Effect of Television Viewing on Pediatric Obesity

Objective To test the effect of television viewing on pediatric obesity in urban China. Methods Stratified multistage cluster random sampling method was used for subjects selection. Nine thousand three hundred and fifty-six children, as well as their parents, were investigated. Questionnaire survey was used for data collection. Children's weights and heights were measured in the clinic of the investigated kindergartens or schools by trained investigators following the standardized procedure. Results The percentages of children and adolescents who watched television less than 1 h, 1-2 h, 2-3 h and more than 3 h daily were 32.5%, 46.0%, 15.4% and 6.1%, respectively, while the prevalence of obesity was 10.9%, 11.8%, 13.2% and 15.1%, respectively. Each hourly increment of television viewing was associated with 1 %-2% increase in the prevalence of obesity. Conclusions Time spent watching television is directly related to an increase risk of obesity, television viewing time is an independent factor for pediatric obesity.

Survey of HIV／AIDS-related Knowledge, Attitude and Determinants in Urban Residents

Objectives: To provide references for HIV/AIDS-re-lated health education strategies through survey on HIV/AIDS-related knowledge, attitude and determi-nants of HIV/AIDS awareness.Methods: The study subjects were selected by ran-dom interception in a downtown street of Guangzhou city on World AIDS Day-December 1,2002. The uni-form questionnaires were finished by means of self-administration.Results: Two hundred questionnaires were distrib-uted and 147 qualified questionnaires were collected.The results showed, the awareness rate of HIV/AIDS-related knowledge was 63.3%, and awareness rate of transmission routes was 76.2 %, whilst non-transmis-sion route was 60.5 %; the awareness rate of trans-mission was 59.2%; the awareness rate of prevention was 47.0%; the positive attitude to people living with HIV/AIDS was 65.6%. Multiple variable Logistic re-gression analysis showed the determinants of HIV/AIDS-related knowledge were education level, age,marital status and gender, of which people with high level of education, young age and the group of male and married had better awareness of HIV/AIDS.Conclusion: Current HIV/AIDS-related knowledge of urban residents is relativly low, especially for the non-transmission route, hence further HIV/AIDS-re-lated education should be strengthened, especially fo-cusing on non-transmission route to eliminate dis-crimination over people living with HIV/AIDS.Further, education efforts also should be put on fe-male population, unmarried population and poorly edu-cated population.

Antiviral activity of cepharanthine against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus in vitro

Severe acute respiratory syndrome(SARS) is the first severe viral epidemic we encountered his century,which once spread in more than thirty countriesin2003.1 The etiological agent of SARS has beenc onfirmed to be a novel coronavirus,namely SARS coronavirus(SARS-CoV),2,3 and the first outbreak of SARS has been successfully controlled world wide,but the identification of SARS-CoV isolated from wildanimals,the emergence of some sporadic SARS cases laterafter that outbreak,all suggest that the recurrence of such an epidemic is not unlikely in the future.In this case,development of SARS vaccines and specific drugs is undoubtedlyessential to the control and prevention from the possible outbreak.4,5

The protein X4 of severe acute respiratory syndrome-associated coronavirus is expressed on both virus-infected cells and lung tissue of severe acute respiratory syndrome patients and inhibits growth of Balb/c 3T3 cell line

Background The genome of the severe acute respiratory syndrome-associated coronavirus ( SARS-CoV) includes sequences encoding the putative protein X4 ( ORF8, ORF7a), consisting of 122 amino acids. The deduced sequence contains a probable cleaved signal peptide sequence and a C-terminal transmembrane helix, indicating that protein X4 is likely to be a type I membrane protein. This study was conducted to demonstrate whether the protein X4 was expressed and its essential function in the process of SARS-CoV infection. Methods The prokaryotic and eukaryotic protein X4-expressing plasmids were constructed. Recombinant soluble protein X4 was purified from E. coli using ion exchange chromatography, and the preparation was injected into chicken for rising specific polyclonal antibodies. The expression of protein X4 in SARS-CoV infected Vero E6 cells and lung tissues from patients with SARS was performed using immunofluorescence assay and immunohistochemistry technique. The preliminary function of protein X4 was evaluated by treatment with and over-expression of protein X4 in cell lines. Western blot was employed to evaluate the expression of protein X4 in SARS-CoV particles. Results We expressed and purified soluble recombinant protein X4 from E. coli, and generated specific antibodies against protein X4. Western blot proved that the protein X4 was not assembled in the SARS-CoV particles. Indirect immunofluorescence assays revealed that the expression of protein X4 was detected at 8 hours after infection in SARS-CoV-infected Vero E6 cells. It was also detected in the tung tissues from patients with SARS. Treatment with and overexpression of protein X4 inhibited the growth of Balb/c 313 cells as determined by cell counting and MTT assays. Conclusion The results provide the evidence of protein X4 expression following SARS-CoV infection, and may facilitate further investigation of the immunopathological mechanism of SARS.