Objectives
There is little evidence in the literature about the relationship between frailty and falls in older adults. Our objective was to explore the relationship between frailty and falls, and to ...analyze the effect factors (e.g., gender, different frailty assessment tools, areas, level of national economic development, and year of publication) of the association between frailty and falls among older adults.
Design
Systematic review and meta-analysis.
Setting and Participants
Cohort studies that evaluated the association between frailty and falls in the older adults were included. We excluded any literature outside of cohort studies.
Methods
We did a systematic literature search of English databases PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, EBSCOhost, and SciElO, as well as the Chinese databases CNKI, WANFANG, and VIP from 2001 until October 2022. The eligible studies were evaluated for potential bias using the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale (NOS). Study selection, data extraction and assessment of study quality were each conducted by two investigators. In Stata/MP 17.0 software, we calculated pooled estimates of the prevalence of falls by using a random-effects model, Subgroup analysis was conducted based on gender, different frailty assessment tools, areas, level of economic development, and year of publication. The results are presented using a forest plot.
Results
Twenty-nine studies were included in this meta-analysis and a total of 1,093,270 participants aged 65 years and above were enrolled. Among the older adults, frailty was significantly associated with a higher risk for falls, compared with those without frailty (combined RR-relative risk = 1.48, 95% CI-confidence interval: 1.27–1.73, I
2
=98.9%). In addition, the results of subgroup analysis indicated that men had a higher risk for falls than women among the older adults with frailty (RR 1.94, 95% CI: 1.18–3.2 versus RR 1.44, 95% CI: 1.24–1.67). Subgroup analysis by different frailty assessment tools revealed an increased risk of falls in older adults with frailty when assessed using the Frailty Phenotype (combined RR 1.32, 95%CI: 1.17–1.48), FRAIL score (combined RR 1.82, 95%CI: 1.36–2.43), and Study of Osteoporotic Fractures index (combined RR 1.54, 95%CI: 1.10–2.16). Furthermore, subgroup analysis by areas and level of national economic development found the highest fall risk in Oceania (combined RR 2.35, 95%CI: 2.28–2.43) and the lowest in Europe (combined RR 1.20, 95%CI: 1.05–1.38). Developed countries exhibited a lower fall risk compared to developing countries (combined RR 1.44, 95%CI: 1.21–1.71). Analysis by year of publication showed the highest fall risk between 2013–2019 (combined RR 1.79, 95%CI: 1.45–2.20) and the lowest between 2001–2013 (combined RR 1.21, 95%CI: 1.13–1.29).
Conclusion
Frailty represents a significant risk factor for falls in older adults, with the degree of risk varying according to the different frailty assessment tools employed, and notably highest when using the FRAIL scale. Additionally, factors such as gender, areas, level of national economic development, and healthcare managers’ understanding of frailty may all impact the correlation between frailty and falls. Thus, it’s imperative to select suitable frailty diagnostic tools tailored to the specific characteristics of the population in question. This, in turn, facilitates the accurate identification of frailty in older adults and informs the development of appropriate preventive and therapeutic strategies to mitigate fall risk.
As the largest developing country in the world, China is urgently in short of energy and natural resources. However, biological resources such as crop residues are burnt in the field, which cause ...serious environmental pollution. Still it is not clear how much storage and potential of these huge crop residues are in China. This paper firstly reported the distribution, utilization structure and potential of crop biomass and provided the tangible information of crop residues in rural China through careful collecting and recalculating data. From 1995 to 2005, China produces some 630 million tons of crop residues per year, 50% of which comes from east and central south of China. The amount of crop residues is 1.3 times of the total yield of crops, 2 times of the total fodder of grassland, which covers 41% of China's territory. Crop residues of corn, wheat and rice amounted to 239, 137 and 116 million tons, respectively, accounting for nearly 80% of the total crop residues. Unfortunately, the utilizing structure is seriously improper for such abundant biomass resources. Although 23% of the crop residues are used for forage, 4% for industry materials and 0.5% for biogas, the large parts are used with lower efficiency or wasted, with 37% being directly combusted by farmers, 15% lost during collection and the rest 20.5% discarded or directly burnt in the field. Reasonable adjustment of the utilizing pattern and popularization of the recycling agriculture are essential out-ways for residues, with the development of the forage industry being the breakthrough point. We suggested that utilizing the abandoned 20.5% of the total residues for forage and combining agriculture and stock raising can greatly improve the farm system and cut down fertilizer pollution. Through the development of forage industries, the use efficiency of crop residues could be largely enhanced. Commercializing and popularizing technologies of biomass gasification and liquefaction might be substitute solutions of China's energy shortage.
