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Although increasing lines of evidence showed associations between serum uric acid (UA) levels and schizophrenia, the causality and the direction of the associations remain uncertain. Thus, we aimed to assess whether the relationships between serum UA levels and schizophrenia are causal and to determine the direction of the association. Patients and Methods: Two-sample bidirectional Mendelian randomization (MR) analyses and various sensitivity analyses were performed utilizing the summary data from genome-wide association studies within the Global Urate Genetics Consortium and the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium. Secondary MR analyses in both directions were conducted within summary data using genetic risk scores (GRSs) as instrumental variables. Results: Three MR methods provided no causal relationship between serum UA and schizophrenia. Furthermore, GRS approach showed similar results in the three MR methods after adjustment for heterogeneity. By contrast, inverse variance weighted method, weighted median and GRS approach suggested a causal effect of schizophrenia risk on serum UA after adjustment for heterogeneity (per 10-symmetric percentage increase in schizophrenia risk, beta: −0.039, standard error (SE): 0.013, P = 0.003; beta: −0.036, SE: 0.018, P = 0.043; beta: −0.039, SE: 0.013, P = 0.002; respectively). Moreover, in both directions' analyses, the heterogeneity and sensitivity tests suggested no strong evidence of bias due to pleiotropy. Conclusion: Schizophrenia may causally affect serum UA levels, whereas the causal role of serum UA concentrations in schizophrenia was not supported by our MR analyses. These findings suggest that UA may be a useful potential biomarker for monitoring treatment or diagnosis of schizophrenia rather than a therapeutic target for schizophrenia.

The associations of adiponectin with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), glucose homeostasis (including β-cell function index (HOMA-β), insulin resistance (HOMA-IR), fasting insulin (FI) and fasting glucose (FG)) have reported in epidemiological studies. However, the previous observational studies are prone to biases, such as reverse causation and residual confounding factors. Herein, a Mendelian Randomization (MR) study was conducted to determine whether causal effects exist among them. Materials and and Methods: Two-sample MR analyses and multiple sensitivity analyses were performed using the summary data from the ADIPOGen consortium, MAGIC Consortium, and a meta-analysis of GWAS with a considerable sample of T2DM (62,892 cases and 596,424 controls of European ancestry). We got eight valid genetic variants to predict the causal effect among adiponectin and T2DM and glucose homeostasis after excluding the probable invalid or pleiotropic variants. Results: Adiponectin was not associated with T2DM (odds ratio (OR) = 1.004; 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.740, 1.363) when using MR Egger after removing the invalid SNPs, and the results were consistent when using the other four methods. Similar results existed among adiponectin and HOMA-β, HOMA-IR, FI, FG. Conclusion: Our MR study revealed that adiponectin had no causal effect on T2DM and glucose homeostasis and that the associations among them in observational studies may be due to confounding factors.

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Water pollution has become one of the most pressing health crises in the world. Water pollution control began as early as the late 1800s. In 2008, there were 14,780 municipal wastewater treatment plants operating in the United States. These plants range in size from a few hundred gallons per day (GPD) to over 1.445 billion gallons (MGD) per day. Wastewater treatment facilities are designed and constructed or upgraded to reduce the amount and diversity of pollutants. This article gives a review of the current industrial wastewater treatment technology in recent years, including treatment principles, advantages and disadvantages of each method, and the corresponding applications. Also, this article reviewed two common biological technologies Anaerobic Ammonium Oxidation (ANAMMOX) and Anaerobic Membrane Bioreactor (ANMBR) technology, by assessing their advantages, disadvantages, and costs, and provides resources for further technical research. This article can serve as a guide for anyone seeking information on innovative and emerging industry wastewater treatment technologies.