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This study was designed to evaluate the epidemiology of type 2 diabetes and hypertension in Uygur and Kazak ethnic populations. A three-step stratified sampling method was used. Questionnaires, blood pressure, anthropometric measurement, and fasting blood glucose were monitored. In total, 1,571 Uygur and 2,913 Kazak subjects were randomly enrolled. The prevalence of type 2 diabetes and glucose intolerance was 5.55-and 1.90-fold higher, respectively, in Uygur than in the Kazak population (8.16 vs. 1.47%, P \ 0.001 and 3.29 vs. 1.73%, P \ 0.001). However, the prevalence of hypertension and obesity was significantly higher in the Kazak than in the Uygur population (hypertension: 43.52 vs. 31.98%, P \ 0.001; obesity: 25.0 vs. 14.5%, P \ 0.001, respectively). Our data suggest a significantly different prevalence in hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and type 2 diabetes between the two ethnic groups. The prevalence of type 2 diabetes was much lower, while the prevalence of hypertension was much higher associated with a higher incidence of obesity in the Kazak population. Individuals with a greater BMI and blood pressure were more prone to development of type 2 diabetes. Our data revealed that waist circumference of Kazak ethnics was greater than that of Uygur, even at the same BMI level. Serum fasting glucose was associated with different factors in Uygur and Kazak.

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A novel ammonia gas sensor using a polyelectrolyte thin film composed of poly(diallyldimethylammonium chloride) (PDDA) and poly(acrylic acid) (PAA), PDDA/PAA, is demonstrated with a long-period grating (LPG) optical fiber. PAA could act as a selective receptor for ammonia binding, which induced significant changes in the optical thickness and density of the film owing to the pronounced electrostatic interaction between the alternate layers.Electrolyte polymers have attracted a lot of scientific interest owing to their self-assembling ability with oppositely charged components, including organic, inorganic, and hybrid ones, into thin films with well-controlled properties.1 Various structures with unique electrical, mechanical, and optical properties can be fabricated by layer-by-layer (LbL) or electrostatic self-assembly (ESA) approaches.1,2 The LbL method is a versatile means of fabricating transparent nanothin films on optical fiber sensors. In particular, optical-fiber long-period gratings (LPGs) coated with chemically sensitive nanocoatings have opened a new genre of fiber-optic chemical sensing. It is known that appropriate choice of the coating properties (e.g., thickness and refractive index, RI) and LPG parameters (e.g., length and period) allows for optimization of the sensitivity of the fiber sensor.1 Through chemical modification, LPG sensors for pH, metal ions, humidity, volatile organic solvents, hydrogen, DNA-damaging materials, etc., have been achieved. 3In this study, we employed an alternate thin film composed of poly(acrylic acid) (PAA, M w : 4000000) and poly(diallyldimethylammonium chloride) (PDDA, M w : 200000350000, 20 wt % in H 2 O) on optical-fiber LPGs for ammonia gas detection. PAA is a promising candidate for the creation of ammonia sensors, in which the free carboxylic acid groups lead to high sensitivity and selectivity toward amine compounds. Recently, we reported a quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) gas sensor based on the alternate deposition of TiO 2 and PAA for the sensitive detection of amine odors. However, QCM sensors still have the weakness that the sensor response can be affected easily by humidity. 4 The current study demonstrates the LPG sensor performance based on the acidbase interaction of amine odors with the COOH moiety of PAA under humid conditions.A detailed description of the thin-film deposition is provided elsewhere.1 Briefly, LPGs of length 30 mm with a period of 100¯m were modified with PDDA (0.5 wt %, adjusted to pH 3.1with 0.1 M aqueous HCl solution) and PAA (0.05 wt %, pH 4.2) layers until the required film thickness was achieved, and the optimal film thickness was determined empirically. The transmission spectrum (TS) of the LPG fiber was measured after each deposition step.Upon the deposition of the PDDA/PAA film, the TS of the LPG fiber undergoes a dramatic change: the two resonance bands at 678 and 809 nm operating at the phase turning point were shifted in opposite directions, as shown in Figure 1. This behavior of the TS is typical for the increase in o...