Background The emerging infectious disease, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), poses a serious threat in China and worldwide. Challenged by this serious situation, China has taken many measures to contain its transmission. This study aims to systematically review and record these special and effective practices, in hope of benefiting for fighting against the ongoing worldwide pandemic. Methods The measures taken by the governments was tracked and sorted on a daily basis from the websites of governmental authorities (e.g. National Health Commission of the People’s Republic of China). And the measures were reviewed and summarized by categorizations, figures and tables, showing an ever-changing process of combating with an emerging infectious disease. The population shift levels, daily local new diagnosed cases, daily mortality and daily local new cured cases were used for measuring the effect of the measures. Results The practices could be categorized into active case surveillance, rapid case diagnosis and management, strict follow-up and quarantine of persons with close contacts, and issuance of guidance to help the public understand and adhere to control measures, plus prompt and effective high-level policy decision, complete activation of the public health system, and full involvement of the society. Along with the measures, the population shift levels, daily local new diagnosed cases, and mortality were decreased, and the daily local new cured cases were increased in China. Conclusions China’s practices are effective in controlling transmission of SARS-CoV-2. Considering newly occurred situations (e.g. imported cases, work resumption), the control measures may be adjusted.

Nutmeg is a Traditional Chinese Medicine used to treat gastrointestinal diseases. Some reports have indicated that nutmeg has hepatoprotective activity. In this study, a thioacetamide (TAA)-induced acute liver injury model in mice was used to explore the mechanism of the protective effects of nutmeg extract (NME), including its major bioactive component myrislignan. The results indicated that NME could effectively protect TAA-induced liver damage as assessed by recovery of increased serumtransaminases, decrease in hepatic oxidative stress, and lower hepatic inflammation. Metabolomics analysis further revealed that treatment with NME led to the recovery of a series of lipids including lysophosphatidylcholines that were decreased and a lowering of acylcarnitines that were increased in mouse plasma and liver after TAA exposure. Gene expression analysis demonstrated that the hepatoprotective effect of NME was achieved by modulation of the peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor alpha (PPARα) as well as the decrease in oxidative stress. NME could not protect from TAA-induced liver injury in Ppara-null mice, suggesting that its protective effect was dependent on PPARα. Myrislignan, a representative neolignan in nutmeg, showed potent protective activity against TAA-induced liver toxicity. These data demonstrate that nutmeg alleviates TAA-induced liver injury through the modulation of PPARα and that the lignan compounds in nutmeg such as myrislignan partly contributed to this action.

Objective. This systematic review was able to evaluate the clinical evidence of JSBC in the randomized controlled trial (RCT) of diabetic nephropathy. Methods. The Chinese and English literatures published in PubMed, Cochrane Library, VIP, Wanfang Data, CNKI, and CBM before July 30, 2019, were retrieved. This study includes only randomized controlled trials of treatments related to diabetic nephropathy. We assessed the methodological quality of the subjects involved according to the assessment criteria in 5.3.3 of the Cochrane Assessment Manual. RevMan 3.5.5 software was used to analyze the relevant data, meta-analysis, and inverted funnel analysis chart. Results. This study included 26 RCTs, including 4676 patients in total (2342 cases in the experimental group and 2334 cases in the control group). The results of 8 randomized controlled trials showed that urinary microprotein excretion rate (UAER) significantly decreased ( P < 0.0001 ) before and after treatment of diabetic nephropathy. Conclusion. The available clinical evidence has suggested that JSBC combined with western drugs is differentially effective in the treatment of diabetic nephropathy. The combination of JSBC with western medicine is more effective. However, due to the small amount and low quality of the included literatures, the current evidence is not certain to be fully clinically applicable.

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