To estimate the prevalence and incidence of diabetes mellitus and impaired glucose regulation (IGR) in a Chinese population aged 20-94 years.
A group of 5,628 randomly selected adults, aged 20-94 ...years, living in the Huayang and Caoyang communities in Shanghai, China, were investigated between 1998 and 2001. During 2002-04, 2,666 subjects were followed up. All the participants underwent anthropometric measurements, blood biochemical analyses and a 75-g OGTT.
Based on the 2000 census data of China, the age-standardised prevalences were 6.87% for diabetes and 8.53% for IGR at baseline. More than two in five cases with diabetes were undiagnosed. The age-adjusted prevalence of diabetes and IGR increased with age. The age-adjusted prevalences of hypertension, dyslipidaemia and overweight in males were significantly higher (p < 0.001) than in females. The 3-year cumulative incidence rates of diabetes and IGR were 4.96 and 11.10%, respectively. The relative risk of developing diabetes was significantly higher in subjects with IGR than in subjects with NGT (p < 0.001).
The prevalence and incidence rates for diabetes or IGR have increased dramatically over the last decades, especially in younger age groups. A large proportion of cases are undiagnosed. We strongly recommend that population-based diabetes screening programmes should be implemented and generalised for younger people.
Abundant high-molecular-mass hyaluronic acid (HMM-HA) contributes to cancer resistance and possibly to the longevity of the longest-lived rodent-the naked mole-rat
. To study whether the benefits of ...HMM-HA could be transferred to other animal species, we generated a transgenic mouse overexpressing naked mole-rat hyaluronic acid synthase 2 gene (nmrHas2). nmrHas2 mice showed an increase in hyaluronan levels in several tissues, and a lower incidence of spontaneous and induced cancer, extended lifespan and improved healthspan. The transcriptome signature of nmrHas2 mice shifted towards that of longer-lived species. The most notable change observed in nmrHas2 mice was attenuated inflammation across multiple tissues. HMM-HA reduced inflammation through several pathways, including a direct immunoregulatory effect on immune cells, protection from oxidative stress and improved gut barrier function during ageing. These beneficial effects were conferred by HMM-HA and were not specific to the nmrHas2 gene. These findings demonstrate that the longevity mechanism that evolved in the naked mole-rat can be exported to other species, and open new paths for using HMM-HA to improve lifespan and healthspan.
The newly emerging monolayer phosphorene was recently predicted to be a promising thermoelectric material. In this work, we propose to further enhance the thermoelectric performance of phosphorene ...using the strain-induced band convergence. The effect of the uniaxial strain on the thermoelectric properties of phosphorene was investigated by using the first-principles calculations combined with the semiclassical Boltzmann theory. When the zigzag-direction strain is applied, the Seebeck coefficient and electrical conductivity in the zigzag direction can simultaneously be greatly enhanced at the critical strain of 5%, at which the band convergence is achieved. The largest ZT value of 1.65 at 300 K is then conservatively estimated by using the bulk lattice thermal conductivity. When the armchair-direction strain of 8% is applied, the room-temperature ZT value can reach 2.12 in the armchair direction of phosphorene. Our results indicate that strain-induced band convergence could be an effective method to enhance the thermoelectric performance of phosphorene.
The effect of a nanocrystalline surface layer on the fatigue behavior of a 316L stainless steel is investigated. Significant enhancements of the yield stress and the fatigue limit have been achieved ...through surface mechanical attrition treatment (SMAT). It is also shown that these mechanical characteristics after SMAT can be significantly improved by the use of a short post-annealing treatment. Such annealing treatment is suggested to cause a recovery at the grain boundaries leading to a reduction of the internal stress.
An RNA-involved phase-separation model has been proposed for transcription control. However, the molecular links that connect RNA to the transcription machinery remain missing. Here we find that ...RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) constitute half of the chromatin proteome in embryonic stem cells (ESCs), some being colocalized with RNA polymerase (Pol) II at promoters and enhancers. Biochemical analyses of representative RBPs show that the paraspeckle protein PSPC1 inhibits the RNA-induced premature release of Pol II, and makes use of RNA as multivalent molecules to enhance the formation of transcription condensates and subsequent phosphorylation and release of Pol II. This synergistic interplay enhances polymerase engagement and activity via the RNA-binding and phase-separation activities of PSPC1. In ESCs, auxin-induced acute degradation of PSPC1 leads to genome-wide defects in Pol II binding and nascent transcription. We propose that promoter-associated RNAs and their binding proteins synergize the phase separation of polymerase condensates to promote active transcription.
