulate the association of physical examinations and blood biochemistry parameters and NAFLD, which may facilitate the development of personalized early warning and prevention strategies of NAFLD for at-risk populations.

Objective. In this study, we analyzed the metabolite profile of the tongue coating of patients having gastric precancerous lesion (GPL) with damp phlegm pattern and proposed a mechanism of pathological transition. Methods. The changes in tongue-coating metabolites in patients with GPL damp phlegm pattern were analyzed using GC-TOF-MS and UHPLC-QE-MS metabolomics methods. Results. When compared with 20 patients who did not exhibit a nondamp phlegm pattern, 12 metabolites were highly expressed and 10 metabolites were under expressed in 40 cases of damp phlegm pattern, of which involved 9 metabolic pathways. Compared with 15 healthy people, 134 metabolites were upregulated and 3 metabolites were downregulated in 40 cases exhibiting a damp phlegm pattern, of which involved 17 metabolic pathways. The patients with damp phlegm pattern were compared with nondamp phlegm pattern patients and healthy people, the main differential metabolites were primarily lipids and lipid-like molecules, and the main differential metabolic pathways were related to glycerophospholipid metabolism. In the glycerophospholipid metabolism, the metabolites with changes were phosphatidylethanolamine and lysoPC(18:1 (9z)). Among them, phosphatidylethanolamine exists in the synthesis stage of glycerophospholipid metabolism.Conclusions. Abnormal expression of lipids and lipid-like molecules, as the major metabolic change, was involved in the formation of GPL patients with damp phlegm pattern.

In this paper, we used tongue coating to obtain metabolites in patients with coronary heart disease (CHD) and chronic renal failure (CRF). The metabolites were analyzed to discover the substance that serves as the underlying basis of the damp phlegm pattern. This analysis is based on the Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) theory of “different diseases have the same pattern.” The metabolic spectrum was obtained through the Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometry coupling techniques and analyzed by searching the METLIN and HMDB databases. Some metabolites related to amino acids and glucose metabolism were identified in the tongue-coating samples from damp phlegm pattern patients by comparing them to nondamp phlegm pattern patients and healthy subjects. In addition, there were five common metabolites in the tongue-coating samples from CHD damp phlegm pattern patients compared to CRF damp phlegm pattern patients, which allowed us to understand the theory of “different diseases have the same pattern.” In the future, the metabolites identified in this study may be used as noninvasive and convenient biomarkers to distinguish the damp phlegm pattern of CHD and CRF patients.