Xue Bai

The incidences of cardio-cerebrovascular diseases (CCVDs) are increasing worldwide, causing more and more serious public health burden. The pursuit of new promising treatment options is thus becoming a pressing issue. Hydroxysafflor yellow A (HSYA) is one of the most representative active quinochalcone C-glycosides in the florets of Carthamus tinctorius L., a medical and edible dual-purpose plant. HSYA has attracted much interest for its pharmacological actions in treating and/or managing CCVDs such as myocardial and cerebral ischemia, hypertension, atherosclerosis, vascular dementia, and traumatic brain injury, in the massive preclinical studies. In this review, we briefly summarized the mode and mechanism of action of HSYA on CCVDs based on these preclinical studies. And the therapeutic effects of HSYA against CCVDs were presumed to reside mostly in its antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and neuroprotective roles by acting on complex signaling pathways.

Cerebral ischemia is a common refractory brain disease, resulting from a reduction in the blood flow to the brain. Mitochondrial dysfunction leads to ischemic stroke and brain injury. Cordyceps sinensis (CS) is an important traditional Chinese medicine, which has been linked to neuroprotection in recent studies. In this study, we investigated the role of the mitochondrial respiratory chain and the mitochondrial apoptotic pathway on the protective effect of Cordyceps sinensis extract (CSE) against cerebral ischemia injury both in vivo and in vitro. In a murine middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) model, administration of CSE relieved neuronal morphological damage and attenuated the neuronal apoptosis. CSE also reduced neurobehavioral scores and oxygen free radical (OFR), while improving the levels of ATP, cytochrome c oxidase (COX), and mitochondrial complexes I-IV. Furthermore, the mRNA expression of Bax, cytochrome c (Cyt c) and caspase-3 were down-regulated. In brain microvascular endothelial cells (BMECs) exposed to oxygen and glucose deprivation (OGD), CSE prevented OGD-induced cellular apoptosis, and recovered the reduction of mitochondrial membrane potential (MMP). Moreover, CSE treatment induced an increase of Bcl-2 protein expression and a decrease of Bax, Cyt c and caspase-3 protein expression. Meanwhile, the caspase-3, -8, and -9 activities were also inhibited. The results indicate that CSE can relieve cerebral ischemia injury and exhibit protective effects via modulating the mitochondrial respiratory chain and inhibiting the mitochondrial apoptotic pathway.

To investigate the deposition and elimination of melamine in hen eggs and tissues, 72 Roman laying hens were administrated with melamine at 8.6-140.9 mg per kilogram of body weight per day for 34 days. The crystals were found in one of three kidneys of hens treated with melamine at either 62.6 or 140.9 mg/kg. Furthermore, the melamine concentrations in egg, muscle, liver, kidney, stomach, duodenum, uterus, ovary, and blood plasma were determined by high-performance liquid chromatography-ultraviolet (HPLC-UV) methods. A higher dosage of melamine in the diet corresponded to higher concentrations in tissues and eggs. The concentrations of melamine in tissues were in the following ranges (microg/g): egg, 1.1-28.7; muscle, 0.4-9.3; liver, 0.5-6.9; kidney, 1.3-21.7; stomach, 0.4-7.3; duodenum, 0.3-2.8; uterus, 0.5-6.9; ovary, 0.5-9.1; and blood plasma, 0.8-7.6. When melamine was withdrawn from the diet of hens, the melamine concentration in hen tissues fell to below 2.5 microg/g by day 10 and no residues were detected in eggs or tissues at days 7 and 20, respectively.

BACKGROUND: Due to limitations of conventional medicine for atopic eczema (AE), complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is widely used as an alternative, maintaining, or simultaneous treatment for AE. We aimed to evaluate the beneficial and harmful effects of CAM for children with AE under 14 years old. METHODS: We searched for randomized trials on CAM in 12 Chinese and English databases from their inception to May 2018. We included children (< 14 years) diagnosed with AE, who received CAM therapy alone or combined with conventional medicine. We extracted data, and used the Cochrane "Risk of bias" tool to assess methodological quality. Effect was presented as relative risk (RR) or mean difference (MD) with 95% confidence interval (CI) using RevMan 5.3. RESULTS: Twenty-four randomized controlled trials involving 2233 children with AE were included. Methodological quality was of unclear or high risk of bias in general. The trials tested 5 different types of CAM therapies, including probiotics, diet, biofilm, borage oil, and swimming. Compared to placebo, probiotics showed improved effect for the SCORAD index (MD 9.01, 95% CI 7.12-10.90; n = 5). For symptoms and signs such as itching, skin lesions, CAM combined with usual care was more effective for symptom relief ≥95% (RR 1.47, 95% CI 1.30-1.68; n = 8), and for ≥50% symptoms improvement (RR 1.34, 1.25-1.45; n = 9) compared to usual care. There was no statistic significant difference between CAM and usual care on ≥95% improvement or ≥ 50% improvement of symptoms. However, swimming, diet and biofilm showed improvement of clinical symptoms compared with usual care. At follow-up of 8 weeks to 3 years, CAM alone or combined with usual care showed lower relapse rate (RR 0.38, 0.28-0.51, n = 2; RR 0.31, 0.24-0.40, n = 7; respectively) compared to usual care. Twelve out of 24 trials reported no occurrence of severe adverse events. CONCLUSIONS: Low evidence demonstrates that some CAM modalities may improve symptoms of childhood AE and reduce relapse rate. Safety remains unclear due to insufficient reporting. Further well-designed randomized trials are needed to confirm the potential beneficial effect and to establish safety use.