This study investigates the determinants of Chinese consumers’ purchase intentions and behavior toward functional foods, incorporating health consciousness and trust into the theory of planned behavior (TPB) as a conceptual framework. An online quota-sample survey was conducted on 1,011 Chinese consumers. Structural equation modeling was used to test the proposed hypotheses. Three main findings were drawn based on the analysis: (1) Health consciousness significantly improved consumers’ attitudes towards functional foods (β = 0.921, p < 0.001); (2) Consumption intention was predominantly predicted by attitude (β = 0.751, p < 0.001), followed by perceived behavioral control (β = 0.148, p < 0.05) and trust (β = 0.115, p < 0.001). (3) Contrary to theoretical expectations, the positive influence of subjective norm (β = 0.222, p > 0.05) on purchase intention is not significant, and the purchase intention did not significantly influence behavior. Notably, perceived behavioral control (β = 0.841, p < 0.001) emerged as the strongest direct predictor of consumption behavior. This research empirically validates the explanatory power of the expanded Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) in the context of functional food consumption. The results establish a more detailed conceptual framework for understanding consumption mechanisms, while providing evidence-based strategies for market development and public health interventions.

In this study, comparative investigation on the effect of dry heating treatment (DHT) and annealing (ANN) on multi-structure, physicochemical properties and in vitro digestibility of black highland barley (BHB) starch was done. Results revealed that both DHT and ANN did not affect the “A”-type crystalline pattern and FT-IR spectroscopy of BHB starch, but changed the morphology, raised water absorption capacity and lowered viscosities. Compared to native starch, DHT- and ANN-modified samples had totally opposite alteration trends in amylose content, color characteristics, oil absorption capacity, gelatinization parameters and pasting temperature. These changes were positively related to treatment temperature and time for DHT-modified starches, while which were dependant on treatment duration for ANN-modified starches. Total in vitro hydrolysis rate and rapidly digestive starch content in starch markedly raised after DHT, whereas slowly digestive starch and RS levels decreased. Nevertheless, ANN significantly improved the hydrolyzation stability with treatment time prolonging, especially increased RS content and lowered RDS level. Therefore, this study identified both DHT and ANN were effective methods to alter the properties of BHB starch, and more importantly, they had distinguishing influence by different mechanisms, which would remind user to select appropriate means for physical starch modification based on different application purposes.

Quality control remains a challenge in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). This study introduced a novel genetic-based quality control method for TCM. Genetic variations in ginseng were evaluated across whole-genome, chloroplast genome, and ITS2 DNA barcode dimensions. Significant genetic variations were found in whole-genome comparison, leading to the use of inter-simple sequence repeat markers to assess the genetic diversity of ginseng decoction pieces (PG), garden ginseng (GG), and ginseng under forest (FG). Fingerprints of ginseng samples revealed instability within some batches. These evaluations were transformed into information entropy to calculate the size of Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium population (HWEP). FG had significantly higher genetic and chemical minimum HWEP than GG (p < 0.05). Notably, a significant positive correlation was observed between the minimum HWEP for genetics and for chemistry (r = 0.857, p = 0.014). Genetic polymorphism analysis of ginseng has the potential to evaluate chemical quality consistency, offering a new method to ensure quality consistency in TCM.

Infections triggered by bacteria in diabetic wounds continue to pose a significant challenge, primarily due to the inflammatory microenvironment induced by high glucose levels, which favor bacterial growth. Hence, developing dressings tailored for diabetic wound treatment has become particularly crucial. Here, we prepared a composite hydrogel derived from natural polymers as a wound dressing. This composite hydrogel was fabricated by the cross-linking of hyaluronic acid (HA) grafted with chlorogenic acid (CA) and phenylboronic acid (PBA) and the incorporation of copper sulfide nanoparticles (CuS NPs). The hydrogels exhibited adequate adhesive properties and self-healing capabilities. By releasing the natural polyphenol CA, the hydrogel showed promising antioxidant performance, excellent promotion of cell proliferation, and angiogenesis properties, thereby effectively promoting tissue repair. The treatment on an in vivo diabetes wound model indicated that the dressing contributed to wound closure, re-epithelialization, collagen deposition, and the downregulation of inflammatory factors. This multifunctional hydrogel presented a potent strategy for managing infected diabetic wounds and showed significant promise for clinical translation.