a large group of previously unknown Eriobotrya plants were found in the Dadu River Valley, located on the southern slopes of the mountain Gongga in western Sichuan and named E. prinoides Rehd. & Wils var. daduneensis H. Z. Zhang (Zhang et al. 1990). The Dadu River Valley is now considered the center of origin for the genus Eriobotrya in China, and a great number of indigenous communities of E. japonica, E. prinoides, and E. prinoides var. daduneensis are distributed in the middle and lower reaches of the river valley (Zhang et al. 1990).People beyond eastern Asia first learned of the loquat from Kaempfer, who observed it in Japan and described it in Amoenites Exotica in 1712, while the Swedish botanist, Thunberg, in Flora Japonica (1784), provided a more ample description of loquat under the name Mespilus japonica. In 1784, the loquat was introduced from Guangdong into the National Garden at Paris, and in 1787 was introduced into the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, England (Condit 1915;Liu 1982). From this beginning, loquat was distributed around the Mediterranean to various countries, including Algeria, Cyprus

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Menopause might have a negative impact on QOL independent of age in community-based women in China. There seemed to be a potential model of the relationship of menopause status to change in QOL, but this needs supporting evidence from longitudinal studies. The association of QOL with age and other factors also should be considered.

Eriobotrya plants are known to have significant amounts of phenolics and flavonoids, and exhibit a strong antioxidant activity. Experiments were conducted to examine variation in the contents of total phenolics and flavonoids, and antioxidant activities in the leaves of 11 Eriobotrya species (Tibet loquat, Daduhe loquat, Hengchun loquat, Taiwan loquat, Oak leaf loquat, Bengal loquat, Fragrant loquat, Guangxi loquat, Obovate loquat, Big flower loquat, and common loquat, the last species include two materials, one is a cultivar 'Zaozhong 6', another is a wild tree). In these species, 'Zaozhong 6' loquat is a cultivar. The leaf extracts of 'Tibet', 'Obovate', 'Taiwan', 'Bengal' and 'Hengchun' loquats exhibited significantly higher contents of total flavonoids and total phenolics, compared with those of other species. Of these 11 species, the highest contents of total phenolics and total flavonoids were observed in 'Tibet' and 'Obovatae' loquats, respectively. The significantly stronger antioxidant abilities assessed by the DPPH radical scavenging activity and reducing power were obtained in the leaf extracts of 'Taiwan', 'Tibet', 'Bengal', 'Oak leaf', 'Hengchun' and 'Obovate' loquats, compared with the other species. In addition, significant correlations were found between the contents of total phenolics or flavonoids and DPPH radical scavenging activity/reducing power. This work indicates that the leaf extracts of the wild Eriobotrya species, 'Tibet', 'Obovatae', 'Taiwan', 'Bengal', 'Oak leaf' and 'Hengchun' loquats, exhibited significantly higher levels of total phenolics and flavonoids, and significantly stronger antioxidant activities, compared with the cultivated species, 'Zaozhong 6' loquat, which suggests that these wild species have a better utilization value.

The present study aimed to evaluate the satisfaction with quality of life of menopausal women living in an urban community of Beijing, People's Republic of China, using the Chinese version of the menopause-specific quality of life questionnaire (MENQOL). Menopause-related complaints were assessed for 353 women aged 40-60 years during their menopausal transition (MT) or postmenopause (PM) using MENQOL. The Kruskal-Wallis non-parametric test and Pearson correlation were used for statistical analysis. The mean age of the subjects was 51.20 +/- 4.62 years. The most frequent symptom was 'experiencing poor memory' (84.1%) and the least frequent was 'dissatisfaction with personal life' (26.9%). Mean scores of vasomotor and sexual symptoms in PM women were higher than in MT women (2.60 +/- 1.74 and 3.39 +/- 2.35 vs. 1.96 +/- 1.46 and 2.10 +/- 1.48, respectively; p = 0.0001). The prevalence of menopause-related symptoms varied between self-assessed health status groups (chi(2) = 29.12, p = 0.0001). In conclusion, MENQOL is a good self-administered tool in the assessment of climacteric complaints, with convenient application. The most frequent climacteric symptom of Chinese women living in an urban community was 'experiencing poor memory'. PM women seemed to suffer from more symptoms, especially in vasomotor and sexual domains, than did MT women. Symptom reports might be associated with self-assessed health status.