Objective This study aims to explore trends in sedentary behavior among Chinese children aged 6–17 years per demographic and social characteristics.Methods A total of 4,341 children aged 6–17 years who participated in the China Health and Nutrition Survey from 2004 to 2015 were included. Repeated measures from mixed-effects models were applied to test trends in sedentary behaviors, which were further analyzed after applying stratification according to gender, age, urbanization level, residential area, and region. Random-effects ordinal regression models were used to examine the trends at sedentary levels.Results From 2004 to 2015, sedentary time among children aged 6–17 years increased from 23.9 ± 0.6 h/week to 25.7 ± 0.6 h/week (P < 0.001). Increases of 3.1 h/week (P < 0.001), 2.3 h/week (P = 0.012), and 1.3 h/week (P = 0.042) were found among the low-, medium-, and high-urbanization groups respectively and increased by 2.0 h/week (P < 0.001) and 1.3 h/week (P = 0.002) among rural and urban children, respectively. The proportion of Chinese children with average daily screen time below 2 hours declined by 10.2% (OR = 0.51, 95% CI: 0.42–0.63, P < 0.001); a decreasing trend was observed in both boys and girls.Conclusions Sedentary time among Chinese children aged 6–17 years showed an upward trend from 2004 to 2015, especially among children residing in rural areas and regions with low urbanization levels.
Objective This study aimed to assess the risk of cumulative exposure to Pb, Cd, Hg, and iAs through aquatic products consumed by Chinese people.Methods Heavy metal concentration data were obtained from the national food contamination monitoring program during 2013–2017. Consumption data were derived from the China National Food Consumption Survey in 2014 and the relative potency factor (RPF) method was used to estimate cumulative exposure for neurotoxicity and nephrotoxicity.Results The results demonstrated that the cumulative exposure based on neurotoxicity was below the lower confidence limit on benchmark doses of lead (BMDL01) for nephrotoxicity and the cumulative exposures were all lower than the provisional tolerable monthly intake (PTMI) of Cd. However, the margin of exposure values (MOEs) of the cumulative exposures for neurotoxicity in the 2–6 year-old group was close to 1 and the cumulative exposure level for nephrotoxicity accounted for 90.21 % of the PTMI.Conclusion The cumulative exposures of the 2–6 year-old group to the four heavy metals did not reach (but came close to) the corresponding safety threshold for both neurotoxicity and nephrotoxicity. Given that there are still other food sources of these four heavy metals, it is necessary to more closely study their cumulative health effects.
Objective To evaluate multidrug resistant loop-mediated isothermal amplification (MDR-LAMP) assay for the early diagnosis of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis and to compare the mutation patterns associated with the rpoB, katG, and inhA genes at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.Methods MDR-LAMP assay was evaluated using 100 Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) isolates obtained from the National Reference Laboratory for Tuberculosis in China. Phenotypic resistance to isoniazid and rifampicin and whole-genome sequencing served as reference standards.Results The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), and negative predictive value (NPV) of MDR-LAMP were 85.5%, 93.6%, 96.7%, and 74.4% for the detection of resistance to isoniazid and rifampicin, respectively, and 80.5%, 92.3%, 98.6%, and 41.4% for the detection of Mtb cultured from smear-positive sputum samples, respectively. When DNA sequencing was used as the reference standard, the sensitivity, specificity, PPV, and NPV of MDR-LAMP were 93.1%, 92.3%, 97.2%, and 82.8% for the detection of katG and inhA gene mutations, respectively, and 89.1%, 88.9%, 93.4%, and 81.1% for the detection of rpoB gene mutation, respectively.Conclusion MDR-LAMP is a rapid and accessible assay for the laboratory identification of rifampicin and isoniazid resistance of Mtb isolates.
Objective This study aims to assess the dose-response relationship between serum ferritin (SF) and metabolic syndrome (MetS) in the two sexes.Methods We searched for articles on PubMed, the Cochrane Library, EMBASE, and the Web of Science databases that were published from 1950 to 2020. The summary odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) of the association between SF and MetS were estimated using a random-effects model through a meta-analysis. Based on the methods described by Greenland and Longnecker, we explored the dose-response relationship between the two sexes.Results This study included 14 studies and 74,710 samples. The results of the classical meta-analysis showed that SF was positively associated with MetS (OR = 1.77, 95% CI: 1.59–1.98). Regarding the components of MetS (8 studies included), the results showed that SF was positively associated with abdominal obesity (OR = 1.42, 95% CI: 1.24–1.62), elevated fasting plasma glucose (OR = 1.84, 95% CI: 1.50–2.25), elevated blood pressure (OR = 1.17, 95% CI: 1.08–1.26), elevated triglycerides (OR = 2.09, 95% CI: 1.72–2.54), and reduced high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (OR = 1.33, 95% CI: 1.19–1.49). In the linear dose-response meta-analysis, the ORs of males, females, and postmenopausal females were 1.14 (95% CI: 1.13–1.16), 1.32 (95% CI: 1.26–1.39), and 1.34 (95% CI: 1.22–1.47), respectively.Conclusions Our study shows that SF is significantly and positively associated with MetS, and the risk in the male population is higher than that in the female population. This finding also supports the recommendation of using SF as an early warning marker of MetS.
Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) and cytomegalovirus (CMV), two of the most prevalent human herpesviruses, cause a wide spectrum of diseases and symptoms and are associated with serious health problem. In this study, we developed an internal control reference recombinase-aided amplification (ICR-RAA) assay for the rapid detection of EBV and CMV within 30 min. The assay had a sensitivity of 5 and 1 copies/test for EBV and CMV, respectively, with no cross reaction with other pathogens. In comparison with those of the commercial quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR), the sensitivity of the EBV and CMV ICR-RAAs using extracted DNA was 93.33% and 84.84%, respectively; the specificity was 98.75% and 100.00%, respectively; and the Kappa values were 0.930 and 0.892 (P < 0.05), respectively. In comparison with those of qPCR, the sensitivity of the EBV and CMV ICR-RAAs using the DNA by thermal lysis was 72.22% and 80.00%, respectively; the specificity was 100.00%; and the Kappa values were 0.764 and 0.878 (P < 0. 05), respectively. Thus, rapid and specific detection of EBV and CMV is possible using ICR-RAA assays.
Beta (β)-thalassemia is one of the most common hemoglobinopathies worldwide, creating major public health problems and social burdens in many regions. Screening for β-thalassemia carriers is crucial for controlling this condition. To investigate the effectiveness of mean corpuscular volume (MCV) and mean corpuscular hemoglobin (MCH) for screening β-thalassemia, retrospective data were analyzed for 6,779 β‐thalassemia carriers subjected to genetic testing following thalassemia screening in Guangdong province between January 2018 and December 2019. Prevalent mutations observed included CD41/42 (-TTCT) (38.43%), IVS-II-654 (C > T) (25.71%), -28 (A > G) (15.78%), CD17 (AAG > TAG) (10.03%), and βE (GAG > AAG) (3.13%). In the β0, β+, and HbE groups, MCV values were 63.8 ± 4.2 fL, 67.0 ± 5.5 fL, and 75.8 ± 5.6 fL, while MCH values were 20.1 ± 1.4 pg, 21.2 ± 1.9 pg, and 24.8 ± 2.0 pg, respectively. Among β-thalassemia carriers, 85 (1.25%) and 28 (0.41%) individuals had MCV ≥ 80 fL and MCH ≥ 27 pg, respectively. Using a combination of MCV and MCH reduced the number of false negative screenings to 15 (0.22%). Therefore, evaluating both MCV and MCH is strongly recommended for screening β‐thalassemia carriers.
Quick Links