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Hypertension is highly prevalent in the urban population of China, and the effects of being overweight/obesity on hypertension were much larger than any other examined factors. The percentage of hypertensive patients aware of their condition, receiving proper treatment, and keeping their hypertension under control is unacceptably low.

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The rapid promotion of angiogenesis is critical for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. The angiogenic activity of tissue-engineered scaffolds has already been the major criterion for choosing and designing ideal biological materials. We here report systematic in vivo studies on the angiogenic activity of two functionalized self-assembling peptides PRG (Ac-(RADA)(4)GPRGDSGYRGDS-CONH(2)) and KLT (Ac-(RADA)(4)G(4)KLTWQELYQLKYKGI-CONH(2)) using the chicken embryo chorioallantoic membrane (CAM) assay. 3D migration/sprouting bead assays showed that the two functional motifs PRGDSGYRGDS and KLTWQELYQLKYKGI improved the bioactivities of the self-assembling peptide RADA16-I (Ac-(RADA)(4)-CONH(2)) dramatically and provided ideal synthetic microenvironments for endothelial cell migration and cordlike structure sprout formation. A CAM assay was carried out to assess the efficiency of various peptide scaffolds in inducing capillary invasion in vivo. Among these three peptide scaffolds, the functionalized peptide scaffold RAD/KLT presented a significantly better angiogenic activity inducing CAM tissue invasion and new capillary vessel formation within the scaffolds in the absence of VEGF. With the addition of VEGF, more newly formed vessel lumen could be observed in all peptide scaffolds. Our results suggested that the functionalized peptide scaffolds had satisfactory angiogenic properties, and may also have wide potential applications in tissue regeneration.

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Our findings, for the first time, demonstrate that luteolin protects against MI/R injury through promoting signalling through the endogenous antioxidant enzyme, peroxiredoxin II, indicating the important beneficial role of this antioxidant system in the heart.

Using a randomized multistage cluster sampling, we studied the factors associated with the prevalence, awareness, treatment and control of hypertension (defined as systolic and diastolic blood pressure (BP) measurements X140 and 90 mm Hg, respectively, or current drug treatment for hypertension) in a representative sample of the urban Chinese population. The participants were 18-74 years of age and had lived for at least 5 years in an area comprising 33 communities in three cities (Shenyang, Anshan and Jinzhou) in China. A total of 28 830 people were selected; the overall response rate was 87.4% (25 196/28 830). The overall prevalence of hypertension was 28.7% (7237/25 196). Of those with hypertension, 42.9% (3107/7237) were aware of their condition, 28.2% (2042/7237) were receiving treatment and 3.7% (264/7237) were considered controlled. More than half (57.8%) of the hypertensives did not think that high BP would endanger their lives. Multivariate analysis revealed that age, gender, education, occupation, income, body mass index, waist circumference and a family history of hypertension correlated significantly with the prevalence of hypertension. Among all the hypertensives, higher awareness (determined by odds ratios; 95% confidence intervals) was noted for persons who were white-collar workers (1.29; 1.08, 1.53, respectively), overweight (1.48; 1.30, 1.69), obese (3.37; 2.76, 4.11) or had a family history of hypertension (3.07; 2.76, 3.42). Among the individuals aware of their hypertension, treatment was more common in those with a higher level of education and less common among individuals consuming X2 alcoholic drinks per day (0.65; 0.52, 0.83). Controlled hypertension was much less common among older persons, and participants who were former smokers (0.49; 0.26, 0.91). The results indicate that more attention is needed to improve the awareness of the potentially fatal nature of hypertension in urban China. Hypertension Research (2011Research ( ) 34, 1087Research ( -1092 doi:10.1038/hr.2011; published online 21 July 2011Keywords: awareness; control; hypertension prevalence; risk factors; treatment INTRODUCTIONIn the past decade, China has experienced rapid economic development, resulting in both lifestyle and dietary changes. Cardiovascular disease (CVD) has since become the leading cause of death in China, 1 and hypertension has been identified as the major risk factor for CVD and other vascular diseases. 2,3 It has been shown that promoting the awareness of established risk factors and early management is an essential starting point in the prevention of increased burden of morbidity and mortality due to hypertension-related CVDs. 4 However, in China, especially in urban China, information on factors associated with awareness, treatment and control of hypertension is scarce, despite the increasing prevalence of hypertension. In a systematic Medline search, we identified five surveys conducted in the most recent 10-year period concerning the prevalence, awareness,

SummaryAn increase in interleukin (IL)-17A-producing cells, particularly at sites of tissue inflammation, is observed frequently, yet the mechanism is not fully understood. This study aims to dissect the role of IL-17 in autoimmunitymediated neuroinflammation. The cytokine milieu containing elevated IL-17, which often appears in active states of autoimmunity, was mimicked in vitro by a supernatant obtained from rat peripheral blood monocytes stimulated with phorbol mystistate acetate (