Aim
Irisin, a novel myocyte‐secreted hormone mediating beneficial effects of exercise on metabolism, is supposed to be an ideal therapeutic target for metabolic disorders such as obesity and ...diabetes. Here, we investigated the potential effects of metformin and glibenclamide, two antidiabetic medicines, on irisin release in mouse.
Methods
Wild‐type and diabetic obese db/db mice were administrated with metformin and glibenclamide for 2 weeks, and cultured C2C12 myotubes were treated by metformin. Expression of irisin precursor FNDC5 was measured and blood irisin concentration was detected. AMP‐activated protein kinase (AMPK) was blocked by chemical inhibitor compound C or knocking down with specific siRNA.
Results
The mRNA and protein expression of FNDC5 in skeletal muscle and blood irisin concentrations were lower in diabetic db/db mice than those in wild‐type mice. Metformin and glibenclamide decreased blood glucose in db/db mice. Metformin, but not glibenclamide, increased intramuscular FNDC5 mRNA/protein expression and blood irisin levels. Additionally, the reductions of blood glucose and body weight in metformin‐treated db/db mice were positively associated with blood irisin concentrations. In C2C12 myotubes, metformin upregulated intracellular FDNC5 mRNA/protein expression and promoted irisin release. Although metformin activated AMPK signalling in skeletal muscle cells, disrupting of AMPK signalling by chemical inhibitor or siRNA‐mediated knockdown did not abolish the promoting effect of metformin on irisin release.
Conclusion
Metformin promotes irisin release from murine skeletal muscle into blood, independently of AMPK pathway activation. Our results suggest that stimulation of irisin may be a novel molecular mechanism of metformin which is widely used for treatment of metabolic disorders.
Activated leukocyte cell adhesion molecule (ALCAM), also known as CD166, is a cell adhesion protein that is found in multiple cell types. ALCAM has multiple and diverse roles in various physiological ...and pathological conditions, including inflammation and cancer. There has been compelling evidence of ALCAM’s prognostic value in solid cancers, indicating that it is a potential therapeutic target. The present article overviews the recent findings and progress in ALCAM and its involvement in cancer, with a primary focus on its clinical connections in cancer and therapeutic values.
An 8‐week feeding trial was conducted to evaluate the effects of fish meal (FM) replacement by rice protein concentrate (RPC) with supplementation of microcapsule lysine (ML) or crystalline lysine ...(CL) on growth performance, muscle development and flesh quality of blunt snout bream. Four isonitrogenous and isoenergetic diets were formulated, including FM diet (containing 50 g/kg FM), RPC diet (FM replaced by RPC), MRPC diet (FM replaced by RPC with ML supplementation) and CRPC diet (FM replaced by RPC with CL supplementation). Fish fed FM diet had significantly higher weight gain, feed efficiency, protein efficiency ratio and nitrogen and energy utilization than that of RPC group, but showed no statistical difference with other treatments. In addition, fish fed RPC diet showed higher muscle fibre frequency in the 20‐ to 50‐μm class but lower >50‐μm class and higher cooking loss than that of the other groups. Furthermore, no significant difference was found in whole‐body proximate compositions, frequency distribution of <20‐μm‐diameter fibres, texture, muscle content, collagen, pH 24 hr post‐mortem and sensory quality. The results showed that RPC supplemented with ML or CL could replace fishmeal without any adverse effects on growth performance and flesh quality for blunt snout bream.
The ocean‐atmosphere system is typically envisioned to have gone through a unidirectional oxygenation with significant oxygen increases in the earliest (ca. 635 Ma), middle (ca. 580 Ma), or late (ca. ...560 Ma) Ediacaran Period. However, temporally discontinuous geochemical data and the patchy metazoan fossil record have been inadequate to chart the details of Ediacaran ocean oxygenation, raising fundamental debates about the timing of ocean oxygenation, its purported unidirectional rise, and its causal relationship, if any, with the evolution of early animal life. To better understand the Ediacaran ocean redox evolution, we have conducted a multi‐proxy paleoredox study of a relatively continuous, deep‐water section in South China that was paleogeographically connected with the open ocean. Iron speciation and pyrite morphology indicate locally euxinic (anoxic and sulfidic) environments throughout the Ediacaran in this section. In the same rocks, redox sensitive element enrichments and sulfur isotope data provide evidence for multiple oceanic oxygenation events (OOEs) in a predominantly anoxic global Ediacaran–early Cambrian ocean. This dynamic redox landscape contrasts with a recent view of a redox‐static Ediacaran ocean without significant change in oxygen content. The duration of the Ediacaran OOEs may be comparable to those of the oceanic anoxic events (OAEs) in otherwise well‐oxygenated Phanerozoic oceans. Anoxic events caused mass extinctions followed by fast recovery in biologically diversified Phanerozoic oceans. In contrast, oxygenation events in otherwise ecologically monotonous anoxic Ediacaran–early Cambrian oceans may have stimulated biotic innovations followed by prolonged evolutionary stasis.