Stress, a prevalent experience in modern society, is a major risk factor for many psychiatric disorders. Although sensorimotor abnormalities are often present in these disorders, little is known ...about how stress affects the sensory cortex. Combining behavioral analyses with in vivo synaptic imaging, we show that stressful experiences lead to progressive, clustered loss of dendritic spines along the apical dendrites of layer (L) 5 pyramidal neurons (PNs) in the mouse barrel cortex, and such spine loss closely associates with deteriorated performance in a whisker-dependent texture discrimination task. Furthermore, the activity of parvalbumin-expressing inhibitory interneurons (PV+ INs) decreases in the stressed mouse due to reduced excitability of these neurons. Importantly, both behavioral defects and structural changes of L5 PNs are prevented by selective pharmacogenetic activation of PV+INs in the barrel cortex during stress. Finally, stressed mice raised under environmental enrichment (EE) maintain normal activation of PV+ INs, normal texture discrimination, and L5 PN spine dynamics similar to unstressed EE mice. Our findings suggest that the PV+ inhibitory circuit is crucial for normal synaptic dynamics in the mouse barrel cortex and sensory function. Pharmacological, pharmacogenetic and environmental approaches to prevent stress-induced maladaptive behaviors and synaptic malfunctions converge on the regulation of PV+ IN activity, pointing to a potential therapeutic target for stress-related disorders.
Cancer cells typically display altered glucose metabolism characterized by a preference of aerobic glycolysis, known as the Warburg effect, which facilitates cell proliferation. Hypoxia-inducible ...factor (HIF) and oncoprotein Myc are two prominent transcription factors that drive glycolysis. Previously, we reported that the estrogen-related receptors (ERRs) act as cofactors of HIF and enhance HIF-dependent transcription of glycolytic genes under hypoxia. ERRs are orphan nuclear receptors and key regulators of energy metabolism by orchestrating mitochondrial biogenesis, fatty acid oxidation (FAO) and oxidative phosphorylation. Here, we show that ERRs also stimulate glycolysis under normoxia. ERRs directly bind to and activate promoters of many genes encoding glycolytic enzymes, and the ERR-binding sites in such promoters are essential for ERR-mediated transcriptional activation. ERRs interact with Myc, and the two factors synergistically activate transcription of glycolytic genes. Furthermore, overexpression of ERRs increases glycolytic gene expression and lactate production. Conversely, depletion of ERRs in cancer cells reduces expression of glycolytic genes and glucose uptake, resulting in decreased aerobic glycolysis and cell growth. Taken together, these results suggest that ERRs are important transcriptional activators of the glycolytic pathway and contribute to the Warburg effect in cancer cells.
We present a new geometric distortion model for the narrow-field mode of the near-infrared camera (NIRC2) fed by the adaptive optics system on the W. M. Keck II telescope. The adaptive optics system ...and NIRC2 camera were realigned on 2015 April 13. Observations of the crowded globular cluster, M53, were obtained before and after the realignment to characterize the geometric field distortion. The distorted NIRC2 positions of M53 stars were compared with precise astrometry of this cluster from Hubble Space Telescope observations. The resulting distortion map constructed just before the realignment is consistent with the previous solution derived using data from 2007 to 2009, indicating that the distortion has been stable to ∼0.5 mas. The distortion map changed significantly after a realignment of 4.5 mas (75%) rms, and the new distortion model for post-realignment observations have a total accuracy of ∼1.1 mas.
We demonstrate that short-period stars orbiting around the supermassive black hole in our Galactic center can successfully be used to probe the gravitational theory in a strong regime. We use ...19 years of observations of the two best measured short-period stars orbiting our Galactic center to constrain a hypothetical fifth force that arises in various scenarios motivated by the development of a unification theory or in some models of dark matter and dark energy. No deviation from general relativity is reported and the fifth force strength is restricted to an upper 95% confidence limit of |α|<0.016 at a length scale of λ=150 astronomical units. We also derive a 95% confidence upper limit on a linear drift of the argument of periastron of the short-period star S0-2 of |ωover ˙_{S0-2}|<1.6×10^{-3} rad/yr, which can be used to constrain various gravitational and astrophysical theories. This analysis provides the first fully self-consistent test of the gravitational theory using orbital dynamic in a strong gravitational regime, that of a supermassive black hole. A sensitivity analysis for future measurements is also presented.
PDF
