Food and Medicine:Qualities and Efficacies in Chinese Ethnic Medicines

Drawing on our research in China’s southern mountains about ethnic medicines,and intrigued by the proverbial Chinese view that Yao Shi Tong Yuan(food and medicine have the same source),this article traces the eventfulness and powers at play in healing and eating when they are seen as closely related forms of life.Ancient and modern traditional Chinese medicine understandings of flavor are here shown to be a common basis for the healing and harming powers of both food and medicine.The term Wu Wei,or five flavors is explored as both experiences of eating and cooking,and some patterns of qi movement that animate and invigorate the body.Following Vivienne Lo’s term“potent flavors,”practices of harmonizing(He,Tiao He)flavors in Chinese medicine,as in cooking,express a world of natural powers and expert embodiment that goes far beyond mere taste.

Ethnic Chinese Medicine,Borderless Civilization--On the Identity of Humane and Scientific Nature of Chinese and Western Medicines

The identity of Eastern and Western cultures should include aspects such as its concepts of societal development and science and technology.Though this is related to issues like history of the culture and regional cultural psychologies,the essence lies in the identity of social values at its core.

Genetic polymorphism of mitochondrial DNA HVS-I and HVS-II of Chinese Tu ethnic minority group

We analyzed the two hypervariable segments HVS-I and HVS-II of 108 Chinese Tu ethnic minority group samples for forensic and population genetics purposes, Comparing with Anderson sequence, 79 polymorphic loci in HVS-I and 40 in HVS-II were found in Chinese Tu ethnic minority group mtDNA sequences, and 90 and 64 haplotypes were then defined. Haplotype diversity and the mean pairwise differences were 0.9903±0.0013 and 5.7785 in HVS-I, and 0.9777±0.0013 and 3.5819 in HVS-II, respectively. By analyzing the hypervariable domain from nucleotide 1,6180 to 1,6193 in HVS-I, we defined some new types of sequence variations. We also compared the relationship between Tu population and other populations using mtDNA HVS-I sequences. According to Rst genetic distances, the phylogenetic tree showed that the Tu population, the Xi＇an Han population, the Chinese Korean, and the Mongol ethnic group were in a clade. This indicated a close genetic relationship between them. There were far relations between the Tu population and other Chinese southern Han populations, Siberian, European, African, and other foreign populations. The results suggest that Tu population has a multi-origin and has also merged with other local populations.

A Living Encyclopedia of Chinese Ethnic Groups

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The Right to Development of Chinese Ethnic Minorities Promoted in Accordance with the Idea of Putting People First

I. The Idea of Putting People First and the Right to Development from the Contemporary Perspective of Human Rights

The Tunbao:Ethnic Minority or Forgotten Chinese?

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Analysis on Characteristic Diagnosis Technology and Application Progress of Jing Nationality Medicine

Jing Medicine, as an important part of China’s ethnic medicine and culture, is characterized by its unique theories, rich content, and abundant resources, showcasing distinctive features of minority regions. The Jing ethnic group is distributed in coastal and border areas of China, and after thousands of years of development, it has formed a rich marine-oriented medical system in the struggle against the environment and diseases, displaying unique medication characteristics and clinical efficacy. According to Jing Medicine, the human body is an organic whole that is unified with the natural and social environment. It believes that the heavens and earth are the spirits of all things, and all things possess spiritual energy, which is closely connected to the human body’s spiritual energy. The utilization of marine organisms in medicine is the greatest feature of Jing Medicine, and it is a common approach used by the local population for disease prevention and treatment. To further explore Jing Medicine, improve the repository of ethnic medicine culture, and address the insufficient understanding of Jing Medicine in traditional Chinese medicine culture, this article provides a comprehensive review of the distinctive diagnostic and therapeutic theories, techniques, and applications of internal and external treatments in Jing Medicine.

Risk factors for relapse and nomogram for relapse probability prediction in patients with minor ischemic stroke

BACKGROUND The identification of risk factors for recurrence in patients with minor ischemic stroke(MIS)is a critical medical need.AIM To develop a nomogram for individualized prediction of in-hospital recurrence in MIS patients.METHODS Based on retrospective collection,a single-center study was conducted at the First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University from January 2014 to December 2019.Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were used to determine the risk factors associated with MIS recurrence.The least absolute shrinkage and selection operator regression was performed for preliminary identification of potential risk factors.Uric acid,systolic blood pressure,serum total bilirubin(STBL),and ferritin were integrated for nomogram construction.The predictive accuracy and calibration of the nomogram model were assessed by the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve(AUC-ROC)and Hosmer-Lemeshow test,respectively.RESULTS A total of 2216 MIS patients were screened.Among them,155 were excluded for intravascular therapy,146 for unknown National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale score,195 for intracranial hemorrhage,and 247 for progressive stroke.Finally,1244 patients were subjected to further analysis and divided into a training set(n=796)and a validation set(n=448).Multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed that uric acid[odds ratio(OR):0.997,95%confidence interval(CI):0.993-0.999],ferritin(OR:1.004,95%CI:1.002-1.006),and STBL(OR:0.973,95%CI:0.956-0.990)were independently associated with in-hospital recurrence in MIS patients.Our model showed good discrimination;the AUC-ROC value was 0.725(95%CI:0.646-0.804)in the training set and 0.717(95%CI:0.580-0.785)in the validation set.Moreover,the calibration between nomogram prediction and the actual observation showed good consistency.Hosmer-Lemeshow test results confirmed that the nomogram was well-calibrated(P=0.850).CONCLUSION Our present findings suggest that the nomogram may provide individualized prediction of recurrence in MIS patients.

