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The presence and influence of complementary and alternative therapies have been increasingly felt in recent years. One reason for this is the active promotion of its services and products through various media channels. The current study focused on information brochures that are placed on pharmacy counters and shelves, and examined how they function as persuasive texts in promoting products and persuading potential users to buy them. The study utilised genre analysis as a method for examining how language and information in texts are systematically selected and structured to perform particular actions and achieve particular communicative purposes. Genre hybridisation as a theoretical concept is drawn on to explain the inter-generic realisation of forms of discourse. One hundred brochures providing information on complementary and alternative health products produced by pharmaceutical companies were collected from pharmacies in Malaysia and analysed for their communicative content in terms of rhetorical moves used to promote the products. This paper describes the generic structure of the print content in the brochures and discusses how it functions to present a favourable view of complementary and alternative health products to the reader. The results show that across all the brochures, regardless of the type of product, a uniform set of moves that is comparable to the sales promotional genre is identified. The findings also reveal that such information brochures on pharmacy counters are in fact persuasive promotional literature. As these brochures are ubiquitous in pharmacies and drugstores in most countries, they are an important force in influencing consumer and patient knowledge, and beliefs about complementary and alternative medicine.

Studies have shown that Tai Chi Chuan (TCC) training has benefits on task-switching ability. However, the neural correlates underlying the effects of TCC training on task-switching ability remain unclear. Using task-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) with a numerical Stroop paradigm, we investigated changes of prefrontal brain activation and behavioral performance during task-switching before and after TCC training and examined the relationships between changes in brain activation and task-switching behavioral performance. Cognitively normal older adults were randomly assigned to either the TCC or control (CON) group. Over a 12-week period, the TCC group received three 60-min sessions of Yang-style TCC training weekly, whereas the CON group only received one telephone consultation biweekly and did not alter their life style. All participants underwent assessments of physical functions and neuropsychological functions of task-switching, and fMRI scans, before and after the intervention. Twenty-six (TCC, = 16; CON, = 10) participants completed the entire experimental procedure. We found significant group by time interaction effects on behavioral and brain activation measures. Specifically, the TCC group showed improved physical function, decreased errors on task-switching performance, and increased left superior frontal activation for Switch > Non-switch contrast from pre- to post-intervention, that were not seen in the CON group. Intriguingly, TCC participants with greater prefrontal activation increases in the switch condition from pre- to post-intervention presented greater reductions in task-switching errors. These findings suggest that TCC training could potentially provide benefits to some, although not all, older adults to enhance the function of their prefrontal activations during task-switching.

The use of nanocarriers to improve the delivery and efficacy of antimetastatic agents is less explored when compared to cytotoxic agents. This study reports the entrapment of an antimetastatic Signal Transducer and Activator of Transcription 3 (STAT3) dimerization blocker, Stattic (S) into a chitosan-coated-poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (C-PLGA) nanocarrier and the improvement on the drug's physicochemical, in vitro and in vivo antimetastatic properties post entrapment. In vitro, physicochemical properties of the Stattic-entrapped C-PLGA nanoparticles (S@C-PLGA) and Stattic-entrapped PLGA nanoparticles (S@PLGA, control) in terms of size, zeta potential, polydispersity index, drug loading, entrapment efficiency, Stattic release in different medium and cytotoxicity were firstly evaluated. The in vitro antimigration properties of the nanoparticles on breast cancer cell lines were then studied by Scratch assay and Transwell assay. Study on the in vivo antitumor efficacy and antimetastatic properties of S@C-PLGA compared to Stattic were then performed on 4T1 tumor bearing mice. The S@C-PLGA nanoparticles (141.8 ± 2.3 nm) was hemocompatible and exhibited low Stattic release (12%) in plasma. S@C-PLGA also exhibited enhanced in vitro anti-cell migration potency (by >10-fold in MDA-MB-231 and 5-fold in 4T1 cells) and in vivo tumor growth suppression (by 33.6%) in 4T1 murine metastatic mammary tumor bearing mice when compared to that of the Stattic-treated group. Interestingly, the number of lung and liver metastatic foci was found to reduce by 50% and 56.6%, respectively, and the average size of the lung metastatic foci was reduced by 75.4% in 4T1 tumor-bearing mice treated with S@C-PLGA compared to Stattic-treated group (p < 0.001). These findings suggest the usage of C-PLGA nanocarrier to improve the delivery and efficacy of antimetastatic agents, such as Stattic, in cancer therapy.

