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The article presents a study which aims to investigate the effects of tyrosine on the performance and melanin contents of Taihe silky fowl tissues. Taihe silky fowls ages from 5-12 weeks were fed diets with various tyrosine levels. Results indicated that there is a decrease in the average daily gain with increased dietary tyrosine levels.

To systematically evaluate the clinical efficacy and safety of modified Qingjin Huatan Decoction in the treatment of community-acquired pneumonia in the elderly, and provide evidence-based reference for the clinical application of this prescription. Randomized controlled trials of Qingjin Huatan Decoction in the treatment of community-acquired pneumonia in the elderly were collected by searching PubMed, EMbase, Cochrane Library, CNKI, China Biomedical Literature database, VIP database and WanFang database. Outcome indicators included clinical effective rate, inflammation index, symptom improvement time, chest radiograph improvement time, hospitalization time and adverse reactions. RevMan 5.3 and Stata/IC 15.1 software were used for Meta-analysis; TSA 0.9.5.10 Beta software was used for trial sequential analysis, and GRADE profiler 3.6 was used for grade evidence quality evaluation. Thirteen studies were included finally, including 1 058 patients, 536 patients in the experimental group and 522 patients in the control group.Meta-analysis showed that, the clinical effective rate of the experimental group was significantly higher than that of the control group(RR=1.16, 95%CI[1.10, 1.21], P<0.000 01); fever time(MD=-1.32, 95%CI[-1.93,-0.71], P<0.000 1), cough time(MD=-1.95, 95%CI[-2.69,-1.21), P<0.000 01), time to rale disappearance(MD=-1.55, 95%CI[-2.37,-0.73], P=0.000 2), time to chest radiograph improvement(MD=-1.72, 95%CI[-2.98,-0.46], P=0.007), and hospitalization time(MD=-3.16, 95%CI[-4.58,-1.74], P<0.000 01) in the experimental group were significantly shorter than those in the control group. The improvement in CRP(WMD=-3.44,95%CI[-4.50,-2.38],P<0.001), WBC(WMD=-2.04,95%CI[-3.31,-0.78],P<0.01), IL-6(WMD=-4.27,95%CI[-4.62,-3.92],P<0.001), and TNF-α(WMD=-0.47,95%CI[-0.55,-0.39], P<0.001) of the experimental group was significantly better than that of the control group. There was no significant difference in PCT improvement between the two groups(WMD=-0.63, 95%CI[-1.65, 0.40], P=0.23). No serious adverse reactions occurred in both groups. Sequential analysis of the trial showed that in the studies with cumulative inclusion of clinical effective rate, the data passed the traditional threshold and TSA threshold, further confirming its clinical efficacy. GRADE evaluation showed that the evidence level was low to extremely low. Western medicine treatment combined with Qingjin Huatan Decoction may improve clinical efficiency in the treatment of community-acquired pneumonia in the elderly, improve clinical symptoms faster, reduce CRP, WBC and other inflammatory indicators, and shorten hospital stay. The level of evidence obtained in this study is low, which needs to be further verified by high-quality multi-center, randomized controlled trials.

Objective: To assess the association between chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) comorbidities and clinical characteristics, and to explore the inflammation mechanism., Methods: 220 stable COPD patients were included. Clinical characteristics and comorbidities were recorded, and blood samples were collected. The relationship among the number and type of comorbidities, Charlson comorbidity index (CCI), clinical characteristics and the levels of plasma inflammatory markers [interleukin (IL)-6, high sensitivity C-reaction protein (hs-CRP), tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), IL-8] were studied., Results: The top five comorbidities were hypertension, metabolic syndrome and diabetes osteoporosis, bronchiectasis and peripheral vascular diseases. The level of plasma IL-6 was greater in higher CCI score (≥4) group compared with lower CCI score (<4) group ( P =0.011). Levels of IL-6 and IL-8 and the number of hospitalization in prior year were positively correlated with CCI and age adjusted CCI ( r <0.03, P <0.05). There was a correlation between the COPD comorbidities and systemic inflammatory response ( r <0.3, P <0.05)., Conclusion: Patients with a higher CCI score had more severe symptoms, functional impairment and higher level of inflammatory factors and high frequency of hospital admission due to acute exacerbation. The mechanism by which COPD may play a role in systemic inflammatory response deserves further study., (Copyright© by Editorial Board of Journal of Sichuan University (Medical Science Edition).)

Angiotensin I-converting enzyme (ACE) plays a crucial role in the regulation of blood pressure as well as cardiovascular function. ACE catalyzes the conversion of angiotensin I to vasoconstrictor angiotensin II, and also inactivates the antihypertensive vasodilator bradykinin. Inhibition of ACE mainly results an overall antihypertensive effect. Food protein-derived peptides can have ACE-inhibiting properties and thus may be used as a novel functional food for preventing hypertension as well as for therapeutic purposes. In the present study, rice protein was hydrolyzed by protease Alcalase for 2 h and the resulted hydrolysate was determined for ACE inhibitory activity in vitro. The antihypertensive effect of rice protein hydrolysate was also investigated in spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR). The Alcalase-generated hydrolysate showed strong in vitro ACE inhibitory activity with the IC50 value of 0.14 mg/ml. A significant decrease in systolic blood pressure in spontaneously hypertensive rats was observed following single oral administration of this hydrolysate at a dose of 600 mg/kg of body weight. A potent ACE inhibitory peptide with the amino acid sequence of Thr-Gln-Val-Tyr (IC50, 18.2 microM) was isolated and identified from the hydrolysate. Single oral administration of Thr-Gln-Val-Tyr at a dose of 30 mg/kg of body weight also significantly decreased blood pressure in SHR. These results suggest that in vitro ACE inhibitory activity and in vivo antihypertensive activity could be generated from rice protein by enzymatic hydrolysis. The rice protein hydrolysate prepared with Alcalase might be utilized to develop physiologically functional food with antihypertensive activity.