Positive Selection of CAG Repeats of the ATXN2 Gene in Chinese Ethnic Groups

The ataxin-2 （ATXN2） gene is located on human chromo-some 12q24.1. In normal individuals, the coding region in exon 1 of this gene has fewer than 31 CAG repeats （Yu et al., 2005： Laffita-Mesa et al., 2012）. However, an abnormal expansion of CAG trinucleotide repeats results in the aggre-gation of polyglutamine （polyQ）, which causes spinocer-ebellar ataxia type 2 （SCA2） （Pulst et al., 1996）. The expanded alleles have more than 32 repeats in the affected individuals, and generally there is an inverse correlation between CAG repeat length and age of onset （Pulst et al., 1996）. SCA2 is an autosomal dominant inheritance neurodegenerative disease, whose major clinical feature is progressive cerebellar ataxia. Atrophies of the brainstem and frontal lobe have been frequently detected by magnetic resonance imaging （MRI） （Yamamoto-Watanabe et al., 2010）. This disease has the strong effect on sensory and motor control.

＂Filmagining＂ Ethnicities： The Making of a Chinese Nation with Film Genres and Styles between 1940 and 1963

This article is about the movies from Chinese mainland under the production category of minority cinema （shaoshu minzu dianying）, between the years 1940 and 1963. It argues that the taxonomic effort of grouping different non-Hart ethnicities together into a single category of minority cinema is a sociopolitical attempt to construct, maintain and control the definition of ethnic minorities. It calls into question not what is within the film, but the classificatory practices outside of the film collectively engaged by the government, the film industry, the critics and the mass audience. Moving away from the methods of examining the representation and generic conventions of the cinema other scholarship has employed, this article emphasizes the classification system used during the time of the cinema. By comparing it with a similar classificatory problem in Western national history, using an epistemological perspective, this article criticizes the negative impact inevitably left in rhetorically driven classification systems.

Genome-wide DNA methylation landscape of four Chinese populations and epigenetic variation linked to Tibetan high-altitude adaptation

DNA methylation(DNAm)is one of the major epigenetic mechanisms in humans and is important in diverse cellular processes.The variation of DNAm in the human population is related to both genetic and environmental factors.However,the DNAm profiles have not been investigated in the Chinese population of diverse ethnicities.Here,we performed double-strand bisulfite sequencing(DSBS)for 32 Chinese individuals representing four major ethnic groups including Han Chinese,Tibetan,Zhuang,and Mongolian.We identified a total of 604,649 SNPs and quantified DNAm at more than 14 million Cp Gs in the population.We found global DNAm-based epigenetic structure is different from the genetic structure of the population,and ethnic difference only partially explains the variation of DNAm.Surprisingly,non-ethnic-specific DNAm variations showed stronger correlation with the global genetic divergence than these ethnic-specific DNAm.Differentially methylated regions(DMRs)among these ethnic groups were found around genes in diverse biological processes.Especially,these DMR-genes between Tibetan and nonTibetans were enriched around high-altitude genes including EPAS1 and EGLN1,suggesting DNAm alteration plays an important role in high-altitude adaptation.Our results provide the first batch of epigenetic maps for Chinese populations and the first evidence of the association of epigenetic changes with Tibetans'high-altitude adaptation.

Innovative development path of ethnomedicines： an overview of ethnomedicines in China

In the long history of disease prevention and treatment, ancestral populations worldwide have gained knowledge and experiences in traditional medicines. For instance, ethnomedicines of Chinese ethnic minorities constitute an important part of traditional medicines. In our study, we firstly clarified the concept of ethnomedicines and the connotations of ethnopharmacology. The particularity of ethnomedicine research were then summed up, and the development profiles of the ethnomedicines of Chinese ethnic minorities were discussed by investigating the current status and existing problems. On this basis, we abstracted the innovative development path of ethnomedicines for the first time, which was found to follows：resource study -, standardized development research -~ industrialization of the achievements and efforts for internationalization. We found that platform establishment and team training are keys to achieving innovative development. Hence, this study provided a basis for ethnomedicine development.