IgA nephropathy (IgAN) is one of the most common primary glomerulonephritis. Previously identified genome-wide association study (GWAS) loci explain only a fraction of disease risk. To identify novel susceptibility loci in Han Chinese, we conduct a four-stage GWAS comprising 8,313 cases and 19,680 controls. Here, we show novel associations at ST6GAL1 on 3q27.3 (rs7634389, odds ratio (OR)=1.13, P =7.27 × 10 −10 ), ACCS on 11p11.2 (rs2074038, OR=1.14, P =3.93 × 10 −9 ) and ODF1-KLF10 on 8q22.3 (rs2033562, OR=1.13, P =1.41 × 10 −9 ), validate a recently reported association at ITGAX-ITGAM on 16p11.2 (rs7190997, OR=1.22, P =2.26 × 10 −19 ), and identify three independent signals within the DEFA locus (rs2738058, P =1.15 × 10 −19 ; rs12716641, P =9.53 × 10 −9 ; rs9314614, P =4.25 × 10 −9 , multivariate association). The risk variants on 3q27.3 and 11p11.2 show strong association with mRNA expression levels in blood cells while allele frequencies of the risk variants within ST6GAL1 , ACCS and DEFA correlate with geographical variation in IgAN prevalence. Our findings expand our understanding on IgAN genetic susceptibility and provide novel biological insights into molecular mechanisms underlying IgAN. IgA nephropathy is a major cause of end-stage renal disease in China, occurring at a high frequency in Asian populations. Here Li and colleagues conduct a four-stage genome-wide association study in a Chinese population, identifying novel loci and variants associated with disease risk.

Tai Chi Chuan (TCC) exercise has been shown to improve cognitive task-switching performance in older adults, but the extent of this positive effect varies among individuals. Past research also shows that brain white matter integrity could predict behavioral gains of cognitive and motor learning. Therefore, in this randomized controlled trial (NCT02270320), we examined whether baseline integrity of three target white matter tract groups was predictive of task-switching improvement after 12-week TCC training in middle-aged and older adults. Thirty-eight eligible participants were randomly assigned to a TCC group ( n = 19) and a control group ( n = 19). Cognitive task-switching and physical performances were collected before and after training. Brain diffusion spectrum MR images were acquired before training and the general fractional anisotropy (GFA) of each target white matter tract group was calculated to indicate baseline white matter integrity of that group. Correlation and regression analyses between these GFAs and post-training task-switching improvement were analyzed using adjusted p -values. After 12 weeks, significant task-switching and physical performance improvements were found only in the TCC group. Moreover, higher baseline GFA of the prefronto-striato-thalamo-prefrontal loop fibers ( r = −0.63, p = 0.009), but not of the prefronto-parietal/occipital ( r = −0.55, p = 0.026) and callosal ( r = −0.35, p = 0.189) fiber groups, was associated with greater reductions of task-switching errors after the TCC training. Multiple regression analysis revealed that baseline GFA of the prefronto-striato-thalamo-prefrontal loop fibers was the only independent white matter integrity predictor of task-switching error reductions after TCC training (β = −0.620, adjusted R 2 change = 0.265, p = 0.009). These findings not only highlight the important role of baseline integrity of the prefronto-striatal circuits in influencing the extent of positive cognitive task-switching effects from short-term TCC training, but also implicate that preserving good white matter integrity in the aging process may be crucial in order to gain the best cognitive effects of exercise interventions.