To investigate the expression and role of MicroRNA 4282 (miR-4282) in the development of breast cancer.
In situ hybridization was performed to investigate the expression of miR-4282 in human breast ...cancer tissues. Cell lines stably over-expressed miR-4282 were established by lentivirus transfection. The effects of miR-4282 on the biological behavior of breast cancer cells were then explored in vitro.
The results showed that miR-4282 was down-regulated in human breast cancer tissues and was particularly in invasive and metastatic tumors. In addition, the expression of miR-4282 was related to the occurrence of metastasis and the clinical grade of breast cancer. Recovery of miR-4282 expression in the cell could inhibit the proliferation of breast cancer cells, blocked G1-S phase and promoted breast cancer cell apoptosis, inhibited breast cancer cell migration and invasion. Besides, miR-4282 also significantly enhanced the sensitivity of breast cancer cells to paclitaxel. The results of bioinformatics analysis combined with qRT-PCR and Western blot demonstrated that Myc might be the target gene of miR-4282 in breast cancer.
miR-4282 inhibited the occurrence and development of breast cancer by regulating Myc, which made it a new target for clinical diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer.
Long-term secular variation in the isotopic composition of seawater fixed nitrogen (N) is poorly known. Here, we document variation in the N-isotopic composition of marine sediments (δ15Nsed) since ...660 Ma (million years ago) in order to understand major changes in the marine N cycle through time and their relationship to first-order climate variation. During the Phanerozoic, greenhouse climate modes were characterized by low δ15Nsed (∼−2 to +2‰) and icehouse climate modes by high δ15Nsed (∼+4 to +8‰). Shifts toward higher δ15Nsed occurred rapidly during the early stages of icehouse modes, prior to the development of major continental glaciation, suggesting a potentially important role for the marine N cycle in long-term climate change. Reservoir box modeling of the marine N cycle demonstrates that secular variation in δ15Nsed was likely due to changes in the dominant locus of denitrification, with a shift in favor of sedimentary denitrification during greenhouse modes owing to higher eustatic (global sea-level) elevations and greater on-shelf burial of organic matter, and a shift in favor of water-column denitrification during icehouse modes owing to lower eustatic elevations, enhanced organic carbon sinking fluxes, and expanded oceanic oxygen-minimum zones. The results of this study provide new insights into operation of the marine N cycle, its relationship to the global carbon cycle, and its potential role in modulating climate change at multimillion-year timescales.
An 8‐week feeding trial was performed to investigate effects of dietary selenium (sodium selenite, Na2SeO3; selenium nanoparticle, Nano‐Se; selenium yeast, Se‐yeast) on the growth, selenium status, ...antioxidant activities, muscle composition and meat quality of blunt snout bream. Na2SeO3 and Nano‐Se were supplemented at 0.2 mg Se kg−1, and Se‐yeast was supplemented at 0.1, 0.2, 0.4 and 0.8 mg Se kg−1 in basal diet; no Se was added as a control. The results indicated that groups of 0.2 and 0.4 mg kg−1 Se‐yeast had significantly higher weight gain and Nano‐Se, 0.2, 0.4 mg kg−1 Se‐yeast had significantly lower feed conversation ratio compared with the control group. The Se concentrations of whole body, muscle and liver linearly increased with increasing dietary Se‐yeast levels. Group of 0.4 mg kg−1 Se‐yeast significantly increased activities of catalase and glutathione peroxidase. Muscle colour of Nano‐Se, 0.2, 0.4 mg kg−1 Se‐yeast groups, the water‐holding capacity of 0.4, 0.8 mg kg−1 Se‐yeast groups showed significant differences compared with the control group. The results suggest that Se‐yeast and Nano‐Se had a better growth performance than Na2SeO3 at 0.2 mg Se kg−1, and supplementing appropriate Se‐yeast in diet can increase antioxidant activities and enhance meat quality of blunt snout bream.